established and maintained an independent government capable of performing those duties, foreign and domestic, which appertain to independent governments, and it appearing that there is no longer any reasonable prospect of the successful prosecution of the war by Mexico against said State, it is expedient and proper and in conformity with the laws of nations and the practice of this Government in like cases that the independent political existence of said State be acknowledged by the Government of the United States.”  Regarding these proceedings as a virtual decision of the question submitted by me to Congress, I think it my duty to acquiesce therein, and therefore I nominate Alcee La Branche, of Louisiana, to be charge d’affaires to the Republic of Texas.

ANDREW JACKSON.

VETO MESSAGE.[29]

[Footnote 29:  Pocket veto.  This message was never sent to Congress, but was deposited in the Department of State.]

MARCH 3, 1837—­11.45 p.m.

The bill from the Senate entitled “An act designating and limiting the funds receivable for the revenues of the United States” came to my hands yesterday at 2 o’clock p. m.  On perusing it I found its provisions so complex and uncertain that I deemed it necessary to obtain the opinion of the Attorney-General of the United States on several important questions touching its construction and effect before I could decide on the disposition to be made of it.  The Attorney-General took up the subject immediately, and his reply was reported to me this day at 5 o’clock p. m., and is hereunto annexed.  As this officer, after a careful and laborious examination of the bill and a distinct expression of his opinion on the points proposed to him still came to the conclusion that the construction of the bill, should it become a law, would yet be a subject of much perplexity and doubt (a view of the bill entirely coincident with my own), and as I can not think it proper, in a matter of such vital interest and of such constant application, to approve a bill so liable to diversity of interpretations, and more especially as I have not had time, amid the duties constantly pressing on me, to give the subject that deliberate consideration which its importance demands, I am constrained to retain the bill, without acting definitively thereon; and to the end that my reasons for this step may be fully understood I shall cause this paper, with the opinion of the Attorney-General and the bill in question, to be deposited in the Department of State.

ANDREW JACKSON.

ATTORNEY-GENERAL’S OFFICE,

March 3, 1837.

The PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

SIR:  I have had the honor to receive the several questions proposed to me by you on the bill which has just passed the two Houses of Congress, entitled “An act designating and limiting the funds receivable for the revenues of the United States,” and which is now before you for consideration.  These questions may be arranged under three general heads, and in that order I shall proceed to reply to them.