JAMES BUCHANAN.

WASHINGTON, June 25, 1860.

To the House of Representatives: 

I have approved and signed the bill entitled “An act making appropriation for sundry civil expenses of the Government for the year ending the 30th of June, 1861.”

In notifying the House of my approval of this bill I deem it proper, under the peculiar circumstances of the case, to make a few explanatory observations, so that my course may not hereafter be misunderstood.

Amid a great variety of important appropriations, this bill contains an appropriation “for the completion of the Washington Aqueduct, $500,000, to be expended according to the plans and estimates of Captain Meigs and under his superintendence:  Provided, That the office of engineer of the Potomac Waterworks is hereby abolished and its duties shall hereafter be discharged by the chief engineer of the Washington Aqueduct.”  To this appropriation, for a wise and beneficial object, I have not the least objection.  It is true I had reason to believe when the last appropriation was made of $800,000 on the 12th of June, 1858, “for the completion of the Washington Aqueduct” this would have been sufficient for the purpose.  It is now discovered, however, that it will require half a million more “for the completion of the Washington Aqueduct” and this ought to be granted.

The Captain Meigs to whom the bill refers is Montgomery C. Meigs, a captain in the Corps of Engineers of the Army of the United States, who has superintended this work from its commencement under the authority of the late and present Secretary of War.

Had this appropriation been made in the usual form, no difficulty could have arisen upon it.  This bill, however, annexes a declaration to the appropriation that the money is to be expended under the superintendence of Captain Meigs.

The first aspect in which this clause presented itself to my mind was that it interfered with the right of the President to be “Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States.”  If this had really been the case, there would have been an end to the question.  Upon further examination I deemed it impossible that Congress could have intended to interfere with the clear right of the President to command the Army and to order its officers to any duty he might deem most expedient for the public interest.  If they could withdraw an officer from the command of the President and select him for the performance of an executive duty, they might upon the same principle annex to an appropriation to carry on a war a condition requiring it not to be used for the defense of the country unless a particular person of its own selection should command the Army.  It was impossible that Congress could have had such an intention, and therefore, according to my construction of the clause in question, it merely designated Captain Meigs as its preference