Glossary on the Republic

Veto

Union

Veto is just one word of Latin, and for centuries one man saying it out loud could freeze the entire Roman state.

In the Roman Republic the common people, the plebeians, were locked out of power by the aristocrats. So around 494 BC they won themselves an office of their own, the tribune of the plebs. The tribune could not pass laws. He had only one real weapon. If the Senate moved to do something that would harm the people, the tribune could stand and say a single word: veto, I forbid it. That was all it took. The measure stopped.

The tribunes were made sacrosanct, meaning anyone who laid a hand on one could be killed for it. The power to say no was protected by a death sentence.

The framers of the American Constitution knew this history cold. They did not hand the veto to a tribune of the people. They gave it to the president, then did something Rome never did. They built an escape hatch: Congress can override a veto with a two-thirds vote in both houses. The no is strong, but it is not final.

George Washington was careful with it, using the veto just twice in eight years. The first time, on April 5, 1792, was over a bill dividing House seats among the states, which Jefferson urged him to reject as unconstitutional. Congress tried to override him the next day and failed.

Origin

Latin for I forbid, the shout of a Roman tribune, repurposed by the framers as a presidential power.

Why it matters

Since Washington, presidents have said that one Roman word well over two thousand times. Franklin Roosevelt alone did it 635 times. And in all of American history, Congress has managed to override only a little over one hundred of them. One word, one person, and the work of the entire Congress stops, unless enough of them stand together to say it back.