e equitable apportionment of
representatives to population, and had the rule of construing that
instrument been correct, the amendment removed objections which were
certainly well founded. But the rule was novel, and overturned
opinions which had been generally assumed, and were supposed to be
settled. In one branch of the legislature it had already been
rejected; and in the other, the majority in its favour was only one.

In the house of representatives, the amendment was supported with
considerable ingenuity.

After an earnest debate, however, it was disagreed to, and a
conference took place without producing an accommodation among the
members composing the committee. But finally, the house of
representatives receded from their disagreement; and, by a majority of
two voices, the bill passed as amended in the senate.

On the President, the solemn duty of deciding, whether an act of the
legislature consisted with the constitution; for the bill, if
constitutional, was unexceptionable.

In his cabinet, also, a difference of opinion is understood to have
existed; the secretary of state and the attorney general were of
opinion that the act was at variance with the constitution; the
secretary of war was rather undecided; and the secretary of the
treasury, thinking that, from the vagueness of expression in the
clause relating to the subject, neither construction could be
absolutely rejected, was in favour of acceding to the interpretation
given by the legislature.

After weighing the arguments which were urged on each side of the
question, the President was confirmed in the opinion that the
population of each state, and not the total population of the United
States, must give the numbers to which alone the process by which the
number of representatives was to be ascertained could be applied.
Having formed this opinion, to a correct and independent mind the
course to be pursued was a plain one. Duty required the exercise of a
power which a President of the United States will always find much
difficulty in employing; and he returned the bill to the house in
which it originated, accompanied with his objections[54] to it. In
observance of the forms prescribed in the constitution, the question
was then taken on its passage by ayes and noes, and it was rejected. A
third bill was soon afterwards introduced, apportioning the
representatives on the several states at a ratio of one for every
thirty-three thousand persons in each