New York Council of Revision

The New York Council of Revision was a state body in which the governor acted with the chancellor and judges of the Supreme Court, or any two of them, to review legislation. In the Federalist essays, its record supplies evidence that a qualified veto can restrain legislative action, while its composition also raises questions about judicial independence and the clarity of responsibility. The comparison helps distinguish the proposed President’s individual veto and public role from New York’s collective review arrangement.

Composition and Review Power

The council consisted of the governor together with the chancellor and judges of the Supreme Court, or any two of them. Its qualified negative allowed it to return legislative measures for reconsideration rather than defeat them absolutely. The account describes this authority as having been freely used on various occasions and often successfully; experience had made its utility so apparent that people who had strongly opposed it while the state constitution was being compiled later became its declared admirers.

That record supports a distinction between a qualified negative and an absolute veto. A returned bill could still become law if approved again by two thirds of both legislative houses. The claimed practical force of the council’s power was not limited to formal rejection: the possibility of opposition could deter measures before they reached that point.

Comparison with the Proposed Presidency

The proposed President’s revisionary authority is compared directly with the council’s. In New York, the governor was only one member of the reviewing body and shared its authority with the chancellor and judges; under the proposed plan, the President would possess singly the power that the New York governor shared with those officials. The essay therefore treats the proposed presidential veto as stronger in that specific respect, while describing the Massachusetts constitution as the closer model for the proposed arrangement.

The comparison also emphasizes the form of the President’s negative. A bill returned for reconsideration could pass over the objection with the approval of two thirds of both houses, unlike the British sovereign’s absolute negative. The New York council’s experience is invoked to show that a qualified veto can be used in practice and can restrain legislative action without giving the executive an unqualified power to block it.

Institutional Boundaries and Independence

The council’s inclusion of judges in legislative review is treated as a potential threat to the judiciary’s distinct function. The discussion offers two reasons for departing from the New York model: judges who had already expressed opinions while reviewing legislation might be biased when later interpreting the law, and frequent association with the executive could draw them into that magistrate’s political purposes. The essay accordingly argues that judges should remain separate from other occupations and especially guarded against executive influence.

This concern belongs to a broader account of divided power. Institutions are meant to give their members both constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachment; yet the design of those safeguards must not blur the duties assigned to each branch. The council thus figures in the argument both as an experienced check on legislation and as a warning that combining judicial participation with executive review may compromise the independence needed for impartial legal judgment.

Publicity and Responsibility

The New York appointment system provides a further, distinct contrast. Its council of appointment consisted of three to five people, including the governor, and conducted its work in a private room beyond public view. Although the governor claimed a right of nomination based on ambiguous constitutional language, the public could not readily determine how far he exercised it, when others opposed him, or who was responsible for a particular appointment. The result, in the account, was room for cabal and intrigue and a loss of effective public responsibility.

The proposed federal appointment process is contrasted with that opacity: the President would nominate, while the Senate would judge each nomination, making the different actors’ roles public. This comparison does not describe the Council of Revision as identical to the council of appointment; rather, it places New York’s institutional arrangements alongside the federal design to test how shared authority and obscured responsibility affect accountability. Together, the examples make the state council a double-edged precedent: its revisionary power demonstrates the usefulness of a qualified check, while its entanglement of offices and the surrounding opacity sharpen the case for clearer institutional boundaries and visible responsibility.