FRANKLIN PIERCE.
[Footnote 8: Communications from the American legation at Constantinople respecting the seizure of Martin Koszta by Austrian authorities at Smyrna.]
WASHINGTON, _March 1, 1854_.
_To the House of Representatives_:
In accordance with the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 13th instant, requesting information respecting negotiations with Peru for the removal of restrictions upon the exportation of guano, I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of State, with the correspondence therein referred to.
FRANKLIN PIERCE.
WASHINGTON, _March 1, 1854_.
_To the House of Representatives of the United States_:
In compliance with the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 23d January last, “that the President of the United States be respectfully requested to furnish this House with copies of all contracts made by and correspondence subsequently with the Chief of the Bureau of Topographical Engineers for furnishing materials of wood and stone for improving the harbors and rivers on Lake Michigan, under and by virtue of the act making appropriations for the improvement of certain harbors and rivers,” approved August 30, 1852, I transmit a letter of the Secretary of War submitting a report of the Colonel of Topographical Engineers inclosing copies of the contracts and correspondence called for.
FRANKLIN PIERCE.
WASHINGTON, _March 1, 1854_.
_To the Senate of the United States_:
In answer to the resolution of the Senate of the 7th of December last, requesting me to present to the Senate the plan referred to in my annual message to Congress, and recommended therein, for the enlargement and modification of the present judicial system of the United States, I transmit a report from the Attorney-General, to whom the resolution was referred.
FRANKLIN PIERCE.
WASHINGTON, _March 1, 1854_.
_To the House of Representatives_:
I transmit herewith a report of the Attorney-General, in answer to the resolutions of the House of the 22d of December, requesting me to communicate to the House the plan for the modification and enlargement of the judicial system of the United States, recommended in my annual message to Congress.
FRANKLIN PIERCE.
WASHINGTON, _March 7, 1854_.
_To the Senate of the United States_:
I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of State and the documents[9] therein referred to, in answer to the resolution of the Senate of the 26th March, 1853.
FRANKLIN PIERCE.
[Footnote 9: Correspondence with R.C. Schenck, United States minister to Brazil, relative to the African slave trade.]
WASHINGTON, _March 7, 1854_.
_To the Senate of the United States_:
I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of State and the documents[10] therein referred to, in answer to the resolution of the Senate in executive session of the 3d January, 1854.
FRANKLIN PIERCE.
[Footnote 10: Correspondence with the Mexican Republic touching the eleventh article of the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, and copies of instructions on that subject to the United States minister to Mexico.]
WASHINGTON, _March 11, 1854_.
_To the Senate of the United States_:
I transmit herewith to the Senate a report of the Secretary of State, with accompanying documents,[11] in compliance with their resolution of the 9th of March, 1853.
FRANKLIN PIERCE.
[Footnote 11: Correspondence relative to the imprisonment, etc., of James H. West in the island of Cuba.]
WASHINGTON, _March 14, 1854_.
_To the Senate of the United States_:
In transmitting to the Senate the report of the Secretary of State, together with the documents therein referred to, being the correspondence called for by the resolution of that body of the 9th of January last, I deem it proper to state briefly the reasons which have deterred me from sending to the Senate for ratification the proposed convention between the United States of America and the United Mexican States, concluded by the respective plenipotentiaries of the two Governments on the 21st day of March, 1853, on the subject of a transit way across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.
Without adverting to the want of authority on the part of the American minister to conclude any such convention, or to the action of this Government in relation to the rights of certain of its citizens under the grant for a like object originally made to Jose Garay, the objections to it upon its face are numerous, and should, in my judgment, be regarded as conclusive.
Prominent among these objections is the fact that the convention binds us to a foreign Government, to guarantee the contract of a private company with that Government for the construction of the contemplated transit way, “to protect the persons engaged and property employed in the construction of the said work from the commencement thereof to its completion against all confiscation, spoliation, or violence of whatsoever nature,” and to guarantee the entire security of the capital invested therein during the continuance of the contract. Such is the substance of the second and third articles.
Hence it will be perceived that the obligations which this Government is asked to assume are not to terminate in a few years, or even with the present generation.
And again: “If the regulations which may be prescribed concerning the traffic on said transit way shall be clearly contrary to the spirit and intention of this convention,” even then this Government is not to be at liberty to withdraw its “protection and guaranty” without first giving one year’s notice to the Mexican Government.
When the fact is duly considered that the responsibility of this Government is thus pledged for a long series of years to the interests of a private company established for purposes of internal improvement, in a foreign country, and that country peculiarly subject to civil wars and other public vicissitudes, it will be seen how comprehensive and embarrassing would be those engagements to the Government of the United States.
Not less important than this objection is the consideration that the United States can not agree to the terms of this convention without disregarding the provisions of the eighth article of the convention which this Government entered into with Great Britain on April 19, 1850, which expressly includes any interoceanic communication whatever by the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. However inconvenient may be the conditions of that convention, still they exist, and the obligations of good faith rest alike upon the United States and Great Britain.
Without enlarging upon these and other questionable features of the proposed convention which will suggest themselves to your minds, I will only add that after the most careful consideration I have deemed it my duty not to ask for its ratification by the Senate.
FRANKLIN PIERCE.
WASHINGTON, _March 15, 1854_.
_To the House of Representatives_:
In compliance with the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 10th instant, I herewith transmit a report of the Secretary of State, containing all the information received at the Department in relation to the seizure of the _Black Warrior_ at Havana on the 28th ultimo.
There have been in the course of a few years past many other instances of aggression upon our commerce, violations of the rights of American citizens, and insults to the national flag by the Spanish authorities in Cuba, and all attempts to obtain redress have led to protracted, and as yet fruitless, negotiations.
The documents in these cases are voluminous, and when prepared will be sent to Congress.
Those now transmitted relate exclusively to the seizure of the _Black Warrior_, and present so clear a case of wrong that it would be reasonable to expect full indemnity therefor as soon as this unjustifiable and offensive conduct shall be made known to Her Catholic Majesty’s Government; but similar expectations in other cases have not been realized.
The offending party is at our doors with large powers for aggression, but none, it is alleged, for reparation. The source of redress is in another hemisphere, and the answers to our just complaints made to the home Government are but the repetition of excuses rendered by inferior officials to their superiors in reply to representations of misconduct. The peculiar situation of the parties has undoubtedly much aggravated the annoyances and injuries which our citizens have suffered from the Cuban authorities, and Spain does not seem to appreciate to its full extent her responsibility for the conduct of these authorities. In giving very extraordinary powers to them she owes it to justice and to her friendly relations with this Government to guard with great vigilance against the exorbitant exercise of these powers, and in case of injuries to provide for prompt redress.
I have already taken measures to present to the Government of Spain the wanton injury of the Cuban authorities in the detention and seizure of the _Black Warrior_, and to demand immediate indemnity for the injury which has thereby resulted to our citizens.
In view of the position of the island of Cuba, its proximity to our coast, the relations which it must ever bear to our commercial and other interests, it is vain to expect that a series of unfriendly acts infringing our commercial rights and the adoption of a policy threatening the honor and security of these States can long consist with peaceful relations.
In case the measures taken for amicable adjustment of our difficulties with Spain should, unfortunately, fail, I shall not hesitate to use the authority and means which Congress may grant to insure the observance of our just rights, to obtain redress for injuries received, and to vindicate the honor of our flag.
In anticipation of that contingency, which I earnestly hope may not arise, I suggest to Congress the propriety of adopting such provisional measures as the exigency may seem to demand.
FRANKLIN PIERCE.
EXECUTIVE OFFICE,
_Washington, March 17, 1854_.
_To the Senate of the United States_:
I communicate to the Senate herewith, for its constitutional action, two treaties recently negotiated by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, as commissioner on the part of the United States, with the delegates now at the seat of Government representing the confederated tribes of Otoes and Missourias and the Omaha Indians, for the extinguishment of their titles to lands west of the Missouri River.
FRANKLIN PIERCE.
EXECUTIVE OFFICE,
_Washington, March 18. 1854_.
Hon. LINN BOYD,
_Speaker of the House of Representatives_.
SIR: I transmit to you herewith a report of the present date from the Secretary of the Interior, accompanied by a tabular statement containing the information[12] called for by resolution of the House of Representatives adopted the 13th ultimo.
FRANKLIN PIERCE.
[Footnote 12: Area of each State and Territory; extent of the public domain remaining in each State and Territory, and the extent alienated by sales, grants, etc.]
WASHINGTON, _March 21, 1854_.
_To the Senate of the United States_:
In answer to the resolution of the Senate of the 15th instant, adopted in executive session, I transmit confidentially a report from the Secretary of State and the documents[13] by which it was accompanied. Pursuant to the suggestion in the report, it is desirable that such of the papers as may be originals should be returned to the Department of State.
FRANKLIN PIERCE.
[Footnote 13: Instructions and correspondence relative to the negotiation of the treaty with Mexico of December 30, 1853, etc.]
EXECUTIVE OFFICE,
_March 25, 1854_.
Hon. LENN BOYD,
_Speaker of the House of Representatives_:
I communicate to the House of Representatives herewith a report from the Secretary of the Interior, dated the 24th instant, containing so much of the information called for by the resolution of the 17th instant as it is practicable or compatible with the public interest to furnish at the present time, respecting the proceedings which have been had and negotiations entered into for the extinguishment of the Indian titles to lands west of the States of Missouri and Iowa.
FRANKLIN PIERCE.
WASHINGTON, _March 29, 1854_.
_To the Senate of the United States_:
In answer to the resolution of the Senate of the 21st instant, adopted in executive session, relative to the claims of the Mexican Government and of citizens of the Mexican Republic on this Government, and of citizens of the United States on the Government of that Republic, I transmit a report from the Secretary of State, to whom the resolution was referred.
FRANKLIN PIERCE.
WASHINGTON, _March 31, 1854_.
_To the Senate of the United States_:
In answer to the resolution of the Senate of the 13th instant, requesting a confidential communication of information touching the expedition under the authority of this Government for the purpose of opening trade with Japan, I transmit a report from the Secretary of State, to whom the resolution was referred.
FRANKLIN PIERCE.
WASHINGTON, D.C., _April 1, 1854_.
_To the Senate of the United States_:
I transmit herewith the report of the Secretary of State in reply to the resolution of the Senate of the 27th ultimo.
That part of the document which purports to recite my official instructions is strictly correct; that which is avowedly unofficial and unauthorized, it can hardly be necessary for me to say, in view of the documents already before the Senate, does not convey a correct impression of my “views and wishes.”
At no time after an intention was entertained of sending Mr. Ward as special agent to Mexico was either the Garay grant or the convention entered into by Mr. Conkling alluded to otherwise than as subjects which might embarrass the negotiation of the treaty, and were consequently not included in the instructions.
While the departure of Mr. Ward, under any circumstances or in any respect, from the instructions committed to him is a matter of regret, it is just to say that, although he failed to convey in his letter to General Gadsden the correct import of remarks made by me anterior to his appointment as special agent, I impute to him no design of misrepresentation.
FRANKLIN PIERCE.
WASHINGTON, _April 5, 1854_.
_To the Senate of the United States_:
I transmit to the Senate a report of the Secretary of State, with accompanying documents,[14] in compliance with their resolution of the 14th ultimo.
FRANKLIN PIERCE.
[Footnote 14: Correspondence relative to the seizure of Martin Koszta by Austrian authorities at Smyrna.]
WASHINGTON, _April 5, 1854_.
_To the House of Representatives of the United States_:
I transmit herewith to the House of Representatives a report of the Secretary of State, with accompanying documents,[15] in further compliance with their resolution of the 10th of March, 1854.
FRANKLIN PIERCE.
[Footnote 15: Relating to violations of the rights of American citizens by Spanish authorities and their refusal to allow United States vessels to enter ports of Cuba, etc.]
WASHINGTON, _April 5, 1854_.
_To the Senate of the United States_:
I transmit herewith a report[16] from the Secretary of State, in answer to the resolution of the Senate in executive session of the 3d instant.
FRANKLIN PIERCE.
[Footnote 16: Relating to expeditions organized in California for the invasion of Sonora, Mexico.]
WASHINGTON, _April 8, 1854_.
_To the House of Representatives_:
I transmit herewith to the House of Representatives a report[17] of the Secretary of State, in answer to their resolution of the 3d instant.
FRANKLIN PIERCE.
[Footnote 17: Stating that the correspondence relative to the refusal by the authorities of Cuba to permit the United States mail steamer _Crescent City_ to land mail and passengers at Havana had been transmitted with the message to the House of April 5, 1854.]
WASHINGTON, _April 10, 1854_
_To the Senate of the United States_:
I communicate to the Senate herewith a communication from the Secretary of the Interior, accompanied by the articles of a convention recently entered into for an exchange of country for the future residence of the Winnebago Indians, and recommend their ratification with the amendment suggested by the Secretary of the Interior.
FRANKLIN PIERCE.
WASHINGTON, _April 11, 1854_.
_To the Senate of the United States_:
I transmit herewith a report[18] from the Secretary of State, in reply to the Senate’s resolution of yesterday passed in executive session.
FRANKLIN PIERCE.
[Footnote 18: Relating to claims growing out of the eleventh article of the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.]
WASHINGTON, _April 12, 1854_.
_To the House of Representatives_:
I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of State, with accompanying documents,[19] in compliance with the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 4th instant.
FRANKLIN PIERCE.
[Footnote 19: Correspondence relative to the seizure of Martin Koszta by Austrian authorities at Smyrna.]
WASHINGTON, _April 13, 1854_.
_To the Senate of the United States_:
I transmit herewith a report[20] from the Secretary of State, in reply to the resolution of the Senate adopted in executive session yesterday.
FRANKLIN PIERCE.
[Footnote 20: Relating to the abrogation of the eleventh article of the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, etc.]
WASHINGTON, _April 24, 1854_.
_To the Senate of the United States_:
I have the honor to transmit herewith a report of the Attorney-General, suggesting modifications in the manner of conducting the legal business of the Government, which are respectfully commended to your favorable consideration.
FRANKLIN PIERCE.
[The same message was also addressed to the Speaker of the House of Representatives.]
WASHINGTON, _April 27, 1834_.
_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:
I transmit to Congress a copy of a correspondence between the Secretary of State and Her Britannic Majesty’s minister accredited to this Government, and between the Secretary of State and the Secretary of the Treasury, relative to the expediency of further measures for the safety, health, and comfort of immigrants to the United States by sea. As it is probable that further legislation may be necessary for the purpose of securing those desirable objects, I commend the subject to the consideration of Congress.
FRANKLIN PIERCE.
WASHINGTON, _May 2, 1854_.
_To the House of Representatives_:
I transmit the report[21] of the Secretary of State in compliance with a resolution of the House of Representatives of the 5th ultimo.
It is presumed that the omission from the resolution of the usual clause giving the Executive a discretion in its answer was accidental, and as there does not appear to be anything in the accompanying papers which upon public considerations should require them to be withheld, they are communicated accordingly.
FRANKLIN PIERCE.
[Footnote 21: Relating to the application of Rev. James Cook Richmond for redress of wrongs alleged to have been committed by Austrian authorities in Pest, and to the refusal to grant an exequatur upon the commission of the United States consul appointed for Trieste.]
WASHINGTON, _May 5, 1854_.
_To the Senate of the United States_:
I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of State, with accompanying documents,[22] in compliance with the resolution of the Senate of the 12th ultimo.
FRANKLIN PIERCE.
[Footnote 22: Correspondence relative to the arrest and detention at Bremen of Conrad Schmidt, and arrest and maltreatment at Heidelberg of E.T. Dana, W.B. Dingle, and David Ramsay, all citizens of the United States; correspondence with the King of Prussia relative to religious toleration.]
WASHINGTON, _May 5, 1854_.
_To the Senate of the United States_:
I transmit herewith a report[23] from the Secretary of State, together with the documents therein referred to, in compliance with the resolution of the Senate of the 12th January last.
FRANKLIN PIERCE.
[Footnote 23: Relating to the impressment of seamen from the United States whale ship _Addison_ at Valparaiso, and imprisonment of William A. Stewart, an American citizen, at Valparaiso on the charge of murder, and on conviction released by Chilean authorities.]
WASHINGTON, _May 11, 1854_.
_To the House of Representatives_:
I transmit a report from the Secretary of State, with accompanying papers,[24] in answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 1st instant.
FRANKLIN PIERCE.
[Footnote 24: Relating to the rights accorded to neutrals and the rights claimed by belligerents in the war between certain European powers.]
WASHINGTON, _May 20, 1854_.
_To the Senate of the United States_:
I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of State, with accompanying documents,[25] in compliance with the Senate’s resolution of the 30th of January last.
FRANKLIN PIERCE.
[Footnote 25: Correspondence relative to the difficulties between Rev. Jonas King and the Government of Greece.]
WASHINGTON, _May 23, 1854_.
_To the Senate of the United States_:
I transmit a report from the Secretary of State, on the subject of documents[26] called for by the resolution of the Senate of the 9th instant.
FRANKLIN PIERCE.
[Footnote 26: Researches of H.S. Sanford, late charge d’affaires at Paris, on the condition of penal law in continental Europe, etc.; also a “Memoir on the Administrative Changes in France since the Revolution of 1848,” by H.S. Sanford.]
WASHINGTON, _May 25, 1854_.
_To the Senate of the United States_:
I communicate to the Senate herewith, for its constitutional action thereon, four several treaties recently negotiated in this city by George W. Manypenny, as commissioner on the part of the United States, with the delegates of the Delaware, Ioway, Kickapoo, and Sac and Fox tribes of Indians.
FRANKLIN PIERCE.
WASHINGTON, _May 29, 1854_.
_To the Senate of the United States_:
I communicate to the Senate herewith, for its constitutional action thereon, a treaty negotiated on the 12th instant at the Falls of Wolf River, in Wisconsin, by Francis Huebschmann, superintendent of Indian affairs for the northern superintendency, and the Menomonee Indians, by the chiefs, headmen, and warriors of that tribe.
FRANKLIN PIERCE.
WASHINGTON, _May 30, 1854_.
_To the House of Representatives of the United States_:
I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of State, with accompanying documents,[27] in compliance with the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 20th December last.
FRANKLIN PIERCE.
[Footnote 27: Correspondence relative to the imposition of Sound dues, etc., upon United States commerce to the Baltic.]
WASHINGTON, _June 12, 1854_.
_To the House of Representatives_:
I transmit a report from the Secretary of State, with accompanying papers,[28] in answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 24th of April last.
FRANKLIN PIERCE.
[Footnote 28: Relating to the instructions referred to by President Monroe in his annual message of December 2, 1823, on the subject of the issue of commissions to private armed vessels.]
WASHINGTON, _June 19, 1854_.
_To the House of Representatives_:
I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of State, with accompanying documents,[29] in compliance with the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 30th ultimo.
FRANKLIN PIERCE.
[Footnote 29: Correspondence of the American minister to Turkey relative to the expulsion of the Greeks from Constantinople.]
WASHINGTON, _June 20, 1854_.
_To the House of Representatives_:
I have received information that the Government of Mexico has agreed to the several amendments proposed by the Senate to the treaty between the United States and the Republic of Mexico signed on the 30th of December last, and has authorized its envoy extraordinary to this Government to exchange the ratifications thereof. The time within which the ratifications can be exchanged will expire on the 30th instant.
There is a provision in the treaty for the payment by the United States to Mexico of the sum of $7,000,000 on the exchange of ratifications and the further sum of $3,000,000 when the boundaries of the ceded territory shall be settled.
To be enabled to comply with the stipulation according to the terms of the treaty relative to the payments therein mentioned, it will be necessary that Congress should make an appropriation of $7,000,000 for that purpose before the 30th instant, and also the further sum of $3,000,000, to be paid when the boundaries shall be established.
I therefore respectfully request that these sums may be put at the disposal of the Executive.
I herewith transmit to the House of Representatives a copy of the said treaty.
FRANKLIN PIERCE.
WASHINGTON, _June 20, 1854_.
_To the Senate of the United States_:
I transmit to the Senate, for its consideration with a view to ratification, a treaty extending the right of fishing and regulating the commerce and navigation between Her Britannic Majesty’s possessions in North America and the United States, concluded in this city on the 5th instant between the United States and Her Britannic Majesty.
FRANKLIN PIERCE.
WASHINGTON, _June 24, 1854_.
_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:
I transmit to Congress the copy of two communications of the 26th ultimo and 4th instant, respectively, from Her Britannic Majesty’s minister accredited to this Government to the Secretary of State, relative to the health on shipboard of immigrants from foreign countries to the United States. This was the subject of my message to Congress of the 27th of April last.
FRANKLIN PIERCE.
WASHINGTON CITY, _June 29, 1854_.
_To the Senate of the United States_:
I herewith communicate to the Senate, for its constitutional action thereon, three treaties recently negotiated in this city by George W. Manypenny, as commissioner on the part of the United States; one concluded on the 19th ultimo with the delegates of the Shawnee Indians, one on the 5th instant with the Miami Indians, and the other on the 30th ultimo with the united tribes of Kaskaskia and Peoria and Wea and Piankeshaw Indians.
FRANKLIN PIERCE.
WASHINGTON, _July 3, 1854_.
_To the Senate of the United States_:
I transmit herewith to the Senate, for its constitutional action thereon, an article of agreement made on the 13th day of June, 1854, by William H. Garrett, agent on the part of the United States, and a delegation of Creek Indians, supplementary to the Creek treaty of 1838.
FRANKLIN PIERCE.
WASHINGTON, _July 5, 1854_.
_To the Senate of the United States_:
In compliance with the resolution of the Senate of the 1st instant, I herewith return the articles of convention made and concluded with the Winnebago Indians on the 6th of August, 1853, together with the Senate resolution of the 9th ultimo, advising and consenting to the ratification of the same with amendments.
FRANKLIN PIERCE.
WASHINGTON, _July 12, 1854_.
_To the House of Representatives_:
I transmit herewith the inclosed communication from the Secretary of the Navy, respecting the observations of Lieutenant James M. Gillis, of the United States Navy, and the accompanying documents.[30]
FRANKLIN PIERCE.
[Footnote 30: Report of the United States naval astronomical expedition to the Southern Hemisphere.]
WASHINGTON, _July 12, 1854_.
_To the Senate of the United States_:
I transmit to the Senate, for its consideration with a view to ratification, a treaty between the United States and the Empire of Japan, signed at Kanagawa on the 31st day of March last by the plenipotentiaries of the two Governments. The Chinese and Dutch translations of the instrument and the chart and sketch to which it refers are also herewith communicated.
FRANKLIN PIERCE.
WASHINGTON, _July 17, 1854_.
_To the Senate of the United States_:
I transmit to the Senate, for its consideration with a view to ratification, a convention between the United States and Her Britannic Majesty for the extension of the period limited for the duration of the mixed commission under convention between the United States and Great Britain of the 8th of February, 1853.
FRANKLIN PIERCE.
WASHINGTON, _July 19, 1854_.
_To the House of Representatives_:
I transmit a report from the Secretary of State, with accompanying papers,[31] in answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 6th of February last.
FRANKLIN PIERCE.
[Footnote 31: Correspondence of Humphrey Marshall, commissioner to China.]
WASHINGTON, _July 22, 1854_.
_To the Senate of the United States_:
I have this day given my signature to the “Act making further appropriations for the improvement of the Cape Fear River, in North Carolina.”
The occasion seems to render it proper for me to deviate from the ordinary course of announcing the approval of bills by an oral statement only, and, for the purpose of preventing any misapprehension which might otherwise arise from the phraseology of this act, to communicate in writing that my approval is given to it on the ground that the obstructions which the proposed appropriation is intended to remove are the result of acts of the General Government.
FRANKLIN PIERCE.
WASHINGTON, _July 24, 1854_.
_To the Senate of the United States_:
I transmit to the Senate, for its consideration with a view to ratification, a convention concerning the rights of neutrals, concluded in this city on the 22d instant between the United States and His Majesty the Emperor of all the Russias.
FRANKLIN PIERCE.
WASHINGTON, _July 26, 1854_.
_To the Senate of the United States_:
I transmit a report from the Secretary of State, in answer to the resolution of the Senate of the 23d of May last, relative to the slave trade in the island of Cuba.
The information contained in the papers accompanying the report will, it is believed, be considered important, and perhaps necessary to enable the Senate to form an opinion upon the subjects to which they relate; but doubts may be entertained in regard to the expediency of publishing some of the documents at this juncture.
This communication is accordingly addressed to the Senate in executive session, in order that a discretion may be exercised in regard to its publication.
FRANKLIN PIERCE.
WASHINGTON, _July 27, 1854_.
The PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE:
In compliance with the resolution of the Senate of the 24th instant, requesting me to cause to be transmitted to the Senate the Fourth Meteorological Report of Professor Espy, the accompanying papers and charts are respectfully submitted.
FRANKLIN PIERCE.
WASHINGTON, _July 29, 1854_.
_To the Senate of the United States_:
In compliance with the Senate resolution of the 10th July instant, requesting that I would “cause to be communicated to the Senate copies of all the correspondence and other official documents on file in the Department of the Interior respecting the claims of persons for services performed and supplies and subsistence furnished to Indians in California under contracts with Indian agents in the year 1851, and embracing the names of claimants, the amount, respectively, of their claims, on what account created and by what authority, if any,” I transmit herewith a communication from the Secretary of the Interior, accompanied by copies of all the papers called for which have not heretofore been furnished. As it appears that most of the papers called for were communicated to the Senate at its first and special sessions of the Thirty-second Congress, I have not supposed that it was the intention of the Senate to have them again sent, and I have therefore not directed them to be copied.
FRANKLIN PIERCE.
WASHINGTON, _July 31, 1854_.
_To the Senate of the United States_:
In compliance with a resolution of the Senate of the 28th instant, requesting information in respect to the bombardment of San Juan de Nicaragua, I transmit reports from the Secretaries of State and of the Navy, with the documents which accompanied them.
FRANKLIN PIERCE.
WASHINGTON, _July 31, 1854_.
_To the House of Representatives_:
In answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 28th instant, requesting information in regard to the destruction of San Juan de Nicaragua, I transmit reports from the Secretaries of State and of the Navy, with the documents accompanying them.
FRANKLIN PIERCE.
WASHINGTON, _August 1, 1854_.
_To the Senate of the United States_:
I hasten to respond briefly to the resolution of the Senate of this date, “requesting the President to inform the Senate, if in his opinion it be not incompatible with the public interest, whether anything has arisen since the date of his message to the House of Representatives of the 15th of March last concerning our relations with the Government of Spain which in his opinion may dispense with the suggestions therein contained touching the propriety of ‘provisional measures’ by Congress to meet any exigency that may arise in the recess of Congress affecting those relations.”
In the message to the House of Representatives referred to I availed myself of the occasion to present the following reflections and suggestions:
In view of the position of the island of Cuba, its proximity to our coast, the relations which it must ever bear to our commercial and other interests, it is vain to expect that a series of unfriendly acts infringing our commercial rights and the adoption of a policy threatening the honor and security of these States can long consist with peaceful relations.
In case the measures taken for amicable adjustment of our difficulties with Spain should, unfortunately, fail, I shall not hesitate to use the authority and means which Congress may grant to insure the observance of our just rights, to obtain redress for injuries received, and to vindicate the honor of our flag.
In anticipation of that contingency, which I earnestly hope may not arise, I suggest to Congress the propriety of adopting such provisional measures as the exigency may seem to demand.
The two Houses of Congress may have anticipated that the hope then expressed would be realized before the period of its adjournment, and that our relations with Spain would have assumed a satisfactory condition, so as to remove past causes of complaint and afford better security for tranquillity and justice in the future. But I am constrained to say that such is not the fact. The formal demand for immediate reparation in the case of the _Black Warrior_, instead of having been met on the part of Spain by prompt satisfaction, has only served to call forth a justification of the local authorities of Cuba, and thus to transfer the responsibility for their acts to the Spanish Government itself.
Meanwhile information, not only reliable in its nature, but of an official character, was received to the effect that preparation was making within the limits of the United States by private individuals under military organization for a descent upon the island of Cuba with a view to wrest that colony from the dominion of Spain. International comity, the obligations of treaties, and the express provisions of law alike required, in my judgment, that all the constitutional power of the Executive should be exerted to prevent the consummation of such a violation of positive law and of that good faith on which mainly the amicable relations of neighboring nations must depend. In conformity with these convictions of public duty, a proclamation was issued to warn all persons not to participate in the contemplated enterprise and to invoke the interposition in this behalf of the proper officers of the Government. No provocation whatever can justify private expeditions of hostility against a country at peace with the United States. The power to declare war is vested by the Constitution in Congress, and the experience of our past history leaves no room to doubt that the wisdom of this arrangement of constitutional power will continue to be verified whenever the national interest and honor shall demand a resort to ultimate measures of redress. Pending negotiations by the Executive, and before the action of Congress, individuals could not be permitted to embarrass the operations of the one and usurp the powers of the other of these depositaries of the functions of Government.
I have only to add that nothing has arisen since the date of my former message to “dispense with the suggestions therein contained touching the propriety of provisional measures by Congress.”
FRANKLIN PIERCE.
WASHINGTON, _August 2, 1854_.
_To the Senate of the United States_:
I transmit herewith a report of the Secretary of State, with the accompanying documents,[32] in answer to the resolution of the Senate of the 5th ultimo.
FRANKLIN PIERCE.
[Footnote 32: Correspondence relative to the imprisonment of George Marsden and to the seizure of the cargo of the American bark _Griffon_ by the authorities of Brazil.]
WASHINGTON, _August 2, 1854_.
_To the House of Representatives_:
I herewith transmit to you a copy of a treaty between the United States and Great Britain, negotiated at Washington on the 5th of June last. It has been concurred in by the Senate, and I have no doubt that the ratifications of it will be soon exchanged. It will be observed that by the provision of the fifth article the treaty does not go into operation until after legislation thereon by the respective parties.
Should Congress at its present session pass the requisite law on the part of the United States to give effect to its stipulations, the fishing grounds on the coasts of the British North American Provinces, from which our fishermen have been heretofore excluded, may be opened to them during the present season, and apprehended collisions between them and British fishermen avoided.
For this reason and for the purpose of securing to the citizens of the United States at the earliest practicable period other advantages which it is believed they will derive from this treaty, I recommend the passage by Congress at the present session of such a law as is necessary on the part of the United States to give effect to its provisions.
FRANKLIN PIERCE.
VETO MESSAGES.
WASHINGTON, _May 3, 1854_.
_To the Senate of the United States_:
The bill entitled “An act making a grant of public lands to the several States for the benefit of indigent insane persons,” which was presented to me on the 27th ultimo, has been maturely considered, and is returned to the Senate, the House in which it originated, with a statement of the objections which have required me to withhold from it my approval.
In the performance of this duty, prescribed by the Constitution, I have been compelled to resist the deep sympathies of my own heart in favor of the humane purpose sought to be accomplished and to overcome the reluctance with which I dissent from the conclusions of the two Houses of Congress, and present my own opinions in opposition to the action of a coordinate branch of the Government which possesses so fully my confidence and respect.
If in presenting my objections to this bill I should say more than strictly belongs to the measure or is required for the discharge of my official obligation, let it be attributed to a sincere desire to justify my act before those whose good opinion I so highly value and to that earnestness which springs from my deliberate conviction that a strict adherence to the terms and purposes of the federal compact offers the best, if not the only, security for the preservation of our blessed inheritance of representative liberty.
The bill provides in substance:
First. That 10,000,000 acres of land be granted to the several States, to be apportioned among them in the compound ratio of the geographical area and representation of said States in the House of Representatives.
Second. That wherever there are public lands in a State subject to sale at the regular price of private entry, the proportion of said 10,000,000 acres falling to such State shall be selected from such lands within it, and that to the States in which there are no such public lands land scrip shall be issued to the amount of their distributive shares, respectively, said scrip not to be entered by said States, but to be sold by them and subject to entry by their assignees: _Provided_, That none of it shall be sold at less than $1 per acre, under penalty of forfeiture of the same to the United States.
Third. That the expenses of the management and superintendence of said lands and of the moneys received therefrom shall be paid by the States to which they may belong out of the treasury of said States.
Fourth. That the gross proceeds of the sales of such lands or land scrip so granted shall be invested by the several States in safe stocks, to constitute a perpetual fund, the principal of which shall remain forever undiminished, and the interest to be appropriated to the maintenance of the indigent insane within the several States.
Fifth. That annual returns of lands or scrip sold shall be made by the States to the Secretary of the Interior, and the whole grant be subject to certain conditions and limitations prescribed in the bill, to be assented to by legislative acts of said States.
This bill therefore proposes that the Federal Government shall make provision to the amount of the value of 10,000,000 acres of land for an eleemosynary object within the several States, to be administered by the political authority of the same; and it presents at the threshold the question whether any such act on the part of the Federal Government is warranted and sanctioned by the Constitution, the provisions and principles of which are to be protected and sustained as a first and paramount duty.
It can not be questioned that if Congress has power to make provision for the indigent insane without the limits of this District it has the same power to provide for the indigent who are not insane, and thus to transfer to the Federal Government the charge of all the poor in all the States. It has the same power to provide hospitals and other local establishments for the care and cure of every species of human infirmity, and thus to assume all that duty of either public philanthropy or public necessity to the dependent, the orphan, the sick, or the needy which is now discharged by the States themselves or by corporate institutions or private endowments existing under the legislation of the States. The whole field of public beneficence is thrown open to the care and culture of the Federal Government. Generous impulses no longer encounter the limitations and control of our imperious fundamental law; for however worthy may be the present object in itself, it is only one of a class. It is not exclusively worthy of benevolent regard. Whatever considerations dictate sympathy for this particular object apply in like manner, if not in the same degree, to idiocy, to physical disease, to extreme destitution. If Congress may and ought to provide for any one of these objects, it may and ought to provide for them all. And if it be done in this case, what answer shall be given when Congress shall be called upon, as it doubtless will be, to pursue a similar course of legislation in the others? It will obviously be vain to reply that the object is worthy, but that the application has taken a wrong direction. The power will have been deliberately assumed, the general obligation will by this act have been acknowledged, and the question of means and expediency will alone be left for consideration. The decision upon the principle in any one case determines it for the whole class. The question presented, therefore, clearly is upon the constitutionality and propriety of the Federal Government assuming to enter into a novel and vast field of legislation, namely, that of providing for the care and support of all those among the people of the United States who by any form of calamity become fit objects of public philanthropy.
I readily and, I trust, feelingly acknowledge the duty incumbent on us all as men and citizens, and as among the highest and holiest of our duties, to provide for those who, in the mysterious order of Providence, are subject to want and to disease of body or mind; but I can not find any authority in the Constitution for making the Federal Government the great almoner of public charity throughout the United States. To do so would, in my judgment, be contrary to the letter and spirit of the Constitution and subversive of the whole theory upon which the Union of these States is founded. And if it were admissible to contemplate the exercise of this power for any object whatever, I can not avoid the belief that it would in the end be prejudicial rather than beneficial in the noble offices of charity to have the charge of them transferred from the States to the Federal Government. Are we not too prone to forget that the Federal Union is the creature of the States, not they of the Federal Union? We were the inhabitants of colonies distinct in local government one from the other before the Revolution. By that Revolution the colonies each became an independent State. They achieved that independence and secured its recognition by the agency of a consulting body, which, from being an assembly of the ministers of distinct sovereignties instructed to agree to no form of government which did not leave the domestic concerns of each State to itself, was appropriately denominated a Congress. When, having tried the experiment of the Confederation, they resolved to change that for the present Federal Union, and thus to confer on the Federal Government more ample authority, they scrupulously measured such of the functions of their cherished sovereignty as they chose to delegate to the General Government. With this aim and to this end the fathers of the Republic framed the Constitution, in and by which the independent and sovereign States united themselves for certain specified objects and purposes, and for those only, leaving all powers not therein set forth as conferred on one or another of the three great departments–the legislative, the executive, and the judicial–indubitably with the States. And when the people of the several States had in their State conventions, and thus alone, given effect and force to the Constitution, not content that any doubt should in future arise as to the scope and character of this act, they ingrafted thereon the explicit declaration that “the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution nor prohibited by it to the States are reserved to the States respectively or to the people.” Can it be controverted that the great mass of the business of Government–that involved in the social relations, the internal arrangements of the body politic, the mental and moral culture of men, the development of local resources of wealth, the punishment of crimes in general, the preservation of order, the relief of the needy or otherwise unfortunate members of society–did in practice remain with the States; that none of these objects of local concern are by the Constitution expressly or impliedly prohibited to the States, and that none of them are by any express language of the Constitution transferred to the United States? Can it be claimed that any of these functions of local administration and legislation are vested in the Federal Government by any implication? I have never found anything in the Constitution which is susceptible of such a construction. No one of the enumerated powers touches the subject or has even a remote analogy to it. The powers conferred upon the United States have reference to federal relations, or to the means of accomplishing or executing things of federal relation. So also of the same character are the powers taken away from the States by enumeration. In either case the powers granted and the powers restricted were so granted or so restricted only where it was requisite for the maintenance of peace and harmony between the States or for the purpose of protecting their common interests and defending their common sovereignty against aggression from abroad or insurrection at home.
I shall not discuss at length the question of power sometimes claimed for the General Government under the clause of the eighth section of the Constitution, which gives Congress the power “to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States,” because if it has not already been settled upon sound reason and authority it never will be. I take the received and just construction of that article, as if written to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises _in order_ to pay the debts and _in order_ to provide for the common defense and general welfare. It is not a substantive general power to provide for the welfare of the United States, but is a limitation on the grant of power to raise money by taxes, duties, and imposts. If it were otherwise, all the rest of the Constitution, consisting of carefully enumerated and cautiously guarded grants of specific powers, would have been useless, if not delusive. It would be impossible in that view to escape from the conclusion that these were inserted only to mislead for the present, and, instead of enlightening and defining the pathway of the future, to involve its action in the mazes of doubtful construction. Such a conclusion the character of the men who framed that sacred instrument will never permit us to form. Indeed, to suppose it susceptible of any other construction would be to consign all the rights of the States and of the people of the States to the mere discretion of Congress, and thus to clothe the Federal Government with authority to control the sovereign States, by which they would have been dwarfed into provinces or departments and all sovereignty vested in an absolute consolidated central power, against which the spirit of liberty has so often and in so many countries struggled in vain. In my judgment you can not by tributes to humanity make any adequate compensation for the wrong you would inflict by removing the sources of power and political action from those who are to be thereby affected. If the time shall ever arrive when, for an object appealing, however strongly, to our sympathies, the dignity of the States shall bow to the dictation of Congress by conforming their legislation thereto, when the power and majesty and honor of those who created shall become subordinate to the thing of their creation, I but feebly utter my apprehensions when I express my firm conviction that we shall see “the beginning of the end.”
Fortunately, we are not left in doubt as to the purpose of the Constitution any more than as to its express language, for although the history of its formation, as recorded in the Madison Papers, shows that the Federal Government in its present form emerged from the conflict of opposing influences which have continued to divide statesmen from that day to this, yet the rule of clearly defined powers and of strict construction presided over the actual conclusion and subsequent adoption of the Constitution. President Madison, in the Federalist, says:
The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. … Its [the General Government’s] jurisdiction extends to certain enumerated objects only, and leaves to the several States a residuary and inviolable sovereignty over all other objects.
In the same spirit President Jefferson invokes “the support of the State governments in all their rights as the most competent administrations for our domestic concerns and the surest bulwarks against anti-republican tendencies;” and President Jackson said that our true strength and wisdom are not promoted by invasions of the rights and powers of the several States, but that, on the contrary, they consist “not in binding the States more closely to the center, but in leaving each more unobstructed in its proper orbit.”
The framers of the Constitution, in refusing to confer on the Federal Government any jurisdiction over these purely local objects, in my judgment manifested a wise forecast and broad comprehension of the true interests of these objects themselves. It is clear that public charities within the States can be efficiently administered only by their authority. The bill before me concedes this, for it does not commit the funds it provides to the administration of any other authority.
I can not but repeat what I have before expressed, that if the several States, many of which have already laid the foundation of munificent establishments of local beneficence, and nearly all of which are proceeding to establish them, shall be led to suppose, as, should this bill become a law, they will be, that Congress is to make provision for such objects, the fountains of charity will be dried up at home, and the several States, instead of bestowing their own means on the social wants of their own people, may themselves, through the strong temptation which appeals to states as to individuals, become humble suppliants for the bounty of the Federal Government, reversing their true relations to this Union.
Having stated my views of the limitation of the powers conferred by the eighth section of the first article of the Constitution, I deem it proper to call attention to the third section of the fourth article and to the provisions of the sixth article bearing directly upon the question under consideration, which, instead of aiding the claim to power exercised in this case, tend, it is believed, strongly to illustrate and explain positions which, even without such support, I can not regard as questionable. The third section of the fourth article of the Constitution is in the following terms:
The Congress shall have power to _dispose_ of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to prejudice any claims of the United States or of any particular State.
The sixth article is as follows, to wit, that–
All debts contracted and engagements entered into before the adoption of this Constitution shall be as valid against the United States under this Constitution as under the Confederation.
For a correct understanding of the terms used in the third section of the fourth article, above quoted, reference should be had to the history of the times in which the Constitution was formed and adopted. It was decided upon in convention on the 17th September, 1787, and by it Congress was empowered “to dispose of,” etc., “the territory or other property belonging to the United States.” The only territory then belonging to the United States was that then recently ceded by the several States, to wit: By New York in 1781, by Virginia in 1784, by Massachusetts in 1785, and by South Carolina in August, 1787, only the month before the formation of the Constitution. The cession from Virginia contained the following provision:
That all the lands within the territory so ceded to the United States, and not reserved for or appropriated to any of the before-mentioned purposes or disposed of in bounties to the officers and soldiers of the American Army, shall be considered a common fund for the use and benefit of such of the United States as have become or shall become members of the Confederation or Federal Alliance of the said States, Virginia included, according to their usual respective proportions in the general charge and expenditure, and shall be faithfully and _bona fide disposed of_ for that purpose and for no other use or purpose whatsoever.
Here the object for which these lands are to be disposed of is clearly set forth, and the power to dispose of them granted by the third section of the fourth article of the Constitution clearly contemplates such disposition only. If such be the fact, and in my mind there can be no doubt of it, then you have again not only no implication in favor of the contemplated grant, but the strongest authority against it. Furthermore, this bill is in violation of the faith of the Government pledged in the act of January 28, 1847. The nineteenth section of that act declares:
That for the payment of the stock which may be created under the provisions of this act the sales of the public lands are hereby pledged; and it is hereby made the duty of the Secretary of the Treasury to use and apply all moneys which may be received into the Treasury for the sales of the public lands after the 1st day of January, 1848, first, to pay the interest on all stocks issued by virtue of this act, and, secondly, to use the balance of said receipts, after paying the interest aforesaid, in the purchase of said stocks at their market value, etc.
The debts then contracted have not been liquidated, and the language of this section and the obligations of the United States under it are too plain to need comment.
I have been unable to discover any distinction on constitutional grounds or grounds of expediency between an appropriation of $10,000,000 directly from the money in the Treasury for the object contemplated and the appropriation of lands presented for my sanction, and yet I can not doubt that if the bill proposed $10,000,000 from the Treasury of the United States for the support of the indigent insane in the several States that the constitutional question involved in the act would have attracted forcibly the attention of Congress.
I respectfully submit that in a constitutional point of view it is wholly immaterial whether the appropriation be in money or in land.
The public domain is the common property of the Union just as much as the surplus proceeds of that and of duties on imports remaining unexpended in the Treasury. As such it has been pledged, is now pledged, and may need to be so pledged again for public indebtedness.
As property it is distinguished from actual money chiefly in this respect, that its profitable management sometimes requires that portions of it be appropriated to local objects in the States wherein it may happen to lie, as would be done by any prudent proprietor to enhance the sale value of his private domain. All such grants of land are in fact a disposal of it for value received, but they afford no precedent or constitutional reason for giving away the public lands. Still less do they give sanction to appropriations for objects which have not been intrusted to the Federal Government, and therefore belong exclusively to the States.
To assume that the public lands are applicable to ordinary State objects, whether of public structures, police, charity, or expenses of State administration, would be to disregard to the amount of the value of the public lands all the limitations of the Constitution and confound to that extent all distinctions between the rights and powers of the States and those of the United States; for if the public lands may be applied to the support of the poor, whether sane or insane, if the disposal of them and their proceeds be not subject to the ordinary limitations of the Constitution, then Congress possesses unqualified power to provide for expenditures in the States by means of the public lands, even to the degree of defraying the salaries of governors, judges, and all other expenses of the government and internal administration within the several States.
The conclusion from the general survey of the whole subject is to my mind irresistible, and closes the question both of right and of expediency so far as regards the principle of the appropriation proposed in this bill. Would not the admission of such power in Congress to dispose of the public domain work the practical abrogation of some of the most important provisions of the Constitution?
If the systematic reservation of a definite portion of the public lands (the sixteenth sections) in the States for the purposes of education and occasional grants for similar purposes be cited as contradicting these conclusions, the answer as it appears to me is obvious and satisfactory. Such reservations and grants, besides being a part of the conditions on which the proprietary right of the United States is maintained, along with the eminent domain of a particular State, and by which the public land remains free from taxation in the State in which it lies as long as it remains the property of the United States, are the acts of a mere landowner disposing of a small share of his property in a way to augment the value of the residue and in this mode to encourage the early occupation of it by the industrious and intelligent pioneer.
The great example of apparent donation of lands to the States likely to be relied upon as sustaining the principles of this bill is the relinquishment of swamp lands to the States in which they are situated, but this also, like other grants already referred to, was based expressly upon grounds clearly distinguishable in principle from any which can be assumed for the bill herewith returned, viz, upon the interest and duty of the proprietor. They were charged, and not without reason, to be a nuisance to the inhabitants of the surrounding country. The measure was predicated not only upon the ground of the disease inflicted upon the people of the States, which the United States could not justify as a just and honest proprietor, but also upon an express limitation of the application of the proceeds in the first instance to purposes of levees and drains, thus protecting the health of the inhabitants and at the same time enhancing the value of the remaining lands belonging to the General Government.
It is not to be denied that Congress, while administering the public lands as a proprietor within the principle distinctly announced in my annual message, may sometimes have failed to distinguish accurately between objects which are and which are not within its constitutional powers.
After the most careful examination I find but two examples in the acts of Congress which furnish any precedent for the present bill, and those examples will, in my opinion, serve rather as a warning than as an inducement to tread in the same path.
The first is the act of March 3, 1819, granting a township of land to the Connecticut asylum for the education of the deaf and dumb; the second, that of April 5, 1826, making a similar grant of land to the Kentucky asylum for teaching the deaf and dumb–the first more than thirty years after the adoption of the Constitution and the second more than a quarter of a century ago. These acts were unimportant as to the amount appropriated, and so far as I can ascertain were passed on two grounds: First, that the object was a charitable one, and, secondly, that it was national. To say that it was a charitable object is only to say that it was an object of expenditure proper for the competent authority; but it no more tended to show that it was a proper object of expenditure by the United States than is any other purely local object appealing to the best sympathies of the human heart in any of the States. And the suggestion that a school for the mental culture of the deaf and dumb in Connecticut or Kentucky is a national object only shows how loosely this expression has been used when the purpose was to procure appropriations by Congress. It is not perceived how a school of this character is otherwise national than is any establishment of religious or moral instruction. All the pursuits of industry, everything which promotes the material or intellectual well-being of the race, every ear of corn or boll of cotton which grows, is national in the same sense, for each one of these things goes to swell the aggregate of national prosperity and happiness of the United States; but it confounds all meaning of language to say that these things are “national,” as equivalent to “Federal,” so as to come within any of the classes of appropriation for which Congress is authorized by the Constitution to legislate.
It is a marked point of the history of the Constitution that when it was proposed to empower Congress to establish a university the proposition was confined to the District intended for the future seat of Government of the United States, and that even that proposed clause was omitted in consideration of the exclusive powers conferred on Congress to legislate for that District. Could a more decisive indication of the true construction and the spirit of the Constitution in regard to all matters of this nature have been given? It proves that such objects were considered by the Convention as appertaining to local legislation only; that they were not comprehended, either expressly or by implication, in the grant of general power to Congress, and that consequently they remained with the several States.
The general result at which I have arrived is the necessary consequence of those views of the relative rights, powers, and duties of the States and of the Federal Government which I have long entertained and often expressed and in reference to which my convictions do but increase in force with time and experience.
I have thus discharged the unwelcome duty of respectfully stating my objections to this bill, with which I cheerfully submit the whole subject to the wisdom of Congress.
FRANKLIN PIERCE.
WASHINGTON, _August 4, 1854_.
_To the House of Representatives_:
I have received the bill entitled “An act making appropriations for the repair, preservation, and completion of certain public works heretofore commenced under the authority of law.” It reaches me in the expiring hours of the session, and time does not allow full opportunity for examining and considering its provisions or of stating at length the reasons which forbid me to give it my signature.
It belongs to that class of measures which are commonly known as internal improvements by the General Government, and which from a very early period have been deemed of doubtful constitutionality and expediency, and have thus failed to obtain the approbation of successive Chief Magistrates.
On such an examination of this bill as it has been in my power to make, I recognize in it certain provisions national in their character, and which, if they stood alone, it would be compatible with my convictions of public duty to assent to; but at the same time, it embraces others which are merely local, and not, in my judgment, warranted by any safe or true construction of the Constitution.
To make proper and sound discriminations between these different provisions would require a deliberate discussion of general principles, as well as a careful scrutiny of details for the purpose of rightfully applying those principles to each separate item of appropriation.
Public opinion with regard to the value and importance of internal improvements in the country is undivided. There is a disposition on all hands to have them prosecuted with energy and to see the benefits sought to be attained by them fully realized.
The prominent point of difference between those who have been regarded as the friends of a system of internal improvements by the General Government and those adverse to such a system has been one of constitutional power, though more or less connected with considerations of expediency.
My own judgment, it is well known, has on both grounds been opposed to “a general system of internal improvements” by the Federal Government. I have entertained the most serious doubts from the inherent difficulties of its application, as well as from past unsatisfactory experience, whether the power could be so exercised by the General Government as to render its use advantageous either to the country at large or effectual for the accomplishment of the object contemplated.
I shall consider it incumbent on me to present to Congress at its next session a matured view of the whole subject, and to endeavor to define, approximately at least, and according to my own convictions, what appropriations of this nature by the General Government the great interests of the United States require and the Constitution will admit and sanction, in case no substitute should be devised capable of reconciling differences both of constitutionality and expediency.
In the absence of the requisite means and time for duly considering the whole subject at present and discussing such possible substitute, it becomes necessary to return this bill to the House of Representatives, in which it originated, and for the reasons thus briefly submitted to the consideration of Congress to withhold from it my approval.
FRANKLIN PIERCE.
[The following message is inserted here because it is an exposition of the reasons of the President for the veto of August 4, 1854, immediately preceding.]
WASHINGTON, _December 30, 1854_.
_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:
In returning to the House of Representatives, in which it originated, a bill entitled “An act making appropriations for the repair, preservation, and completion of certain public works heretofore commenced under the authority of law,” it became necessary for me, owing to the late day at which the bill was passed, to state my objections to it very briefly, announcing at the same time a purpose to resume the subject for more deliberate discussion at the present session of Congress; for, while by no means insensible of the arduousness of the task thus undertaken by me, I conceived that the two Houses were entitled to an exposition of the considerations which had induced dissent on my part from their conclusions in this instance.
The great constitutional question of the power of the General Government in relation to internal improvements has been the subject of earnest difference of opinion at every period of the history of the United States. Annual and special messages of successive Presidents have been occupied with it, sometimes in remarks on the general topic and frequently in objection to particular bills. The conflicting sentiments of eminent statesmen, expressed in Congress or in conventions called expressly to devise, if possible, some plan calculated to relieve the subject of the embarrassments with which it is environed, while they have directed public attention strongly to the magnitude of the interests involved, have yet left unsettled the limits, not merely of expediency, but of constitutional power, in relation to works of this class by the General Government.
What is intended by the phrase “internal improvements”? What does it embrace and what exclude? No such language is found in the Constitution. Not only is it not an expression of ascertainable constitutional power, but it has no sufficient exactness of meaning to be of any value as the basis of a safe conclusion either of constitutional law or of practical statesmanship.
President John Quincy Adams, in claiming on one occasion, after his retirement from office, the authorship of the idea of introducing into the administration of the affairs of the General Government “a permanent and regular system” of internal improvements, speaks of it as a system by which “the whole Union would have been checkered over with railroads and canals,” affording “high wages and constant employment to hundreds of thousands of laborers;” and he places it in express contrast with the construction of such works by the legislation of the States and by private enterprise.
It is quite obvious that if there be any constitutional power which authorizes the construction of “railroads and canals” by Congress, the same power must comprehend turnpikes and ordinary carriage roads; nay, it must extend to the construction of bridges, to the draining of marshes, to the erection of levees, to the construction of canals of irrigation; in a word, to all the possible means of the material improvement of the earth, by developing its natural resources anywhere and everywhere, even within the proper jurisdiction of the several States. But if there be any constitutional power thus comprehensive in its nature, must not the same power embrace within its scope other kinds of improvement of equal utility in themselves and equally important to the welfare of the whole country? President Jefferson, while intimating the expediency of so amending the Constitution as to comprise objects of physical progress and well-being, does not fail to perceive that “other objects of public improvement,” including “public education” by name, belong to the same class of powers. In fact, not only public instruction, but hospitals, establishments of science and art, libraries, and, indeed, everything appertaining to the internal welfare of the country, are just as much objects of internal improvement, or, in other words, of internal utility, as canals and railways.
The admission of the power in either of its senses implies its existence in the other; and since if it exists at all it involves dangerous augmentation of the political functions and of the patronage of the Federal Government, we ought to see clearly by what clause or clauses of the Constitution it is conferred.
I have had occasion more than once to express, and deem it proper now to repeat, that it is, in my judgment, to be taken for granted, as a fundamental proposition not requiring elucidation, that the Federal Government is the creature of the individual States and of the people of the States severally; that the sovereign power was in them alone; that all the powers of the Federal Government are derivative ones, the enumeration and limitations of which are contained in the instrument which organized it; and by express terms “the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution nor prohibited by it to the States are reserved to the States respectively or to the people.”
Starting from this foundation of our constitutional faith and proceeding to inquire in what part of the Constitution the power of making appropriations for internal improvements is found, it is necessary to reject all idea of there being any grant of power in the preamble. When that instrument says, “We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity,” it only declares the inducements and the anticipated results of the things ordained and established by it. To assume that anything more can be designed by the language of the preamble would be to convert all the body of the Constitution, with its carefully weighed enumerations and limitations, into mere surplusage. The same may be said of the phrase in the grant of the power to Congress “to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States;” or, to construe the words more exactly, they are not significant of grant or concession, but of restriction of the specific grants, having the effect of saying that in laying and collecting taxes for each of the precise objects of power granted to the General Government Congress must exercise any such definite and undoubted power in strict subordination to the purpose of the common defense and general welfare of all the States.
There being no specific grant in the Constitution of a power to sanction appropriations for internal improvements, and no general provision broad enough to cover any such indefinite object, it becomes necessary to look for particular powers to which one or another of the things included in the phrase “internal improvements” may be referred.
In the discussions of this question by the advocates of the organization of a “general system of internal improvements” under the auspices of the Federal Government, reliance is had for the justification of the measure on several of the powers expressly granted to Congress, such as to establish post-offices and post-roads, to declare war, to provide and maintain a navy, to raise and support armies, to regulate commerce, and to dispose of the territory and other public property of the United States,
As to the last of these sources of power, that of disposing of the territory and other public property of the United States, it may be conceded that it authorizes Congress, in the management of the public property, to make improvements essential to the successful execution of the trust; but this must be the primary object of any such improvement, and it would be an abuse of the trust to sacrifice the interest of the property to incidental purposes.
As to the other assumed sources of a general power over internal improvements, they being specific powers of which this is supposed to be the incident, if the framers of the Constitution, wise and thoughtful men as they were, intended to confer on Congress the power over a subject so wide as the whole field of internal improvements, it is remarkable that they did not use language clearly to express it, or, in other words, that they did not give it as a distinct and substantive power instead of making it the implied incident of some other one; for such is the magnitude of the supposed incidental power and its capacity of expansion that any system established under it would exceed each of the others in the amount of expenditure and number of the persons employed, which would thus be thrown upon the General Government.
This position may be illustrated by taking as a single example one of the many things comprehended clearly in the idea of “a general system of internal improvements,” namely, roads. Let it be supposed that the power to construct roads over the whole Union, according to the suggestion of President J.Q. Adams in 1807, whilst a member of the Senate of the United States, had been conceded. Congress would have begun, in pursuance of the state of knowledge at the time, by constructing turnpikes; then, as knowledge advanced, it would have constructed canals, and at the present time it would have been embarked in an almost limitless scheme of railroads.
Now there are in the United States, the results of State or private enterprise, upward of 17,000 miles of railroads and 5,000 miles of canals; in all, 22,000 miles, the total cost of which may be estimated at little short of $600,000,000; and if the same works had been constructed by the Federal Government, supposing the thing to have been practicable, the cost would have probably been not less than $900,000,000. The number of persons employed in superintending, managing, and keeping up these canals and railroads may be stated at 126,000 or thereabouts, to which are to be added 70,000 or 80,000 employed on the railroads in construction, making a total of at least 200,000 persons, representing in families nearly 1,000,000 souls, employed on or maintained by this one class of public works in the United States.
In view of all this, it is not easy to estimate the disastrous consequences which must have resulted from such extended local improvements being undertaken by the General Government. State legislation upon this subject would have been suspended and private enterprise paralyzed, while applications for appropriations would have perverted the legislation of Congress, exhausted the National Treasury, and left the people burdened with a heavy public debt, beyond the capacity of generations to discharge.
Is it conceivable that the framers of the Constitution intended that authority drawing after it such immense consequences should be inferred by implication as the incident of enumerated powers? I can not think this, and the impossibility of supposing it would be still more glaring if similar calculations were carried out in regard to the numerous objects of material, moral, and political usefulness of which the idea of internal improvement admits. It may be safely inferred that if the framers of the Constitution had intended to confer the power to make appropriations for the objects indicated, it would have been enumerated among the grants expressly made to Congress.. When, therefore, any one of the powers actually enumerated is adduced or referred to as the ground of an assumption to warrant the incidental or implied power of “internal improvement,” that hypothesis must be rejected, or at least can be no further admitted than as the particular act of internal improvement may happen to be necessary to the exercise of the granted power. Thus, when the object of a given road, the clearing of a particular channel, or the construction of a particular harbor of refuge is manifestly required by the exigencies of the naval or military service of the country, then it seems to me undeniable that it may be constitutionally comprehended in the powers to declare war, to provide and maintain a navy, and to raise and support armies. At the same time, it would be a misuse of these powers and a violation of the Constitution to undertake to build upon them a great system of internal improvements. And similar reasoning applies to the assumption of any such power as is involved in that to establish post-roads and to regulate commerce. If the particular improvement, whether by land or sea, be necessary to the execution of the enumerated powers, then, but not otherwise, it falls within the jurisdiction of Congress. To this extent only can the power be claimed as the incident of any express grant to the Federal Government.
But there is one clause of the Constitution in which it has been suggested that express authority to construct works of internal improvement has been conferred on Congress, namely, that which empowers it “to exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever over such district (not exceeding 10 miles square) as may by cession of particular States and the acceptance of Congress become the seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the State in which the same shall be for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and _other needful buildings_…” But any such supposition will be seen to be groundless when this provision is carefully examined and compared with other parts of the Constitution.
It is undoubtedly true that “like authority” refers back to “exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever” as applied to the District of Columbia, and there is in the District no division of powers as between the General and the State Governments.
In those places which the United States has purchased or retains within any of the States–sites for dockyards or forts, for example–legal process of the given State is still permitted to run for some purposes, and therefore the jurisdiction of the United States is not absolutely perfect. But let us assume for the argument’s sake that the jurisdiction of the United States in a tract of land ceded to it for the purpose of a dockyard or fort by Virginia or Maryland is as complete as in that ceded by them for the seat of Government, and then proceed to analyze this clause of the Constitution.
It provides that Congress shall have certain legislative authority over all places purchased by the United States for certain purposes. It implies that Congress has otherwise the power to purchase. But where does Congress get the power to purchase? Manifestly it must be from some other clause of the Constitution, for it is not conferred by this one. Now, as it is a fundamental principle that the Constitution is one of limited powers, the authority to purchase must be conferred in one of the enumerations of legislative power; so that the power to purchase is itself not an unlimited one, but is limited by the objects in regard to which legislative authority is directly conferred.
The other expressions of the clause in question confirm this conclusion, since the jurisdiction is given as to places purchased for certain enumerated objects or purposes. Of these the first great division–forts, magazines, arsenals, and dockyards–is obviously referable to recognized heads of specific constitutional power. There remains only the phrase “and other _needful_ buildings.” Wherefore needful? Needful for any possible purpose within the whole range of the business of society and of Government? Clearly not; but only such “buildings” as are “needful” to the United States in the exercise of any of the powers conferred on Congress.
Thus the United States need, in the exercise of admitted powers, not only forts, magazines, arsenals, and dockyards, but also court-houses, prisons, custom-houses, and post-offices within the respective States. Places for the erection of such buildings the General Government may constitutionally purchase, and, having purchased them, the jurisdiction over them belongs to the United States. So if the General Government has the power to build a light-house or a beacon, it may purchase a place for that object; and having purchased it, then this clause of the Constitution gives jurisdiction over it. Still, the power to purchase for the purpose of erecting a light-house or beacon must depend on the existence of the power to erect, and if that power exists it must be sought after in some other clause of the Constitution.
From whatever point of view, therefore, the subject is regarded, whether as a question of express or implied power, the conclusion is the same, that Congress has no constitutional authority to carry on a system of internal improvements; and in this conviction the system has been steadily opposed by the soundest expositors of the functions of the Government.
It is not to be supposed that in no conceivable case shall there be doubt as to whether a given object be or not a necessary incident of the military, naval, or any other power. As man is imperfect, so are his methods of uttering his thoughts. Human language, save in expressions for the exact sciences, must always fail to preclude all possibility of controversy. Hence it is that in one branch of the subject–the question of the power of Congress to make appropriations in aid of navigation–there is less of positive conviction than in regard to the general subject; and it therefore seems proper in this respect to revert to the history of the practice of the Government.
Among the very earliest acts of the first session of Congress was that for the establishment and support of light-houses, approved by President Washington on the 7th of August, 1789, which contains the following provisions:
That all expenses which shall accrue from and after the 15th day of August, 1789, in the necessary support, maintenance, and repairs of all light-houses, beacons, buoys, and public piers erected, placed, or sunk before the passing of this act at the entrance of or within any bay, inlet, harbor, or port of the United States, for rendering the navigation thereof easy and safe, shall be defrayed out of the Treasury of the United States: _Provided, nevertheless_, That none of the said expenses shall continue to be so defrayed after the expiration of one year from the day aforesaid unless such light-houses, beacons, buoys, and public piers shall in the meantime be ceded to and vested in the United States by the State or States, respectively, in which the same may be, together with the lands and tenements thereunto belonging and together with the jurisdiction of the same.
Acts containing appropriations for this class of public works were passed in 1791, 1792, 1793, and so on from year to year down to the present time; and the tenor of these acts, when examined with reference to other parts of the subject, is worthy of special consideration.
It is a remarkable fact that for a period of more than thirty years after the adoption of the Constitution all appropriations of this class were confined, with scarcely an apparent exception, to the construction of light-houses, beacons, buoys, and public piers and the stakage of channels; to render navigation “safe and easy,” it is true, but only by indicating to the navigator obstacles in his way, not by removing those obstacles nor in any other respect changing, artificially, the preexisting natural condition of the earth and sea. It is obvious, however, that works of art for the removal of natural impediments to navigation, or to prevent their formation, or for supplying harbors where these do not exist, are also means of rendering navigation safe and easy, and may in supposable cases be the most efficient, as well as the most economical, of such means. Nevertheless, it is not until the year 1824 that in an act to improve the navigation of the rivers Ohio and Mississippi and in another act making appropriations for deepening the channel leading into the harbor of Presque Isle, on Lake Erie, and for repairing Plymouth Beach, in Massachusetts Bay, we have any example of an appropriation for the improvement of harbors in the nature of those provided for in the bill returned by me to the House of Representatives.
It appears not probable that the abstinence of Congress in this respect is attributable altogether to considerations of economy or to any failure to perceive that the removal of an obstacle to navigation might be not less useful than the indication of it for avoidance, and it may be well assumed that the course of legislation so long pursued was induced, in whole or in part, by solicitous consideration in regard to