ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

VETO MESSAGE.[15]

[Footnote 15:  Pocket veto.]

EXECUTIVE MANSION, January 5, 1865.

To the House of Representatives of the United States: 

I herewith return to your honorable body, in which it originated, a “Joint resolution to correct certain clerical errors in the internal-revenue act,” without my approval.

My reason for so doing is that I am informed that this joint resolution was prepared during the last moments of the last session of Congress for the purpose of correcting certain errors of reference in the internal-revenue act which were discovered on an examination of an official copy procured from the State Department a few hours only before the adjournment.  It passed the House and went to the Senate, where a vote was taken upon it, but by some accident it was not presented to the President of the Senate for his signature.

Since the adjournment of the last session of Congress other errors of a kind similar to those which this resolution was designed to correct have been discovered in the law, and it is now thought most expedient to include all the necessary corrections in one act or resolution.

The attention of the proper committee of the House has, I am informed, been already directed to the preparation of a bill for this purpose.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

PROCLAMATIONS.

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas by the act approved July 4, 1864, entitled “An act further to regulate and provide for the enrolling and calling out the national forces, and for other purposes,” it is provided that the President of the United States may, “at his discretion, at any time hereafter, call for any number of men, as volunteers for the respective terms of one, two, and three years for military service,” and “that in case the quota or any part thereof of any town, township, ward of a city, precinct, or election district, or of any county not so subdivided, shall not be filled within the space of fifty days after such call, then the President shall immediately order a draft for one year to fill such quota or any part thereof which may be unfilled;” and

Whereas by the credits allowed in accordance with the act of Congress on the call for 500,000 men, made July 18, 1864, the number of men to be obtained under that call was reduced to 280,000; and

Whereas the operations of the enemy in certain States have rendered it impracticable to procure from them their full quotas of troops under said call; and

Whereas from the foregoing causes but 240,000 men have been put into the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps under the said call of July 18, 1864, leaving a deficiency on that call of two hundred and sixty thousand (260,000):