The primary inducement to conferring the power in question upon
the Executive is, to enable him to defend himself; the secondary one is
to increase the chances in favor of the community against the passing of
bad laws, through haste, inadvertence, or design. The oftener the
measure is brought under examination, the greater the diversity in the
situations of those who are to examine it, the less must be the danger
of those errors which flow from want of due deliberation, or of those
missteps which proceed from the contagion of some common passion or
interest. It is far less probable, that culpable views of any kind
should infect all the parts of the government at the same moment and in
relation to the same object, than that they should by turns govern and
mislead every one of them.
It may perhaps be said that the power of preventing bad laws includes
that of preventing good ones; and may be used to the one purpose as well
as to the other. But this objection will have little weight with those
who can properly estimate the mischiefs of that inconstancy and
mutability in the laws, which form the greatest blemish in the character
and genius of our governments.
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