U.S.  GRANT.

[Footnote 108:  Relating to claims before and judgments rendered by the Alabama Claims Commission arising from captures by the rebel cruiser Shenandoah.]

EXECUTIVE MANSION, June 17, 1876.

To the Senate and House of Representatives: 

The near approach of a new fiscal year and the failure of Congress up to this time to provide the necessary means to continue all the functions of Government make it my duty to call your attention to the embarrassments that must ensue if the fiscal year is allowed to close without remedial action on your part.

Article I, section 9, of the Constitution declares: 

  No money shall be drawn from the Treasury but in consequence of
  appropriations made by law.

To insure economy of expenditure and security of the public treasure Congress has from time to time enacted laws to restrain the use of public moneys, except for the specific purpose for which appropriated and within the time for which appropriated; and to prevent contracting debts in anticipation of appropriate appropriations, Revised Statutes, section 3679, provides: 

No Department of the Government shall expend in any one fiscal year any sum in excess of appropriations made by Congress for that fiscal year, or involve the Government in any contract for the future payment of money in excess of such appropriations.

Section 3732 provides: 

No contract or purchase on behalf of the United States shall be made unless the same is authorized by law or is under an appropriation adequate to its fulfillment, except in the War and Navy Departments, for clothing, subsistence, forage, fuel, quarters, or transportation, which, however, shall not exceed the necessities of the current year.

Section 3678, as follows: 

  All sums appropriated for the various branches of expenditure in the
  public service shall be applied solely to the objects for which they
  are respectively made, and for no others.

Section 3690, that—­

All balances of appropriations contained in the annual appropriation bills, and made specifically for the service of any fiscal year, and remaining unexpended at the expiration of such fiscal year, shall only be applied to the payment of expenses properly incurred during that year or to the fulfillment of contracts properly made within that year; and balances not needed for such purposes shall be carried to the surplus fund.  This section, however, shall not apply to appropriations known as permanent or indefinite appropriations.

The effect of the laws quoted, taken in connection with the constitutional provision referred to, is, as above stated, to prohibit any outlay of public money toward defraying even the current and necessary expenses of Government after the expiration of the year for which appropriated, excepting when those expenses are provided for by some permanent appropriation, and excepting in the War and Navy Departments, under section 3732.