of $666,883 made by the act of March 3, 1857, leaving $252,763 to be carried to the credit of the Department in the accounts of the current year.  I commend to your consideration the report of the Department in relation to the establishment of the overland mail route from the Mississippi River to San Francisco, Cal.  The route was selected with my full concurrence, as the one, in my judgment, best calculated to attain the important objects contemplated by Congress.

The late disastrous monetary revulsion may have one good effect should it cause both the Government and the people to return to the practice of a wise and judicious economy both in public and private expenditures.

An overflowing Treasury has led to habits of prodigality and extravagance in our legislation.  It has induced Congress to make large appropriations to objects for which they never would have provided had it been necessary to raise the amount of revenue required to meet them by increased taxation or by loans.  We are now compelled to pause in our career and to scrutinize our expenditures with the utmost vigilance; and in performing this duty I pledge my cooperation to the extent of my constitutional competency.

It ought to be observed at the same time that true public economy does not consist in withholding the means necessary to accomplish important national objects intrusted to us by the Constitution, and especially such as may be necessary for the common defense.  In the present crisis of the country it is our duty to confine our appropriations to objects of this character, unless in cases where justice to individuals may demand a different course.  In all cases care ought to be taken that the money granted by Congress shall be faithfully and economically applied.

Under the Federal Constitution “every bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate shall, before it become a law,” be approved and signed by the President; and if not approved, “he shall return it with his objections to that House in which it shall have originated.”  In order to perform this high and responsible duty, sufficient time must be allowed the President to read and examine every bill presented to him for approval.  Unless this be afforded, the Constitution becomes a dead letter in this particular, and; even worse, it becomes a means of deception.  Our constituents, seeing the President’s approval and signature attached to each act of Congress, are induced to believe that he has actually performed his duty, when in truth nothing is in many cases more unfounded.

From the practice of Congress such an examination of each bill as the Constitution requires has been rendered impossible.  The most important business of each session is generally crowded into its last hours, and the alternative presented to the President is either to violate the constitutional duty which he owes to the people and approve bills which for want of time it is impossible he should have examined, or by his refusal to do this subject the country and individuals to great loss and inconvenience.