FRANKLIN PIERCE.

[Footnote 48:  Estimates of appropriations necessary for carrying out the bounty-land law.]

WASHINGTON, March 2, 1855.

To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States: 

I transmit to Congress herewith a communication of this date from the Secretary of the Interior, with its inclosure,[49] and recommend that the appropriations therein asked for be made.

FRANKLIN PIERCE.

[Footnote 49:  Additional estimate of appropriations necessary for pay of Indian agents.]

WASHINGTON, March 3, 1855.

To the House of Representatives: 

I transmit herewith to the House of Representatives a report from the Secretary of State, with accompanying documents,[50] in answer to their resolutions of the 30th of January and 23d February last.

FRANKLIN PIERCE.

[Footnote 50:  Correspondence relative to the causes disturbing the friendly relations between Spain and the United States and instructions to United States diplomatic agents relative to the same; correspondence relative to Cuba, etc.]

VETO MESSAGES.

WASHINGTON, February 17, 1855.

To the House of Representatives: 

I have received and carefully considered the bill entitled “An act to provide for the ascertainment of claims of American citizens for spoliations committed by the French prior to the 31st of July, 1801,” and in the discharge of a duty imperatively enjoined on me by the Constitution I return the same with my objections to the House of Representatives, in which it originated.

In the organization of the Government of the United States the legislative and executive functions were separated and placed in distinct hands.  Although the President is required from time to time to recommend to the consideration of Congress such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient, his participation in the formal business of legislation is limited to the single duty, in a certain contingency, of demanding for a bill a particular form of vote prescribed by the Constitution before it can become a law.  He is not invested with power to defeat legislation by an absolute veto, but only to restrain it, and is charged with the duty, in case he disapproves a measure, of invoking a second and a more deliberate and solemn consideration of it on the part of Congress.  It is not incumbent on the President to sign a bill as a matter of course, and thus merely to authenticate the action of Congress, for he must exercise intelligent judgment or be faithless to the trust reposed in him.  If he approve a bill, he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it with his objections to that House in which it shall have originated for such further action as the Constitution demands, which is its enactment, if at all, not by a bare numerical majority, as in the first instance, but by a constitutional majority of two-thirds of both Houses.