The result was a more 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.