I confidently believe that a time will come when these States will again occupy their true positions in the Union.  The barriers which now seem so obstinate must yield to the force of an enlightened and just public opinion, and sooner or later unconstitutional and oppressive legislation will be effaced from our statute books.  When this shall have been consummated, I pray God that the errors of the past may be forgotten and that once more we shall be a happy, united, and prosperous people, and that at last, after the bitter and eventful experience through which the nation has passed, we shall all come to know that our only safety is in the preservation of our Federal Constitution and in according to every American citizen and to every State the rights which that Constitution secures.

ANDREW JOHNSON.

WASHINGTON, D.C., April 10, 1867.[28]

The first session of the Fortieth Congress adjourned on the 30th day of March, 1867.  This bill,[29] which was passed during that session, was not presented for my approval by the Hon. Edmund G. Ross, of the Senate of the United States, and a member of the Committee on Enrolled Bills, until Monday, the 1st day of April, 1867, two days after the adjournment.  It is not believed that the approval of any bill after the adjournment of Congress, whether presented before or after such adjournment, is authorized by the Constitution of the United States, that instrument expressly declaring that no bill shall become a law the return of which may have been prevented by the adjournment of Congress.  To concede that under the Constitution the President, after the adjournment of Congress, may, without limitation in respect to time, exercise the power of approval, and thus determine at his discretion whether or not bills shall become laws, might subject the executive and legislative departments of the Government to influences most pernicious to correct legislation and sound public morals, and—­with a single exception, occurring during the prevalence of civil war—­would be contrary to the established practice of the Government from its inauguration to the present time.  This bill will therefore be filed in the office of the Secretary of State without my approval.

ANDREW JOHNSON.

[Footnote 28:  Pocket veto.  Was never sent to Congress, but was deposited in the Department of State.]

[Footnote 29:  Joint resolution placing certain troops of Missouri on an equal footing with others as to bounties.]

WASHINGTON, D.C., July 19, 1867.

To the House of Representatives of the United States: 

I return herewith the bill entitled “An act supplementary to an act entitled ’An act to provide for the more efficient government of the rebel States,’ passed on the 2d day of March, 1867, and the act supplementary thereto, passed, on the 23d day of March, 1867,” and will state as briefly as possible some of the reasons which prevent me from giving it my approval.