SPEECH OF ROBERT WICKLIFFE, JR., (OF FAYETTE,) ON THE VETO POWER, DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, ON THE 26TH JANUARY, 1842

23, [1 blank] pp. Disbound and spotted, Good or so, with the presentation inscription, "From R. Wickliffe Jr." "The veto power stands on the portals of the Government the safest champion of popular rights and the truest defender of the Constitution." Though a Whig, Wickliffe parts company with his fellows, whose rage at President Tyler's thwarting of Whig programs led them to try to rein in the President's power to veto legislation. Tyler had become President after the death of William Henry Harrison, who had headed the first successful Whig presidential ticket. His Vice President, a Virginian who became known as "His Accidency," was at heart a Democrat. He would oppose at every opportunity the Whig program of internal improvements, a National Bank, and protective tariffs. Betrayed Whigs were enraged. But Wickliffe reminds them that if they "snatch from the Executive arm this weapon with which the constitution has entrusted it for its own defence and the protection of the people, and what in a few years will prevent Congress from abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia, and afterwards in the several States." Pierson 510. AI 42-5186 [4]. Not in Coleman.…