Arguments put forward in Congress indicated not only that the measure might impair the obligation of contracts, but that such impairment was its very object. The Constitution wisely prohibits such legislation by the States; and justice to the creditors of the nation, and regard to the honor of the government demand that the United States should not be less scrupulous, except in the face of the most urgent national danger.

The veto is to be commended not only on financial grounds and as a defence of the national honor; nor merely because it prevented an unwarranted interference with existing contracts; but on strictly constitutional grounds. At the time the inflation bill was passed, the issue of irredeemable notes as legal tender was considered unconstitutional, except as a necessary incident of the exercise of the war power.1 Hence President Grant declared the inflation bill not warranted by the Constitution. The fact that the issue of legal tender notes by the government has since been declared constitutional for all purposes did not make it so in 1872. The Constitution is a growth, upon a basis represented by the written document, and the growth has been rapid in many directions in the past fifteen years. Changes have been introduced by custom and by interpretation, without going through the wellnigh impossible process of formal amendment. Thus the principle seems established by legislation and confirmed by judicial decision, that Congress may make government notes legal tender.2 President Grant's position as to the constitutionality of legal tender issues by the government was therefore sound according to the principles generally accepted in 1872.

§ 62. The Bland silver bill. President Grant's veto practically disposed of inflation through irredeemable paper, and was a striking illustration of the strength of the veto. But although the greenback party rapidly became a thing of the past, the determination to increase the currency remained, and took on the somewhat altered form of the silver movement. One of the measures which resulted was known as the Bland Silver Bill. It passed Congress in February, 1878, and was vetoed on the twenty-eighth of the same month.3

1 See 12 Wall., 457; also, the resolutions of the House of Representatives and Secretary McCulloch's statement, to which reference is made above.

2 110 U. S. Reports, 421.

8 Appendix A, No. 117.

President Hayes placed the veto purely on grounds of expediency. The proposed dollar was worth from eight to ten cents less than a gold dollar. The President pointed out that in time, even at the limited rate at which it was to be coined, the silver must drive out the gold, in accordance with the law, so frequently exemplified in our own financial history, that the less valuable money will drive the more valuable from circulation. The result of this process would be an increase in prices and a corresponding scaling of debts, both public and private, contracted on a gold basis.

The President then referred to the public debt, which had been contracted in gold, and which the national honor demanded should be paid in coin of equal value with gold.1 Furthermore, the President pointed out that when, in his administration, bonds to the amount of about $225,000,000 were refunded at 4 per cent, the government authorized the statement that the government would not "sanction or tolerate the payment of either the principal or interest of those bonds in any coin of less value than gold." Should the depreciation likely to result from the bill set in, these obligations might be cancelled by offering a smaller value in silver. By a decided vote of both Houses, the act was passed over the veto, and during the last twelve years has been in operation. Gold has not yet been driven out; but once or twice the Government has been very near the point where it would have had to pay its regular disbursements on the public debt in silver.2 Should the time ever come when gold shall have completely disappeared from circulation, the evils predicted by the President may arise. So far, the growth of business has absorbed the additional currency; and the use of certificates has prevented the silver specie from becoming burdensome.

§ 63. Expenditure of public money. - The power of taxation in the Constitution of the United States is hedged about by many specific provisions as to the manner and uniformity of levy. The appropriation power is, on the contrary, in its nature connected with the exercise of all the other forms of government. Money may be spent in war, in the public service, for national objects of

1 Mr. Bolles points out that it was intended by both parties to the contract — ¿.e., the United States and the buyers of the bonds that they should be paid in gold. Financial History of the United States, III, 391.

2 February, 1884, and August, 1884. Mill, Principles of Political Economy (Laughlin's edition), 323.

all kinds. Special interests push doubtful measures: private individuals beg for relief or reward. The loose and irresponsible method of conducting financial legislation by unrelated committees leads to waste. It is, therefore, not strange that the largest single class of vetoes relates to the expenditure of public money.

In addition to the riders upon appropriation bills, which are, strictly speaking, financial measures,1 the most important vetoes of this kind are those affecting the payment of claims on the government, those affecting pensions, and those affecting internal improvements.

§ 64. French spoliation claims. The first of these vetoes in point of time were those of the French spoliation bills. In the course of the Napoleonic wars, three sets of claims arose against France for illegal seizure of vessels and other violations of neutral rights. The first set, arising from 1793 to 1800, were considered in the negotiation of 1800. With the counter claim of France upon the United States for the non-performance of the guaranty of the treaty of 1778, these demands were reserved for future negotiation.2 The hot-headed blundering of the Senate and the shrewd management of Bonaparte caused the United States afterward altogether to abandon recourse to France; and the merchants and others aggrieved then looked to the United States for reimbursement. Their request was admitted to be just, and attempts were made at various times to secure appropriations to satisfy it; but it was not until 1846 that a bill was passed. It was vetoed by President Polk Aug. 8, 1846.5 He objected to the bill in the first place because the claims had been before Congress for many years, and, if just, would have been paid long before; in the second place, he urged that, at that precise moment, the country needed all its funds to prosecute the Mexican War. A third objection was that the payment was to be made in land scrip, which, in the President's opinion, would prevent the settlement of the public land, and would be unjust to the States within whose boundaries the public land lay. Finally the President, with a sudden and suspicious thoughtfulness for the claimants, argued that the bill was unjust to them, since it

1 See ante, § 35.

2 Henry Adams, Administration of Thomas Jefferson, I, 360–363.

3 Schouler, History of the United States, I, 479.

4 Ibid., I, 479, note.

5 Appendix A, No. 32.

obliged them to relinquish all other claims upon the payment of those included in the bill.

In 1855 Congress again passed a bill for the satisfaction of these claims. It was vetoed by President Pierce.1 He reiterated all the reasons which President Polk had advanced against the measure, dwelling with special emphasis on the fact that such noble patriots as Madison and Jefferson would not have allowed the claims to go unsatisfied if they had been just, but quietly ignoring the fact that Congress must pass the necessary acts before any President could approve them.

The veto message then reviewed the history of the whole discussion between France and the United States, and came to the following conclusions. The United States, by the Consular Convention of 1800, did not give up the claims of American citizens against the French, nor agree to satisfy them herself; all the pretensions which the French could be brought to consider valid were allowed by France in 1803; and it was the allowances then made and paid which the present bill proposed to satisfy a second time. In short, President Pierce was satisfied that the United States had fully discharged her duty to her citizens in pressing their claims; that France had honorably paid all just demands; and that for these reasons the bill should be vetoed.

The President's conclusions were erroneous. In the first place,

the Convention of 1800 did surrender the claims of the American ship-owners. Clause 2 of that Convention provided that the spoliation question should be left open for future settlement. The United States Senate struck out this clause. Napoleon ratified the treaty, adding a proviso to the effect that by the retrenchment of the second article each country was understood to renounce the pretensions which constituted its object.2 The United States Senate ratified the treaty with this proviso attached, thus abandoning the claim which the President said had not been renounced.

In regard to the argument that in 1803 France agreed to pay for all the claims which she could be brought to consider valid, the answer is complete. The sum which France promised to pay was for debts owed by France to citizens of the United States, and did not include spoliation claims. Indeed, it expressly

3

1 Appendix A, No. 56.

2 Schouler, History of the United States, I, 479.

8 United States Treaties and Conventions, 280, Art. I.

excluded indemnity for prizes whose condemnation had been confirmed.1

.

§ 65. Relief bills. Under the Constitution no appropriation of money can be made except by Congress. It follows that no claim can be paid without express provision of law. Hence a considerable part of our legislation is made up of private acts for the benefit or relief of individuals. Since 1861 the usual number of such acts has been increased by claims arising out of the war. Many of the measures have been intended to relieve persons from obligations to the United States, or from punishments inflicted by the United States laws; others are for the purpose of reimbursing soldiers and contractors for pecuniary loss suffered in the national service. As one would naturally expect, there have been among these measures many which defrauded the government of money, or unjustly relieved individuals from their obligations to the government, or from their disabilities under the law. The veto has been freely used in preventing the acknowledgment of these spurious claims, and has in this service amply justified its existence. The vetoes of relief bills can be roughly divided, according to the grounds upon which they rested, into five classes.

§ 66. Bills defrauding the government of money. - The first class includes those bills which would have fraudulently secured from the government a grant of money, and also those which would unjustly have relieved individuals from contract obligations to the United States.2 It comprises, therefore, all such measures as would have unfairly deprived the government of money. This class is very well illustrated by the veto numbered 80. The bill granted money to the children of John M. Baker for his services as chargé d'affaires in Rio Janeiro in 1834. The facts were that he had not been chargé d'affaires in that year, and on the contrary had been forbidden to enter into diplomatic correspondence with Brazil. The bill was very properly vetoed by President Grant. Another example is the bill granting exorbitant remuneration to contractors for furnishing supplies to the Kansas Indians.

1 United States Treaties and Conventions, Art. V.

The

2 No less than twenty-eight such bills have been vetoed; the first in Pierce's administration, eight by Grant, seventeen by Cleveland. Appendix A, Nos. 37, 47, 49, 76, 77, 80, 86, 89, 93, 98, 101, 133, 210, 250, 271, 272, 278, 282, 291, 299, 316, 346, 366, 372, 388, 390, 407, 411.

3 Appendix A, No. 93.