If Congress were to provide by law that the votes of none of the States should be received and counted if cast for a candidate who differed in political sentiment with a majority of the two Houses, such legislation would at once be condemned by the country as an unconstitutional and revolutionary usurpation of power.  It would, however, be exceedingly difficult to find in the Constitution any more authority for the passage of the joint resolution under consideration than for an enactment looking directly to the rejection of all votes not in accordance with the political preferences of a majority of Congress.  No power exists in the Constitution authorizing the joint resolution or the supposed law—­the only difference being that one would be more palpably unconstitutional and revolutionary than the other.  Both would rest upon the radical error that Congress has the power to prescribe terms and conditions to the right of the people of the States to cast their votes for President and Vice-President.

For the reasons thus indicated I am constrained to return the joint resolution to the Senate for such further action thereon as Congress may deem necessary.

ANDREW JOHNSON.

WASHINGTON, July 25, 1868

To the Senate of the United States: 

Believing that a bill entitled “An act relating to the Freedmen’s Bureau, and providing for its discontinuance,” interferes with the appointing power conferred by the Constitution upon the Executive, and for other reasons, which at this late period of the session time will not permit me to state, I herewith return it to the Senate, in which House it originated, without my approval.

ANDREW JOHNSON.

PROCLAMATIONS.

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas in the month of July, A.D. 1861, in accepting the condition of civil war which was brought about by insurrection and rebellion in several of the States which constitute the United States, the two Houses of Congress did solemnly declare that that war was not waged on the part of the Government in any spirit of oppression, nor for any purpose of conquest or subjugation, nor for any purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established institutions of the States, but only to defend and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution of the United States and to preserve the Union, with all the dignity, equality, and rights of the several States unimpaired, and that so soon as those objects should be accomplished the war on the part of the Government should cease; and

Whereas the President of the United States has heretofore, in the spirit of that declaration and with the view of securing for it ultimate and complete effect, set forth several proclamations offering amnesty and pardon to persons who had been or were concerned in the aforenamed rebellion, which proclamations, however, were attended with prudential reservations and exceptions then deemed necessary and proper, and which proclamations were respectively issued on the 8th day of December, 1863, on the 26th day of March, 1864, on the 29th day of May, 1865, and on the 7th day of September, 1867; and