if a collision, extremely to be deprecated, as such collisions always are, has seemingly arisen between the executive and legislative branches of the Government, it has assuredly not been owing to any capricious interference or to any want of a plain and frank declaration of opinion on the part of the former.  Congress differed in its views with those of the Executive, as it had undoubtedly a right to do, and passed a bill virtually for a time repealing the proviso of the act of the 4th September, 1841.  The bill was returned to the House in which it originated with my objections to its becoming a law.  With a view to prevent, if possible, an open disagreement of opinion on a point so important, I took occasion to declare that I regarded it as an indispensable prerequisite to an increase of duties above 20 per cent that the act of the 4th September should remain unrepealed in its provisions.  My reasons for that opinion were elaborately set forth in the message which accompanied the return of the bill, which no constitutional majority appears to have been found for passing into a law.

The bill which is now before me proposes in its twenty-seventh section the total repeal of one of the provisos in the act of September, and, while it increases the duties above 20 per cent, directs an unconditional distribution of the land proceeds.  I am therefore subjected a second time in the period of a few days to the necessity of either giving my approval to a measure which, in my deliberate judgment, is in conflict with great public interests or of returning it to the House in which it originated with my objections.  With all my anxiety for the passage of a law which would replenish an exhausted Treasury and furnish a sound and healthy encouragement to mechanical industry, I can not consent to do so at the sacrifice of the peace and harmony of the country and the clearest convictions of public duty.

For some of the reasons which have brought me to this conclusion I refer to my previous messages to Congress, and briefly subjoin the following: 

1.  The bill unites two subjects which, so far from having any affinity to one another, are wholly incongruous in their character.  It is both a revenue and an appropriation bill.  It thus imposes on the Executive, in the first place, the necessity of either approving that which he would reject or rejecting that which he might otherwise approve.  This is a species of constraint to which the judgment of the Executive ought not, in my opinion, to be subjected.  But that is not my only objection to the act in its present form.  The union of subjects wholly dissimilar in their character in the same bill, if it grew into a practice, would not fail to lead to consequences destructive of all wise and conscientious legislation.  Various measures, each agreeable only to a small minority, might by being thus united—­and the more the greater chance of success—­lead to the passing of laws of which no single provision could if standing alone command a majority in its favor.