VETO MESSAGES. To the Senate of the United States: WASHINGTON, May 19, 1856. I return herewith to the Senate, in which it originated, the bill entitled "An act to remove obstructions to navigation in the mouth of the Mississippi River at the Southwest Pass and Pass à l'Outre," which proposes to appropriate a sum of money, to be expended under the superintendence of the Secretary of War, "for the opening and keeping open ship channels of sufficient capacity to accommodate the wants of commerce through the Southwest Pass and Pass à l'Outre, leading from the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico." In a communication addressed by me to the two Houses of Congress on the 30th of December, 1854, my views were exhibited in full on the subject of the relation of the General Government to internal improvements. I set forth on that occasion the constitutional impediments, which in my mind are insuperable, to the prosecution of a system of internal improvements by means of appropriations from the Treasury of the United States, more especially the consideration that the Constitution does not confer on the General Government any express power to make such appropriations, that they are not a necessary and proper incident of any of the express powers, and that the assumption of authority on the part of the Federal Government to commence and carry on a general system of internal improvements, while exceptionable for the want of constitutional power, is in other respects prejudicial to the several interests and inconsistent with the true relation to one another of the Union and of the individual States. These objections apply to the whole system of internal improvements, whether such improvements consist of works on land or in navigable waters, either of the seacoast or of the interior lakes or rivers. I have not been able, after the most careful reflection, to regard the bill before me in any other light than as part of a general system of internal improvements, and therefore feel constrained to submit it, with these objections, to the reconsideration of Congress. FRANKLIN PIERCE. To the Senate of the United States: WASHINGTON, May 19, 1856. I return herewith to the Senate, in which it originated, a bill entitled "An act making an appropriation for deepening the channel over the St. Clair flats, in the State of Michigan," and submit it for reconsideration, because it is, in my judgment, liable to the objections to the prose cution of internal improvements by the General Government which have already been presented by me in previous communications to Congress. In considering this bill under the restriction that the power of Congress to construct a work of internal improvement is limited to cases in which the work is manifestly needful and proper for the execution of some one or more of the powers expressly delegated to the General Government, I have not been able to find for the proposed expenditure any such relation, unless it be to the power to provide for the common defense and to maintain an army and navy. But a careful examination of the subject, with the aid of information officially received since my last annual message was communicated to Congress, has convinced me that the expenditure of the sum proposed would serve no valuable purpose as contributing to the common defense, because all which could be effected by it would be to afford a channel of 12 feet depth and of so temporary a character that unless the work was done immediately before the necessity for its use should arise it could not be relied on for the vessels of even the small draft the passage of which it would permit. Under existing circumstances, therefore, it can not be considered as a necessary means for the common defense, and is subject to those objections which apply to other works designed to facilitate commerce and contribute to the convenience and local prosperity of those more immediately concerned-an object not to be constitutionally and justly attained by the taxation of the people of the whole country. To the Senate of the United States: FRANKLIN PIERCE. WASHINGTON, May 22, 1856. Having considered the bill, which originated in the Senate, entitled "An act making an appropriation for deepening the channel over the flats of the St. Marys River, in the State of Michigan," it is herewith returned without my approval. The appropriation proposed by this bill is not, in my judgment, a necessary means for the execution of any of the expressly granted powers of the Federal Government. The work contemplated belongs to a general class of improvements, embracing roads, rivers, and canals, designed to afford additional facilities for intercourse and for the transit of commerce, and no reason has been suggested to my mind for excepting it from the objections which apply to appropriations by the General Government for deepening the channels of rivers wherever shoals or other obstacles impede their navigation, and thus obstruct communication and impose restraints upon commerce within the States or between the States or Territories of the Union. I therefore submit it to the reconsideration of Congress, on account of the same objections which have been presented in my previous communications on the subject of internal improvements. FRANKLIN PIERCE. To the House of Representatives: WASHINGTON, August 11, 1856. I return herewith to the House of Representatives, in which it originated, a bill entitled "An act for continuing the improvement of the Des Moines Rapids, in the Mississippi River," and submit it for reconsideration, because it is, in my judgment, liable to the objections to the prosecution of internal improvements by the General Government set forth at length in a communication addressed by me to the two Houses of Congress on the 30th day of December, 1854, and in other subsequent messages upon the same subject, to which on this occasion I respectfully refer. FRANKLIN PIERCE. To the Senate of the United States: WASHINGTON, August 14, 1856. I return herewith to the Senate, in which it originated, a bill entitled "An act for the improvement of the navigation of the Patapsco River and to render the port of Baltimore accessible to the war steamers of the United States," and submit it for reconsideration, because it is, in my judgment, liable to the objections to the prosecution of internal improvements by the General Government set forth at length in a communication addressed by me to the two Houses of Congress on the 30th day of December, 1854, and other subsequent messages upon the same subject, to which on this occasion I respectfully refer. FRANKLIN PIERCE. PROCLAMATIONS. BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. A PROCLAMATION. Whereas information has been received by me that sundry persons, citizens of the United States and others resident therein, are preparing, within the jurisdiction of the same, to enlist, or enter themselves, or to hire or retain others to participate in military operations within the State of Nicaragua: Now, therefore, I, Franklin Pierce, President of the United States, do warn all persons against connecting themselves with any such enterprise or undertaking, as being contrary to their duty as good citizens and to the laws of their country and threatening to the peace of the United States. I do further admonish all persons who may depart from the United States, either singly or in numbers, organized or unorganized, for any such purpose, that they will thereby cease to be entitled to the protection of this Government. I exhort all good citizens to discountenance and prevent any such disreputable and criminal undertaking as aforesaid, charging all officers, civil and military, having lawful power in the premises, to exercise the same for the purpose of maintaining the authority and enforcing the laws of the United States. In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed to these presents. [SEAL.] Done at the city of Washington, the 8th day of December, 1855, and of the Independence of the United States the eightieth. FRANKLIN PIERCE. By the President: W. L. MARCY, Secretary of State. BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. A PROCLAMATION. Whereas by the second section of an act of the Congress of the United States approved the 5th day of August, 1854, entitled "An act to carry into effect a treaty between the United States and Great Britain signed on the 5th day of June, 1854," it is provided that whenever the island of Newfoundland shall give its consent to the application of the stipulations and provisions of the said treaty to that Province and the legislature thereof and the Imperial Parliament shall pass the necessary laws for that purpose, grain, flour, and breadstuffs of all kinds; animals of all kinds; fresh, smoked, and salted meats; cotton wool, seeds and vegetables, undried fruits, dried fruits, fish of all kinds, products of fish and all other creatures living in the water, poultry, eggs; hides, furs, skins, or tails, undressed; stone or marble in its crude or unwrought state, slate, butter, cheese, tallow, lard, horns, manures, ores of metals of all kinds, coal, pitch, tar, turpentine, ashes; timber and lumber of all kinds, round, hewed, and sawed, unmanufactured in whole or in part; firewood; plants, shrubs, and trees; pelts, wool, fish oil, rice, broom corn, and bark; gypsum, ground or unground; hewn or wrought or unwrought burr or grind stones; dyestuffs; flax, hemp, and tow, unmanufactured; unmanufactured tobacco, and rags-shall be admitted free of duty from that Province into the United States from and after the date of a proclamation by the President of the United States declaring that he has satisfactory evidence that the said Province has consented in a due and proper manner to have the provisions of the treaty extended to it and to allow the United States the full benefits of all the stipulations therein contained; and Whereas I have satisfactory evidence that the Province of Newfoundland has consented in a due and proper manner to have the provisions of the aforesaid treaty extended to it and to allow the United States the full benefits of all the stipulations therein contained, so far as they are applicable to that Province: Now, therefore, I, Franklin Pierce, President of the United States of America, do hereby declare and proclaim that from this date the articles enumerated in the preamble of this proclamation, being the growth and produce of the British North American colonies, shall be admitted from the aforesaid Province of Newfoundland into the United States free of duty so long as the aforesaid treaty shall remain in force. In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed to these presents. [SEAL.] Done at the city of Washington, the 12th day of December, A. D. 1855, and of the Independence of the United States the eightieth. FRANKLIN PIERCE. By the President: W. L. MARCY, Secretary of State. BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. A PROCLAMATION. Whereas indications exist that public tranquillity and the supremacy of law in the Territory of Kansas are endangered by the reprehensible acts or purposes of persons, both within and without the same, who propose to direct and control its political organization by force. It appearing that combinations have been formed therein to resist the execution of the Territorial laws, and thus in effect subvert by violence all present constitutional and legal authority; it also appearing that persons residing without the Territory, but near its borders, contemplate armed intervention in the affairs thereof; it also appearing that other persons, inhabitants of remote States, are collecting money, engaging men, and providing arms for the same purpose; and it further appearing that combinations within the Territory are endeavoring, by the agency of emissaries and otherwise, to induce individual States of the Union to intervene in the affairs thereof, in violation of the Constitution of the United States; and Whereas all such plans for the determination of the future institutions of the Territory, if carried into action from within the same, will constitute the fact of insurrection, and if from without that of invasive aggression, and will in either case justify and require the forcible interposition of the whole power of the General Government, as well to maintain the laws of the Territory as those of the Union: Now, therefore, I, Franklin Pierce, President of the United States, do issue this my proclamation to command all persons engaged in unlaw |