of the pensions were incorrect; and that, even if these conclusions had been correct, his overruling of congressional decisions on matters of fact was unconstitutional.1 Both of these charges must be examined.

§ 79. Expediency of the pension vetoes. The first charge is of no very great weight. The Senate Committee in their elaborate report admit that the President was legally correct, but claim that Congress should be allowed for equitable reasons to be more lenient than the laws which it had enacted. A reading of the messages and an examination of the evidence will however convince any candid person that even on equitable grounds the President was in most cases correct. At the time the report of the Senate Committee was made, the President had vetoed one hundred and thirty-six pension bills.2 Out of these, the Senate could find only seven bills in which the apparent injustice of the veto was sufficient to make them the subject of investigation. One of these bills was ultimately discovered to have been wisely vetoed, thus leaving six bills in the treatment of which the Senate Committee claimed that the President had been unjust.3 The conclusion seems inevitable that in one hundred and thirty cases the President was correct, not only as a matter of law, but also as a matter of justice. The information on which the President acted was in almost every case derived from the pension office; and a few illustrations, which are chosen almost at random and might be multiplied indefinitely, will show more clearly than argument why the Senate Committee was unable to point to any considerable number of cases where the veto was unwisely used. William Bishop was enrolled as a substitute in Indianapolis and served nine days, when he was attacked with the measles; he was shortly afterward mustered out. Fifteen years later the claimant suddenly discovered that his attack of measles had some relation to his army enrollment, and that his disease had settled in his eyes and affected his spinal column. In another case a former soldier was accidentally shot and killed by a neighbor who was attempting

1 Senate Report, 50 Cong., I sess., No. 1667.

2 Ibid., 1667, 3.

3 These bills are Nos. 310, 289, 315, 281, 309, and 280 of Appendix A.

4 Appendix A, No. 177; Senate Miscellaneous Documents, 49 Cong., 2 sess., No. 53, p. 478.

to shoot an owl. The widow claimed a pension.1 Again, James O'Shea applied for a pension on the ground of a sabre-wound and a gun-shot wound received in 1862 while serving in the army. There was no evidence that the man ever received the wounds, a fact which the committee reporting the bill admitted; but in spite of the facts, they were of the opinion "that, situated as he was, he was very liable to, and very probably did receive the wound.” 2 These illustrations show the foundation upon which most of the vetoed bills rested. All sorts of diseases and calamities are traced by an almost impossible chain of circumstances to service in the army, one woman tracing her husband's death by drowning to rheumatism contracted in the service, and claiming a pension in consequence.3

§ 80. Constitutionality of the pension vetoes. — In regard to the second charge, the members of the Senate Committee had more to say. They declared that "it cannot be maintained upon any fair construction of the Constitution that the power of executive disapproval ought to be exercised upon acts of this character for the sole reason that the President differs in opinion from Congress upon a mere question of the weight of testimony, or upon the expediency of a special act, which subserves a proper general purpose and which imperils no power of any other department."4 They further argued that the veto had been granted to the President as a protection to the executive and to prevent the passage of notoriously bad or unconstitutional laws, and that President Cleveland's policy implied that a factious or usurping President might rightfully subordinate the legislature to his will by an exercise of the veto.5

It is only necessary to go back to President Johnson's time to refute the last argument. The statement with regard to the intended scope of the veto power is more difficult to meet, for it is true that in 1789 the veto was regarded as a means of protecting the executive and the Constitution, and was seldom used when the question was simply one of expediency. The gradual increase of

1 House Journal, 50 Cong., I sess., 1811; Appendix A, No. 292.

2 Appendix A, No. 153; Senate Miscellaneous Documents, 49 Cong., 2 sess., No. 53, P. 476.

3 Ibid., p. 496; Appendix A, No. 179.

Senate Report, 50 Cong., I sess., 1667, p. 2.

5 Ibid., pp. 3, 4.

the number of vetoes based on expediency will be elsewhere considered. It is sufficient in the present connection to notice that this long growth culminated in President Cleveland's pension vetoes. Here we find Congress protesting against what it calls an unconstitutional use of the veto. It is, however, a use which is permitted by the Constitution, which has frequently been made, which has become more common of late years, and in which President Cleveland persisted unchecked up to the day of his retirement from office. As a result, we must admit what indeed has been conceded practically for many years, that the interpretation of the Constitution in this particular, as in so many others, has somewhat changed, and that, in the future, the right of a President to veto a bill on grounds of expediency cannot be questioned.

§ 81. Summary of the question of pension vetoes. The conclusion in regard to President Cleveland's pension vetoes' may be summed up as follows: The facts in the various cases would warrant the refusal of the President to approve the bills on grounds of expediency, and the present interpretation of the Constitution admits the right of the President to assign reasons of expediency for a refusal to approve a bill. Furthermore, the President's action was exceedingly timely. In the first place, it saved the country from what was, to put the best construction on it, a large and useless expenditure of money. The great service which the pension. vetoes performed, however, was in checking the spirit of reckless pension legislation. The great prominence which they gave to the question emphatically called the attention of the country to it, gave rise to a strong sentiment against the reckless granting of pensions, quickened the Congressional conscience, and made it more difficult for doubtful claims to succeed.

§ 82. Commercial powers. It is very remarkable that, while the Presidents have relentlessly vetoed financial measures of all kinds, the only great classes of bills affecting commerce which have been selected for executive disapprobation are the tariffs and the bills for internal improvements. Shipping acts, embargoes, bankruptcy acts, and railroad acts have passed unquestioned. The tariff bills have already been considered under the head of taxation,2 since the veto messages covering them have treated them rather as financial than as commercial measures. Internal improvement bills

have formed one of the most numerous classes, and present a welldefined succession of vetoes through many administrations.

Before taking up internal improvements, however, it may be well to dispose of a few minor acts relating to commerce.

July 1, 1882, President Arthur vetoed a bill to regulate the carriage of passengers by sea, on the ground that the measure was drawn in such ignorance of the existing method of building ocean steamers that its provisions would render useless for passenger traffic all the modern ocean steamships.1

May 17, 1886, President Cleveland vetoed a bill making Springfield, Mass., a port of delivery, on the ground that it would produce confusion and uncertainty in the adjustment of customs duties, and lead to irritating discriminations and probable loss to the government.2

§ 83. Internal improvements. The appropriation bills so far considered have authorized government expenditures for the benefit of individuals, as, for example, the pension bills and the French. spoliation bills. Another class contains those bills which have authorized expenditures ostensibly for the benefit of all. These are the bills appropriating money for internal improvements; they are bills which have been important and numerous almost since the foundation of the government, and have frequently met with strong opposition from the executive. They have called for the expenditure of enormous sums of money, and are exemplified at the present time by River and Harbor bills and by bills for the erection of public buildings.

§ 84. Madison's veto of a general bill.— The first distinct measure for internal improvements was the Cumberland Road Act of 1805. The first veto was interposed by Madison in 1817. The measure was entitled, "An act to set apart and pledge certain funds for internal improvements."

The bill is important as marking the real rise of the question of internal improvements. On all sides it was admitted that internal improvements should be made, but there was a difference of opinion as to whether the Constitution authorized the expenditure of money for that purpose. The supporters of the bill held that it was constitutional because its object was to improve internal commerce between the States and to provide for the common

1 Appendix A, No. 130.

2 Ibid., No. 139.

3 Ibid., No. 8.

defence. Calhoun argued that the Constitution should be construed "with plain good sense," and that, under such a construction, Congress had power to construct roads and canals as a means of providing for the general welfare.1

The President, in his veto message, maintained, as he had suggested in his annual message of December 3, 1816,2 that the government should undertake internal improvements; but he argued that it could not be done without a constitutional amendment. He maintained that it could not be included under the authority of Congress to regulate commerce; for the present bill was for the purpose of constructing roads and canals, or, in other words, of creating commerce, which he considered a very different thing from regulating it. Furthermore, the President did not think that the power could be included under the general welfare clause. Such a view "would be contrary to the established and consistent rules of interpretation, as rendering the special and careful enumeration of powers which follows the clause, nugatory and improper "; it would embrace every act "within the purview of a legislative trust"; and would give Congress complete power on every matter not specially excepted, whereas the Constitution particularly reserves to the States all powers not conferred on Congress nor prohibited to the States.5

3

The President was close upon the end of his term of office when he wrote the message. There is every appearance that he intended it as a warning against too free an application of the principle of implied powers in support of the doctrine that internal improvements should be carried on by the national government.

It is of interest to note that, upon the consideration of the President's veto in the House of Representatives, the Speaker, Henry Clay, claimed and exercised the right to vote. There was no tie, but he asserted that the question of the passage of a bill over the President's veto differed in its nature from every other question which could come before the House.6

§ 85. Monroe's Cumberland Road veto.

Constitutionality of improvements. May 4, 1822, President Monroe, in his only veto

1 Von Holst, Life of Calhoun, 36-37.

2 Statesman's Manual, I, 335.

3 Senate Miscellaneous Documents, 49 Cong., 2 sess., No. 53, p. 17.

4 Ibid.

5 Amendment X.

6 Senate Miscellaneous Documents, 49 Cong., 2 sess., No. 53, p. 18; also Annals of Congress, 14 Cong., 2 sess., 1062. The question is further considered post, § 110.