Video: 'Presidential Veto Power Explained'

(Thursday, April 5, 1792) — U.S. President George Washington exercised his power to veto legislation for the first time in the nation’s history today when he refused to sign a bill designed to apportion members of the House.

He vetoed the bill because he held that the Constitution did not authorize Congress to fix the size of the House of Representatives on a permanent basis as it goes about allocating seats in proportion to a state’s population.

As Thomas Jefferson, then secretary of state observed: “If the [ratio of] representation [is] obtained by any process not prescribed in the Constitution, it [then] becomes arbitrary and inadmissible.”

Congress acceded to Washington’s demand that the size of the House should remain flexible.