commerce for thirty years back, and under so many different
Presidents, and indemnities withheld from all, have been repaired and
paid over under the beneficent and glorious administration of President
Jackson. But one single instance of outrage has occurred, and that at
the extremities of the world, and by a piratical horde, amenable to no
law but the law of force. The Malays of Sumatra
committed a robbery and massacre upon an American vessel.
Wretches! they did not then know that JACKSON was President of the
United States! and that no distance, no time, no idle ceremonial of
treating with robbers and assassins, was to hold back the arm of
justice. Commodore Downes went out. His cannon and his bayonets
struck the outlaws in their den. They paid in terror and blood for the
outrage which was committed; and the great lesson was taught to
these distant pirates--to our antipodes themselves --that not even the
entire diameter of this globe could protect them, and that the name of
American citizen, like that of Roman citizen in
the great days of the Republic and of the empire, was to be the
inviolable passport of all that wore it throughout the whole extent of
the habitable world....

From President Jackson, the country has first learned the true
theory and practical intent of the Constitution, in giving to the
Executive a qualified negative on the legislative power of Congress.
Far from being an odious, dangerous, or kingly prerogative, this
power, as vested in the President, is nothing but a qualified copy of the
famous veto power vested in the tribunes of the people among the
Romans, and intended to suspend the passage of a law until the people
themselves should have time to consider it. The qualified veto of the
President destroys nothing; it only delays the passage of a law, and
refers it to the people for their consideration and decision. It is the