The statesmen who framed the Constitution were sufficiently statesmen to know that what we call the veto power is not really a veto power; and that the President, unlike the Crown, is not a part of the law-making power. The constitution of New York and not the constitution of Great Britain furnished the framers with the needed model. By all of them it was known that the duty imposed and intended to be imposed upon the President was simply a duty of "revision." This has been a subject of judicial inquiry and the history of the veto provision may be stated in the words of the court:
"At an early day, June 6, this question of legislative power was determined by two decisive votes. The Convention adopted the principle of revision, but being mindful, as Rutledge afterwards said, that 'the judges ought never to give their opinion on a law, till it comes before them,' and that they 'of all men are the most unfit to be concerned in the Revisionary Council,' struck out Randolph's 'convenient number of the national judiciary' and left the power of revision in the President alone. At a later day, August 6th, Rutledge 'delivered in the Report of the Committee of Detail,' the committee which embodied the previously ascertained views of the Convention in a draught of the proposed Constitution. This section was couched in the very words of the constitution of New York: Every bill shall be presented to the President '_for his revision_'; 'if upon _such revision_' he approve it, he shall sign it; 'if upon _such revision_ it shall appear to him improper for being passed into a law,' he shall return it. On the 15th of August, with this word _revision_ three times repeated, 'The thirteenth section of article 6, as amended, was then agreed to' by all the States. It is this vote which is expressive of the final intent of the Convention. The verbal form in which the provision stands in the Constitution was the work of the Committee of Style.
"This 'revisionary business,' as Madison calls it, came up again and again; appears and reappears in his Journal from the 6th of June to the 16th of August; was considered and reconsidered, discussed and rediscussed. The views of members swung between the extremes of absolute affirmative power in Congress and absolute negative power in the President. The proposition of Hamilton 'to give the Executive an absolute negative on the laws,' identical with the legislative power of the Crown, was rejected by ten States and supported by none. The proposition of Madison to add the judges of the Supreme Court in the 'revision' of bills was likewise rejected. At last the deliberations ended where they had begun. The Convention held fast to the principle of a Council of Revision and left the duties of the council in the President alone. He was to be the Council of Revision. In the words of Madison, the Convention 'gave the Executive alone, without the judiciary, the _revisionary control_ on the laws, unless overruled by two-thirds of each branch.'" _The United States v. Weil_ (29 Court of Claims Reports 523; affirmed in _La Abra Co. v. The United States_, 175 U.S.R. 423.