Andrew Johnson: “Where in any part of the globe can institutions be found so suited to their habits or so entitled to their love as their…”

My object in this communication is to suggest certain defects in the Constitution which seem to me to require correction.

No power exists in the Constitution authorizing the joint resolution or the supposed law--the only difference being that one would be more palpably unconstitutional and revolutionary than the other.

I would therefore recommend such an amendment of the Constitution as may remove all intermediate agency in the election of the President and Vice-President.

Feeling constrained to withhold my consent, I herewith return the resolution to the Senate, in which House it originated, with a brief statement of the reasons which have induced my action.