CHAPTER IV Vetoes affecting thE EXERCISE OF THE POWERS OF GOVERNMENT. § 37. Classification. § 38. Relation of the national government to individuals. $ 39. Question of the establishment of religion. § 40. Naturalization. § 41. The Indians. § 42. The Negro. $43. The Chinese. § 44. General remarks on the power over individuals. § 45. Territorial powers. District of Columbia. § 46. Early land vetoes. § 47. Public lands and the Constitution. Land grants. § 48. Later land vetoes on grounds of expediency. § 49. Effect of the public land vetoes. § 50. Admission of States. § 51. Criticism of the Colorado and Nebraska vetoes. § 52. Financial powers. $ 53. The tariff. $54. Refunding the direct tax. $55. Bank charter vetoes. § 56. Madison's Bank veto. $57. Jackson's Bank veto. § 58. Tyler's Bank veto. $ 59. Criticism of Bank vetoes. § 60. Currency and coinage. § 61. Inflation Bill. § 62. The Bland Silver Bill. § 63. Expenditure of public money. § 64. French spoliation claims. § 65. Relief bills. § 66. Bills defrauding the government of money. § 67. Bills relieving deserters from the army. § 68. Bills relieving former army officers of disability. $69. Bills carelessly drawn. § 70. Miscellaneous relief bills. § 71. Pension vetoes. § 72. Bills conveying no benefit. § 73. Unnecessary increase of pensions. § 74. Injuries not received "in the line of duty.” § 75. Dependent relatives: dependency not proved. § 85. Monroe's Cumberland Road veto. Constitutionality of improve § 94. General view of internal improvement vetoes. § 95. Measures based on the general welfare clause. § 96. Texas Seed Bill. § 97. War powers. § 98. General effect of the veto on the exercise of the powers of government. $37. Classification. -The vetoes affecting the powers of government may conveniently be subdivided into two classes: those relating to the distribution of powers, and those relating to the exercise of powers. In the last chapter the first of these two divisions was considered; the second and more important claims our attention in the present chapter. In order to trace the connection between the vetoes of the successive Presidents it is necessary to classify them, according to the nature of the power claimed or exercised, into six sections. I. The vetoes which affect the government's power over individuals. 2. Vetoes which concern the exercise of the territorial powers of the government. 3 and 4. Vetoes which involve the financial and commercial powers of the government. 5. Vetoes of meas ures based upon the general welfare clause. 6. Vetoes which affect the war power of Congress. § 38. Relation of the national government to individuals. Although the United States is a Federal government, it exercises authority over all individuals in the States. It recognizes and protects certain rights of all persons, and has special powers over certain specified classes of persons. Thus the Constitution guaran tees personal and religious liberty, a guaranty which Congress must enforce. Again, the Indians are subject exclusively to the control of the Federal government, and the important matters of naturalization and immigration have also been placed within the jurisdiction of the United States, rather than within that of the States. In the exercise of the duties imposed by or implied in these provisions of the Constitution, the government at Washington is brought directly in contact with the people, and oftentimes in our history the veto has been used to check Congress in what the executive considered an unconstitutional or unwise use of this power over the individual. $39. Question of the establishment of religion. Early in 1789 Mr. Madison brought up in Congress the question of the amendments to the Constitution, which the people demanded as sureties. for their liberties.1 Before the year 1791 ten amendments had become parts of the Constitution. The first of these declares that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." The amendment was passed by men keenly alive to the dangers of an intolerant and powerful state church. It was meant to be a guaranty of religious liberty to every individual in the nation. In two instances President Madison made use of the veto to protect the first amendment. February 21, 1811, he vetoed a bill entitled, "An act incorporating the Protestant Episcopal Church in the town of Alexandria in the District of Columbia."2 In so far as the act was merely for the incorporation of the church it was constitutional, since in no other way could a charter be obtained in the District of Columbia. But the bill went beyond the limits of an incorporating act, and established certain. unnecessary rules which related purely to the organization and policy of the church. The measure was therefore vetoed. The President's position seems sound. The bill gave legal force and sanction to certain provisions of the constitution and administration of the church which the simple incorporation of the church did not require. It was, therefore, in so far as it exceeded the necessities of the case, a law "respecting the establishment of religion," and consequently a violation of the first amendment. When the President's message came up for consideration in the 1 Schouler, History of the United States, I, 102. 2 Appendix A, No. 3. House, very little was said. Mr. Wheaton, in support of the bill, declared it to be constitutional, on the ground that it was merely a regulation of the funds of a religious society.1 This argument seems hardly more than the question at issue stated in a different form, and therefore can have no weight. February 28, 1811, President Madison withheld his assent from a bill entitled "An act for the relief of . . . the Baptist Church at Salem Meeting-House in the Mississippi Territory."2 The President vetoed the bill because it reserved a portion of the land of the United States for the use of the Baptist Church. This he considered a "principle and precedent" for the appropriation of the funds of the United States for the use of religious societies, which would be contrary to the first amendment to the Constitution. Since 1811 there has been no attempt by Congress to link church and state together. Indeed, the two bills above described were not intended to have such an effect. President Madison was nevertheless wise in preventing what might have been used afterwards as a confusing or dangerous precedent. For in spite of the fact that our Constitution is a written one, custom and precedent have a great influence upon it. § 40. Naturalization. Under authority granted by Art. I, Sec. VIII, of the Constitution, Congress, in 1812, passed a bill entitled, "An act supplementary to the acts heretofore passed on the subject of a uniform rule of naturalization." The bill reached the President late in the session, and he took no action upon it. It was subjected to what later became known as the "pocket veto." At the next session of Congress President Madison briefly explained as his reason for withholding his signature from the bill, that the privileges which it granted were liable to abuse by aliens having no real purpose of becoming naturalized.3 § 41. The Indians. The Indians have always been a troublesome factor in the regulation of our internal affairs. The government has not wilfully wronged the Red man: nevertheless, through carelessness, inefficiency, and perhaps, most of all, through sheer ignorance, it has given ground for the charge that our treatment of the Indians has been careless and unjust. The treatment is, to a certain extent, reflected in the veto messages. 1 Annals of Congress, 11 Cong., 3 sess., 984. 2 Appendix A, No. 4. 3 Ibid., No. 6. On December 29, 1835, the Cherokee Indians agreed to leave the State of Georgia and move West, on consideration of the payment to them of $5,600,000.1 During the last hours of the third session of the twenty-seventh Congress a joint resolution was passed, directing the payment of certificates or awards issued by the commissioners under the treaty with the Cherokee Indians.2 President Tyler disposed of this resolution by a pocket veto, and sent his reasons for so doing to the next Congress. He disapproved of the resolution, because it was unjust to the Indians. Congress had not provided sufficient funds for satisfying in full the claims which the resolution professed to provide for; nor was any system of pro rata payment substituted for full payment. The consequence would have been that the first claim presented would have been paid, while the claims last presented, although equally entitled to consideration, would have gone unsatisfied. The President prevented this injustice, and suggested the propriety of making some provision for a pro rata payment of claims: a course which would seem most reasonable since the last of the money due under the treaty was appropriated by the resolve under consideration. On February 3, 1876, President Grant vetoed a bill entitled, "An act transferring the custody of certain Indian trust funds from the Secretary of the Interior to the Treasurer of the United States." The bill had been drawn at the request of the Interior department, but it was so carelessly phrased that the Secretary of the Interior feared it would not accomplish the purpose desired. It was therefore vetoed. "4 August 15, 1876, President Grant vetoed a bill entitled, "An act to provide for the sale of a portion of the reservation of the Confederated Otoe and Missouri, and the Sacs and Foxes of the Missouri tribe of Indians, in the States of Kansas and Nebraska." The message was sent to the Senate, but before any action could be taken upon it a second message was received from the President, requesting that the bill be returned to him, in order that he might approve it. An interesting discussion then arose as to the power of the President to recall a veto message which had been received by Congress. It was generally held that the President had no 1 Schouler, History of the United States, IV, 235. 2 3 Ibid., No. 96. 4 Ibid., No. 108. 5 Congressional Record, 44 Cong., I sess., 5664; see also post, § 108. |