On the last day of the last Congress a bill, which had passed both Houses, entitled “An act making an appropriation for deepening the channel over the St. Clair flats, in the State of Michigan,” was presented to me for approval.

It is scarcely necessary to observe that during the closing hours of a session it is impossible for the President on the instant to examine into the merits or demerits of an important bill, involving, as this does, grave questions both of expediency and of constitutional power, with that care and deliberation demanded by his public duty as well as by the best interests of the country.  For this reason the Constitution has in all cases allowed him ten days for deliberation, because if a bill be presented to him within the last ten days of the session he is not required to return it, either with an approval or a veto, but may retain it, “in which case it shall not be a law.”  Whilst an occasion can rarely occur when so long a period as ten days would be required to enable the President to decide whether he should approve or veto a bill, yet to deny him even two days on important questions before the adjournment of each session for this purpose, as recommended by a former annual message, would not only be unjust to him, but a violation of the spirit of the Constitution.  To require him to approve a bill when it is impossible he could examine into its merits would be to deprive him of the exercise of his constitutional discretion and convert him into a mere register of the decrees of Congress.  I therefore deem it a sufficient reason for having retained the bill in question that it was not presented to me until the last day of the session.

Since the termination of the last Congress I have made a thorough examination of the questions involved in the bill to deepen the channel over the St. Clair flats, and now proceed to express the opinions which I have formed upon the subject; and

1.  Even if this had been a mere question of expediency, it was, to say the least, extremely doubtful whether the bill ought to have been approved, because the object which Congress intended to accomplish by the appropriation which it contains of $55,000 had been already substantially accomplished.  I do not mean to allege that the work had been completed in the best manner, but it was sufficient for all practical purposes.

The St. Clair flats are formed by the St. Clair River, which empties into the lake of that name by several mouths, and which forms a bar or shoal on which in its natural state there is not more than 6 or 7 feet of water.  This shoal is interposed between the mouth of the river and the deep water of the lake, a distance of 6,000 feet, and in its natural condition was a serious obstruction to navigation.  The obvious remedy for this was to deepen a channel through these flats by dredging, so as to enable vessels which could navigate the lake and the river to pass through this intermediate channel.  This object had been already