it omits to provide for that I can not announce its approval without at the same time pointing out what seems to me to be its defects. It makes but inadequate provision for the service at best, and in some instances fails to make any provision whatever. Notably among the first class is the reduction in the ordinary annual appropriations for the Revenue-Cutter Service, to the prejudice of the customs revenue. The same may be said of the Signal Service, as also the failure to provide for the increased expense devolved upon the mints and assay offices by recent legislation, and thus tending to defeat the objects of that legislation. Of this class also are public buildings, for the protection, preservation, and completion of which there is no adequate appropriation, while the sum of $100,000 only is appropriated for the repairs of the different navy yards and stations and the preservation of the same, the ordinary and customary appropriations for which are not less than $1,000,000. A similar reduction is made in the expenses for armories and arsenals. The provision for the ordinary judicial expenses is much less than the estimated amount for that important service, the actual expenditures of the last fiscal year, and the certain demands of the current year. The provision for the expenses of the surveys of public lands is less than one-half of the usual appropriation for that service and what are understood to be its actual demands. Reduction in the expenditures for light-houses, beacons, and fog stations is also made in similar proportion. Of the class for which no appropriation is made, among the most noticeable, perhaps, is that portion of the general expenses of the District of Columbia on behalf of the United States, as appropriated in former years, and the judgments of the Court of Claims. The failure to make a reasonable contribution to the expenses of the nation's capital is an apparent dereliction on the part of the United States and rank injustice to the people here who bear the burdens, while to refuse or neglect to provide for the payment of solemn judgments of its own courts is apparently to repudiate. Of a different character, but as prejudicial to the Treasury, is the omission to make provision to enable the Secretary of the Treasury to have the rebel archives and records of captured and abandoned property examined and information furnished therefrom for the use of the Government. Finally, without further specification of detail, it may be said that the act which in its title purports to make provision for a diverse and greatly extended civil service unhappily appropriates an amount not more than 65 per cent of its ordinary demands. The legislative department establishes and defines the service, and devolves upon the Executive Departments the obligation of submitting annually the needful estimates of expenses of such service. Congress properly exacts implicit obedience to the requirements of the law in the administration of the public service and rigid accountability in the expenditures therefor. It is submitted that a corresponding responsibility and obligation rest upon it to make the adequate appropriations to render possible such administration and tolerable such exaction. Anything short of an ample provision for a specified service is necessarily fraught with disaster to the public interests and is a positive injustice to those charged with its execution. To appropriate and to execute are corresponding obligations and duties, and the adequacy of the former is the necessary measure of the efficiency of the execution. In this eighth month of the present session of Congress-nearly one month of the fiscal year to which this appropriation applies having passed—I do not feel warranted in vetoing an absolutely necessary appropriation bill; but in signing it I deem it a duty to show where the responsibility belongs for whatever embarrassments may arise in the execution of the trust confided to me. U. S. GRANT. EXECUTIVE MANSION, July 31, 1876. To the Senate of the United States: In response to the resolution of the Senate of July 20, 1876, calling upon the President to communicate to the Senate, if in his opinion not incompatible with the public interest, any information in regard to the slaughter of American citizens at Hamburg, S. C., I have the honor to submit the following inclosures, to wit: No. 1. Letter of the 22d of July, 1876, from Governor D. H. Chamberlain, of South Carolina, to me. No. 2. My reply thereto. No. 3. Report of Hon. William Stone, attorney-general of South Carolina. No. 4. Report of General H.W. Purvis, adjutant and inspector general of South Carolina. No. 5. Copy of evidence taken before a coroner's jury investigating facts relating to the Hamburg massacre. No. 6. Printed copy of statement by M. C. Butler, of South Carolina. No. 7. Printed letter from the same to the editors of the Journal of Commerce. No. 8. Copy of letter from Governor Chamberlain to the Hon. T. J. Robertson. No. 9. An address to the American people by the colored citizens of Charleston, S. C. No. 10. An address by a committee appointed at a convention of leading representatives of Columbia, S. C. No. 11. Copy of letter of July 15, 1876, from the district attorney of Mississippi to the Attorney-General of the United States. No. 12. Letter from same to same. No. 13. Copy of report of a grand jury lately in session in Oxford, Miss. These inclosures embrace all the information in my possession touching the late disgraceful and brutal slaughter of unoffending men at the town of Hamburg, S. C. My letter to Governor Chamberlain contains all the comments I wish to make on the subject. As allusion is made in that letter to the condition of other States, and particularly to Louisiana and Mississippi, I have added to the inclosures letters and testimony in regard to the lawless condition of a portion of the people of the latter State. In regard to Louisiana affairs, murders and massacres of innocent men for opinion's sake or on account of color have been of too recent date and of too frequent occurrence to require recapitulation or testimony here. All are familiar with their horrible details, the only wonder being that so many justify them or apologize for them. But recently a committee of the Senate of the United States visited the State of Mississippi to take testimony on the subject of frauds and violence in elections. Their report has not yet been made public, but I await its forthcoming with a feeling of confidence that it will fully sustain all that I have stated relating to fraud and violence in the State of Mississippi. U. S. GRANT. EXECUTIVE MANSION, August 11, 1876. To the Senate and House of Representatives: I transmit herewith a telegram of the 5th of August instant from Lieutenant-General Sheridan to General Sherman, a letter of the 11th of the present month from General Sherman to the Secretary of War, and a letter from the latter of the same date to me, all setting forth the possible needs of the Army in consequence of existing hostilities. I would strongly urge upon Congress the necessity for making some provision for a contingency which may arise during the vacation-for more troops in the Indian country than it is now possible to send. It would seem to me to be much more economical and better to authorize an increase of the present cavalry force by 2,500 privates, but if this is not deemed advisable, then that the President be authorized to call out not exceeding five regiments, 1,000 strong each, of volunteers, to serve for a period not exceeding six months. Should this latter authority be given, I would not order out any volunteers unless in my opinion, based upon reports from the scene of war, I deemed it absolutely necessary, and then only the smallest number considered sufficient to meet the emergency. U. S. GRANT. EXECUTIVE MANSION, August 14, 1876. To the House of Representatives: In affixing my signature to the river and harbor bill, No. 3822, I deem it my duty to announce to the House of Representatives my objections to some features of the bill, and the reason I sign it. If it was obligatory upon the Executive to expend all the money appropriated by Congress, I should return the river and harbor bill with my objections, notwithstanding the great inconvenience to the public interests resulting therefrom and the loss of expenditures from previous Congresses upon incompleted works. Without enumerating, many appropriations are made for works of purely private or local interest, in no sense national. I can not give my sanction to these, and will take care that during my term of office no public money shall be expended upon them. There is very great necessity for economy of expenditures at this time, growing out of the loss of revenue likely to arise from a deficiency of appropriations to insure a thorough collection of the same. The reduction of revenue districts, diminution of special agents, and total abolition of supervisors may result in great falling off of the revenue. It may be a question to consider whether any expenditure can be authorized under the river and harbor appropriation further than to protect works already done and paid for. Under no circumstances will I allow expenditures upon works not clearly national. To the House of Representatives: U. S. GRANT. WASHINGTON, August 14, 1876. In announcing, as I do, that I have attached my signature of official approval to the "Act making appropriations for the consular and diplomatic service of the Government for the year ending June 30, 1877, and for other purposes," it is my duty to call attention to a provision in the act directing that notice be sent to certain of the diplomatic and consular officers of the Government "to close their offices." In the literal sense of this direction it would be an invasion of the constitutional prerogatives and duty of the Executive. By the Constitution the President “shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint, ambassadors, other public ministers, and consuls," etc. It is within the power of Congress to grant or withhold appropriation of money for the payment of salaries and expenses of the foreign representatives of the Government. In the early days of the Government a sum in gross was appropriated, leaving it to the Executive to determine the grade of the officers and the countries to which they should be sent. Latterly, for very many years, specific sums have been appropriated for designated missions or employments, and as a rule the omission by Congress to make an appropriation for any specific port has heretofore been accepted as an indication of a wish on the part of Congress which the executive branch of the Government respected and complied with. In calling attention to the passage which I have indicated I assume that the intention of the provision is only to exercise the constitutional prerogative of Congress over the expenditures of the Government and to fix a time at which the compensation of certain diplomatic, and consular officers shall cease, and not to invade the constitutional rights of the Executive, which I should be compelled to resist; and my present object is not to discuss or dispute the wisdom of failing to appropriate for several offices, but to guard against the construction that might possibly be placed on the language used, as implying a right in the legislative branch to direct the closing or discontinuing of any of the diplomatic or consular offices of the Government. U. S. GRANT. [For message of August 15, 1876, withdrawing objections to Senate bill No. 779, see p. 388.] To the Senate of the United States: WASHINGTON, August 15, 1876. I transmit to the Senate, in answer to its resolution of the 24th ultimo, a report from the Secretary of State, with its accompanying statement.* U. S. GRANT. VETO MESSAGES. EXECUTIVE MANSION, February 3, 1876. To the House of Representatives: I have the honor to return herewith without my approval House bill No. 1561, entitled "An act transferring the custody of certain Indian trust funds from the Secretary of the Interior to the Treasurer of the United States," for the reasons set forth in the accompanying communication from the Secretary of the Interior. U. S. GRANT. The PRESIDENT. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, SIR: I acknowledge the receipt of your communication of the 29th ultimo, transmitting House bill No. 1561 and requesting this Department to report whether any objections to its becoming a law are known to exist. *Aggregate number of civil officers in or connected with the Department of State from 1859 to 1875, inclusive. |