Chapter VII: Section 5522: , which provides for the punishment of the crime of (1)

interfering with the supervisors of elections and deputy marshals in the discharge of their duties at the elections of Representatives in Congress.

These are some of the laws on this subject which it is the duty of the executive department of the Government to enforce. The intent and effect of the sixth section of this bill is to prohibit all the civil officers of the United States, under penalty of fine and imprisonment, from employing any adequate civil force for this purpose at the place where their enforcement is most necessary, namely, at the places where the Congressional elections are held. Among the most valuable enactments to which I have referred are those which protect the supervisors of Federal elections in the discharge of their duties at the polls. If the proposed legislation should become the law, there will be no power vested in any officer of the Government to protect from violence the officers of the United States engaged in the discharge of their duties. Their rights and duties under the law will remain, but the National Government will be powerless to enforce its own statutes. The States may employ both military and civil power to keep the peace and to enforce the laws at State elections. It is now proposed to deny to the United States even the necessary civil authority to protect the national elections. No sufficient reason has been given for this discrimination in favor of the State and against the national authority. If well-founded objections exist against the present national election laws, all good citizens should unite in their amendment. The laws providing the safeguards of the elections should be impartial, just, and efficient. They should, if possible, be so nonpartisan and fair in their operation that the minority--the party out of power--will have no just grounds to complain. The present laws have in practice unquestionably conduced to the prevention of fraud and violence at the elections. In several of the States members of different political parties have applied for the safeguards which they furnish. It is the right and duty of the National Government to enact and enforce laws which will secure free and fair Congressional elections. The laws now in force should not be repealed except in connection with the enactment of measures which will better accomplish that important end. Believing that section 6 of the bill before me will weaken, if it does not altogether take away, the power of the National Government to protect the Federal elections by the civil authorities, I am forced to the conclusion that it ought not to receive my approval.

This section is, however, not presented to me as a separate and independent measure, but is, as has been stated, attached to the bill making the usual annual appropriations for the support of the Army. It makes a vital change in the election laws of the country, which is in no way connected with the use of the Army. It prohibits, under heavy penalties, any person engaged in the civil service of the United States from having any force at the place of any election, prepared to preserve order, to make arrests, to keep the peace, or in any manner to enforce the laws. This is altogether foreign to the purpose of an Army appropriation bill. The practice of tacking to appropriation bills measures not pertinent to such bills did not prevail until more than forty years after the adoption of the Constitution. It has become a common practice. All parties when in power have adopted it. Many abuses and great waste of public money have in this way crept into appropriation bills. The public opinion of the country is against it. The States which have recently adopted constitutions have generally provided a remedy for the evil by enacting that no law shall contain more than one subject, which shall be plainly expressed in its title. The constitutions of more than half of the States contain substantially this provision. The public welfare will be promoted in many ways by a return to the early practice of the Government and to the true principle of legislation, which requires that every measure shall stand or fall according to its own merits. If it were understood that to attach to an appropriation bill a measure irrelevant to the general object of the bill would imperil and probably prevent its final passage and approval, a valuable reform in the parliamentary practice of Congress would be accomplished. The best justification that has been offered for attaching irrelevant riders to appropriation bills is that it is done for convenience sake, to facilitate the passage of measures which are deemed expedient by all the branches of Government which participate in legislation. It can not be claimed that there is any such reason for attaching this amendment of the election laws to the Army appropriation bill. The history of the measure contradicts this assumption. A majority of the House of Representatives in the last Congress was in favor of section 6 of this bill. It was known that a majority of the Senate was opposed to it, and that as a separate measure it could not be adopted. It was attached to the Army appropriation bill to compel the Senate to assent to it. It was plainly announced to the Senate that the Army appropriation bill would not be allowed to pass unless the proposed amendments of the election laws were adopted with it. The Senate refused to assent to the bill on account of this irrelevant section. Congress thereupon adjourned without passing an appropriation bill for the Army, and the present extra session of the Forty-sixth Congress became necessary to furnish the means to carry on the Government.

The ground upon which the action of the House of Representatives is defended has been distinctly stated by many of its advocates. A week before the close of the last session of Congress the doctrine in question was stated by one of its ablest defenders as follows:

It is our duty to repeal these laws. It is not worth while
to attempt the repeal except upon an appropriation bill.
The Republican Senate would not agree to nor the Republican
President sign a bill for such repeal. Whatever objection to
legislation upon appropriation bills may be made in ordinary
cases does not apply where free elections and the liberty of
the citizens are concerned. * * * We have the power to vote
money; let us annex conditions to it, and insist upon the
redress of grievances.

By another distinguished member of the House it was said:

The right of the Representatives of the people to withhold
supplies is as old as English liberty. History records
numerous instances where the Commons, feeling that the people
were oppressed by laws that the Lords would not consent
to repeal by the ordinary methods of legislation, obtained
redress at last by refusing appropriations unless accompanied
by relief measures.

That a question of the gravest magnitude, and new in this country, was raised by this course of proceeding, was fully recognized also by its defenders in the Senate. It was said by a distinguished Senator:

Perhaps no greater question, in the form we are brought to
consider it, was ever considered by the American Congress
in time of peace; for it involves not merely the merits or
demerits of the laws which the House bill proposes to repeal,
but involves the rights, the privileges, the powers, the
duties of the two branches of Congress and of the President
of the United States. It is a vast question; it is a question
whose importance can scarcely be estimated; it is a question
that never yet has been brought so sharply before the American
Congress and the American people as it may be now. It is
a question which sooner or later must be decided, and the
decision must determine what are the powers of the House of
Representatives under the Constitution, and what is the duty
of that House in the view of the framers of that Constitution,
according to its letter and its spirit.

Mr. President, I should approach this question, if I were in
the best possible condition to speak and to argue it, with
very grave diffidence, and certainly with the utmost anxiety;
for no one can think of it as long and as carefully as I have
thought of it without seeing that we are at the beginning,
perhaps, of a struggle that may last as long in this country
as a similar struggle lasted in what we are accustomed to call
the mother land. There the struggle lasted for two centuries
before it was ultimately decided. It is not likely to last so
long here, but it may last until every man in this chamber is
in his grave. It is the question whether or no the House of
Representatives has a right to say, "We will grant supplies
only upon condition that grievances are redressed. We are
the representatives of the taxpayers of the Republic. We, the
House of Representatives, alone have the right to originate
money bills. We, the House of Representatives, have alone the
right to originate bills which grant the money of the people.
The Senate represents States; we represent the taxpayers
of the Republic. We, therefore, by the very terms of the
Constitution, are charged with the duty of originating the
bills which grant the money of the people. We claim the right,
which the House of Commons in England established after two
centuries of contest, to say that we will not grant the money
of the people unless there is a redress of grievances."

Upon the assembling of this Congress, in pursuance of a call for an extra session, which was made necessary by the failure of the Forty-fifth Congress to make the needful appropriations for the support of the Government, the question was presented whether the attempt made in the last Congress to ingraft by construction a new principle upon the Constitution should be persisted in or not. This Congress has ample opportunity and time to pass the appropriation bills, and also to enact any political measures which may be determined upon in separate bills by the usual and orderly methods of proceeding. But the majority of both Houses have deemed it wise to adhere to the principles asserted and maintained in the last Congress by the majority of the House of Representatives. That principle is that the House of Representatives has the sole right to originate bills for raising revenue, and therefore has the right to withhold appropriations upon which the existence of the Government may depend unless the Senate and the President shall give their assent to any legislation which the House may see fit to attach to appropriation bills. To establish this principle is to make a radical, dangerous, and unconstitutional change in the character of our institutions. The various departments of the Government and the Army and the Navy are established by the Constitution or by laws passed in pursuance thereof. Their duties are clearly defined and their support is carefully provided for by law. The money required for this purpose has been collected from the people and is now in the Treasury, ready to be paid out as soon as the appropriation bills are passed. Whether appropriations are made or not, the collection of the taxes will go on. The public money will accumulate in the Treasury. It was not the intention of the framers of the Constitution that any single branch of the Government should have the power to dictate conditions upon which this treasure should be applied to the purpose for which it was collected. Any such intention, if it had been entertained, would have been plainly expressed in the Constitution.

That a majority of the Senate now concurs in the claim of the House adds to the gravity of the situation, but does not alter the question at issue. The new doctrine, if maintained, will result in a consolidation of unchecked and despotic power in the House of Representatives. A bare majority of the House will become the Government. The Executive will no longer be what the framers of the Constitution intended--an equal and independent branch of the Government. It is clearly the constitutional duty of the President to exercise his discretion and judgment upon all bills presented to him without constraint or duress from any other branch of the Government. To say that a majority of either or both of the Houses of Congress may insist upon the approval of a bill under the penalty of stopping all of the operations of the Government for want of the necessary supplies is to deny to the Executive that share of the legislative power which is plainly conferred by the second section of the seventh article of the Constitution. It strikes from the Constitution the qualified negative of the President. It is said that this should be done because it is the peculiar function of the House of Representatives to represent the will of the people. But no single branch or department of the Government has exclusive authority to speak for the American people. The most authentic and solemn expression of their will is contained in the Constitution of the United States. By that Constitution they have ordained and established a Government whose powers are distributed among coordinate branches, which, as far as possible consistently with a harmonious cooperation, are absolutely independent of each other. The people of this country are unwilling to see the supremacy of the Constitution replaced by the omnipotence of any one department of the Government.

The enactment of this bill into a law will establish a precedent which will tend to destroy the equal independence of the several branches of the Government. Its principle places not merely the Senate and the Executive, but the judiciary also, under the coercive dictation of the House. The House alone will be the judge of what constitutes a grievance, and also of the means and measure of redress. An act of Congress to protect elections is now the grievance complained of; but the House may on the same principle determine that any other act of Congress, a treaty made by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate, a nomination or appointment to office, or that a decision or opinion of the Supreme Court is a grievance, and that the measure of redress is to withhold the appropriations required for the support of the offending branch of the Government.

Believing that this bill is a dangerous violation of the spirit and meaning of the Constitution, I am compelled to return it to the House in which it originated without my approval. The qualified negative with which the Constitution invests the President is a trust that involves a duty which he can not decline to perform. With a firm and conscientious purpose to do what I can to preserve unimpaired the constitutional powers and equal independence, not merely of the Executive, but of every branch of the Government, which will be imperiled by the adoption of the principle of this bill, I desire earnestly to urge upon the House of Representatives a return to the wise and wholesome usage of the earlier days of the Republic, which excluded from appropriation bills all irrelevant legislation. By this course you will inaugurate an important reform in the method of Congressional legislation; your action will be in harmony with the fundamental principles of the Constitution and the patriotic sentiment of nationality which is their firm support, and you will restore to the country that feeling of confidence and security and the repose which are so essential to the prosperity of all of our fellow-citizens.

RUTHERFORD B. HAYES.

_To the House of Representatives_:

After a careful consideration of the bill entitled "An act to prohibit military interference at elections," I return it to the House of Representatives, in which it originated, with the following objections to its approval:

In the communication sent to the House of Representatives on the 29th of last month, returning to the House without my approval the bill entitled "An act making appropriations for the support of the Army for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1880, and for other purposes," I endeavored to show, by quotations from the statutes of the United States now in force and by a brief statement of facts in regard to recent elections in the several States, that no additional legislation was necessary to prevent interference with the elections by the military or naval forces of the United States. The fact was presented in that communication that at the time of the passage of the act of June 18, 1878, in relation to the employment of the Army as a _posse comitatus_ or otherwise, it was maintained by its friends that it would establish a vital and fundamental principle which would secure, to the people protection against a standing army. The fact was also referred to that since the passage of this act Congressional, State, and municipal elections have been held throughout the Union, and that in no instance has complaint been made of the presence of United States soldiers at the polls.

Holding, as I do, the opinion that any military interference whatever at the polls is contrary to the spirit of our institutions and would tend to destroy the freedom of elections, and sincerely desiring to concur with Congress in all of its measures, it is with very great regret that I am forced to the conclusion that the bill before me is not only unnecessary to prevent such interference, but is a dangerous departure from long-settled and important constitutional principles.

The true rule as to the employment of military force at the elections is not doubtful. No intimidation or coercion should be allowed to control or influence citizens in the exercise of their right to vote, whether it appears in the shape of combinations of evil-disposed persons, or of armed bodies of the militia of a State, or of the military force of the United States.

The elections should be free from all forcible interference, and, as far as practicable, from all apprehensions of such interference. No soldiers, either of the Union or of the State militia, should be present at the polls to take the place or to perform the duties of the ordinary civil police force. There has been and will be no violation of this rule under orders from me during this Administration; but there should be no denial of the right of the National Government to employ its military force on any day and at any place in case such employment is necessary to enforce the Constitution and laws of the United States.

The bill before me is as follows:

_Be it enacted, etc._, That it shall not be lawful to bring to
or employ at any place where a general or special election
is being held in a State any part of the Army or Navy of the
United States, unless such force be necessary to repel the
armed enemies of the United States or to enforce section 4,
Article IV, of the Constitution of the United States and
the laws made in pursuance thereof, on application of the
legislature or executive of the State where such force is to
be used; and so much of all laws as is inconsistent herewith
is hereby repealed.

It will be observed that the bill exempts from the general prohibition against the employment of military force at the polls two specified cases. These exceptions recognize and concede the soundness of the principle that military force may properly and constitutionally be used at the place of elections when such use is necessary to enforce the Constitution and the laws; but the excepted cases leave the prohibition so extensive and far-reaching that its adoption will seriously impair the efficiency of the executive department of the Government.

The first act expressly authorizing the use of military power to execute the laws was passed almost as early as the organization of the Government under the Constitution, and was approved by President Washington May 2, 1792. It is as follows:

SEC. 2. _And be it further enacted_, That whenever the laws
of the United States shall be opposed or the execution thereof
obstructed in any State by combinations too powerful to be
suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings or
by the powers vested in the marshals by this act, the same
being notified to the President of the United States by an
associate justice or the district judge, it shall be lawful
for the President of the United States to call forth the
militia of such State to suppress such combinations and to
cause the laws to be duly executed. And if the militia of a
State where such combination may happen shall refuse or be
insufficient to suppress the same, it shall be lawful for the
President, if the Legislature of the United States be not in
session, to call forth and employ such numbers of the militia
of any other State or States most convenient thereto as may be
necessary; and the use of militia so to be called forth may be
continued, if necessary, until the expiration of thirty days
after the commencement of the ensuing session.

In 1795 this provision was substantially reenacted in a law which repealed the act of 1792. In 1807 the following act became the law by the approval of President Jefferson:

That in all cases of insurrection or obstruction to the laws,
either of the United States or of any individual State or
Territory, where it is lawful for the President of the
United States to call forth the militia for the purpose of
suppressing such insurrection or of causing the laws to be
duly executed, it shall be lawful for him to employ for the
same purposes such part of the land or naval force of the
United States as shall be judged necessary, having first
observed all the prerequisites of the law in that respect.

By this act it will be seen that the scope of the law of 1795 was extended so as to authorize the National Government to use not only the militia, but the Army and Navy of the United States, in "causing the laws to be duly executed."

The important provision of the acts of 1792, 1795, and 1807, modified in its terms from time to time to adapt it to the existing emergency, remained in force until, by an act approved by President Lincoln July 29, 1861, it was reenacted substantially in the same language in which it is now found in the Revised Statutes, viz:

SEC. 5298. Whenever, by reason of unlawful obstructions,
combinations, or assemblages of persons, or rebellion against
the authority of the Government of the United States, it shall
become impracticable, in the judgment of the President, to
enforce by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings the
laws of the United States within any State or Territory, it
shall be lawful for the President to call forth the militia of
any or all the States and to employ such parts of the land and
naval forces of the United States as he may deem necessary
to enforce the faithful execution of the laws of the United
States or to suppress such rebellion, in whatever State
or Territory thereof the laws of the United States may be
forcibly opposed or the execution thereof forcibly obstructed.

This ancient and fundamental law has been in force from the foundation of the Government. It is now proposed to abrogate it on certain days and at certain places. In my judgment no fact has been produced which tends to show that it ought to be repealed or suspended for a single hour at any place in any of the States or Territories of the Union. All the teachings of experience in the course of our history are in favor of sustaining its efficiency unimpaired. On every occasion when the supremacy of the Constitution has been resisted and the perpetuity of our institutions imperiled the principle of this statute, enacted by the fathers, has enabled the Government of the Union to maintain its authority and to preserve the integrity of the nation.

At the most critical periods of our history my predecessors in the executive office have relied on this great principle. It was on this principle that President Washington suppressed the whisky rebellion in Pennsylvania in 1794.

In 1806, on the same principle, President Jefferson broke up the Burr conspiracy by issuing "orders for the employment of such force, either of the regulars or of the militia, and by such proceedings of the civil authorities, * * * as might enable them to suppress effectually the further progress of the enterprise." And it was under the same authority that President Jackson crushed nullification in South Carolina and that President Lincoln issued his call for troops to save the Union in 1861. On numerous other occasions of less significance, under probably every Administration, and certainly under the present, this power has been usefully exerted to enforce the laws, without objection by any party in the country, and almost without attracting public attention.

The great elementary constitutional principle which was the foundation of the original statute of 1792, and which has been its essence in the various forms it has assumed since its first adoption, is that the Government of the United States possesses under the Constitution, in full measure, the power of self-protection by its own agencies, altogether independent of State authority, and, if need be, against the hostility of State governments. It should remain embodied in our statutes unimpaired, as it has been from the very origin of the Government. It should be regarded as hardly less valuable or less sacred than a provision of the Constitution itself.

There are many other important statutes containing provisions that are liable to be suspended or annulled at the times and places of holding elections if the bill before me should become a law. I do not undertake to furnish a list of them. Many of them--perhaps the most of them--have been set forth in the debates on this measure. They relate to extradition, to crimes against the election laws, to quarantine regulations, to neutrality, to Indian reservations, to the civil rights of citizens, and to other subjects. In regard to them all it may be safely said that the meaning and effect of this bill is to take from the General Government an important part of its power to enforce the laws.

Another grave objection to the bill is its discrimination in favor of the State and against the national authority. The presence or employment of the Army or Navy of the United States is lawful under the terms of this bill at the place where an election is being held in a State to uphold the authority of a State government then and there in need of such military intervention, but unlawful to uphold the authority of the Government of the United States then and there in need of such military intervention. Under this bill the presence or employment of the Army or Navy of the United States would be lawful and might be necessary to maintain the conduct of a State election against the domestic violence that would overthrow it, but would be unlawful to maintain the conduct of a national election against the same local violence that would overthrow it. This discrimination has never been attempted in any previous legislation by Congress, and is no more compatible with sound principles of the Constitution or the necessary maxims and methods of our system of government on occasions of elections than at other times. In the early legislation of 1792 and of 1795, by which the militia of the States was the only military power resorted to for the execution of the constitutional powers in support of State or national authority, both functions of the Government were put upon the same footing. By the act of 1807 the employment of the Army and Navy was authorized for the performance of both constitutional duties in the same terms.

In all later statutes on the same subject-matter the same measure of authority to the Government has been accorded for the performance of both these duties. No precedent has been found in any previous legislation, and no sufficient reason has been given for the discrimination in favor of the State and against the national authority which this bill contains.

Under the sweeping terms of the bill the National Government is effectually shut out from the exercise of the right and from the discharge of the imperative duty to use its whole executive power whenever and wherever required for the enforcement of its laws at the places and times when and where its elections are held. The employment of its organized armed forces for any such purpose would be an offense against the law unless called for by, and therefore upon permission of, the authorities of the State in which the occasion arises. What is this but the substitution of the discretion of the State governments for the discretion of the Government of the United States as to the performance of its own duties? In my judgment this is an abandonment of its obligations by the National Government--a subordination of national authority and an intrusion of State supervision over national duties which amounts, in spirit and tendency, to State supremacy.

Though I believe that the existing statutes are abundantly adequate to completely prevent military interference with the elections in the sense in which the phrase is used in the title of this bill and is employed by the people of this country, I shall find no difficulty in concurring in any additional legislation limited to that object which does not interfere with the indispensable exercise of the powers of the Government under the Constitution and laws.

R.B. HAYES.

MAY 12, 1879.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, _May 29, 1879_.

_To the House of Representatives_:

After mature consideration of the bill entitled "An act making appropriations for the legislative, executive, and judicial expenses of the Government for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1880, and for other purposes," I herewith return it to the House of Representatives, in which it originated, with the following objections to its approval:

The main purpose of the bill is to appropriate the money required to support during the next fiscal year the several civil departments of the Government. The amount appropriated exceeds in the aggregate $18,000,000.

This money is needed to keep in operation the essential functions of all the great departments of the Government--legislative, executive, and judicial. If the bill contained no other provisions, no objection to its approval would be made. It embraces, however, a number of clauses, relating to subjects of great general interest, which are wholly unconnected with the appropriations which it provides for. The objections to the practice of tacking general legislation to appropriation bills, especially when the object is to deprive a coordinate branch of the Government of its right to the free exercise of its own discretion and judgment touching such general legislation, were set forth in the special message in relation to House bill No. 1, which was returned to the House of Representatives on the 29th of last month. I regret that the objections which were then expressed to this method of legislation have not seemed to Congress of sufficient weight to dissuade from this renewed incorporation of general enactments in an appropriation bill, and that my constitutional duty in respect of the general legislation thus placed before me can not be discharged without seeming to delay, however briefly, the necessary appropriations by Congress for the support of the Government. Without repeating these objections, I respectfully refer to that message for a statement of my views on the principle maintained in debate by the advocates of this bill, viz, that "to withhold appropriations is a constitutional means for the redress" of what the majority of the House of Representatives may regard as "a grievance."

The bill contains the following clauses, viz:

_And provided further_, That the following sections of the
Revised Statutes of the United States, namely, sections 2016,
2018, and 2020, and all of the succeeding sections of said
statutes down to and including section 2027, and also section
5522, be, and the same are hereby, repealed; * * * and that
all the other sections of the Revised Statutes, and all
laws and parts of laws authorizing the appointment of
chief supervisors of elections, special deputy marshals of
elections, or general deputy marshals having any duties to
perform in respect to any election, and prescribing their
duties and powers and allowing them compensation, be, and the
same are hereby, repealed.

It also contains clauses amending sections 2017, 2019, 2028, and 2031 of the Revised Statutes.

The sections of the Revised Statutes which the bill, if approved, would repeal or amend are part of an act approved May 30, 1870, and amended February 28, 1871, entitled "An act to enforce the rights of citizens of the United States to vote in the several States of this Union, and for other purposes." All of the provisions of the above-named acts which it is proposed in this bill to repeal or modify relate to the Congressional elections. The remaining portion of the law, which will continue in force after the enactment of this measure, is that which provides for the appointment, by a judge of the circuit court of the United States, of two supervisors of election in each election district at any Congressional election, on due application of citizens who desire, in the language of the law, "to have such election _guarded_ and _scrutinized_." The duties of the supervisors will be to attend at the polls at all Congressional elections, and to remain after the polls are open until every vote cast has been counted; but they will "have no authority to make arrests or to perform other duties than to be in the immediate presence of the officers holding the election and to witness all their proceedings, including the counting of the votes and the making of a return thereof." The part of the election law which will be repealed by the approval of this bill includes those sections which give authority to the supervisors of elections "to personally scrutinize, count, and canvass each ballot," and all the sections which confer authority upon the United States marshals and deputy marshals in connection with the Congressional elections. The enactment of this bill will also repeal section 5522 of the criminal statutes of the United States, which was enacted for the protection of United States officers engaged in the discharge of their duties at the Congressional elections. This section protects supervisors and marshals in the performance of their duties by making the obstruction or the assaulting of these officers, or any interference with them, by bribery or solicitation or otherwise, crimes against the United States.

The true meaning and effect of the proposed legislation are plain. The supervisors, with the authority to observe and witness the proceedings at the Congressional elections, will be left, but there will be no power to protect them, or to prevent interference with their duties, or to punish any violation of the law from which their powers are derived. If this bill is approved, only the shadow of the authority of the United States at the national elections will remain; the substance will be gone. The supervision of the elections will be reduced to a mere inspection, without authority on the part of the supervisors to do any act whatever to make the election a fair one. All that will be left to the supervisors is the permission to have such oversight of the elections as political parties are in the habit of exercising without any authority of law, in order to prevent their opponents from obtaining unfair advantages. The object of the bill is to destroy any control whatever by the United States over the Congressional elections.

The passage of this bill has been urged upon the ground that the election of members of Congress is a matter which concerns the States alone; that these elections should be controlled exclusively by the States; that there are and can be no such elections as national elections, and that the existing law of the United States regulating the Congressional elections is without warrant in the Constitution.

It is evident, however, that the framers of the Constitution regarded the election of members of Congress in every State and in every district as in a very important sense justly a matter of political interest and concern to the whole country. The original provision of the Constitution on this subject is as follows (sec. 4, Art. I):

The times, places, and manner of holding elections for
Senators and Representatives shall be prescribed in each State
by the legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time,
by law, make or alter such regulations, except as to the
places of choosing Senators.

A further provision has been since added, which is embraced in the fifteenth amendment. It is as follows:

SEC. 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote
shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by
any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of
servitude.

SEC. 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article
by appropriate legislation.

Under the general provision of the Constitution (sec. 4, Art. I) Congress in 1866 passed a comprehensive law which prescribed full and detailed regulations for the election of Senators by the legislatures of the several States. This law has been in force almost thirteen years. In pursuance of it all the members of the present Senate of the United States hold their seats. Its constitutionality is not called in question. It is confidently believed that no sound argument can be made in support of the constitutionality of national regulation of Senatorial elections which will not show that the elections of members of the House of Representatives may also be constitutionally regulated by the national authority.

The bill before me itself recognizes the principle that the Congressional elections are not State elections, but national elections. It leaves in full force the existing statute under which supervisors are still to be appointed by national authority to "observe and witness" the Congressional elections whenever due application is made by citizens who desire said elections to be "guarded and scrutinized." If the power to supervise in any respect whatever the Congressional elections exists under section 4, Article I, of the Constitution, it is a power which, like every other power belonging to the Government of the United States, is paramount and supreme, and includes the right to employ the necessary means to carry it into effect.

The statutes of the United States which regulate the election of members of the House of Representatives, an essential part of which it is proposed to repeal by this bill, have been in force about eight years. Four Congressional elections have been held under them, two of which were at the Presidential elections of 1872 and 1876. Numerous prosecutions, trials, and convictions have been had in the courts of the United States in all parts of the Union for violations of these laws. In no reported case has their constitutionality been called in question by any judge of the courts of the United States. The validity of these laws is sustained by the uniform course of judicial action and opinion.

If it is urged that the United States election laws are not necessary, an ample reply is furnished by the history of their origin and of their results. They were especially prompted by the investigation and exposure of the frauds committed in the city and State of New York at the elections of 1868. Committees representing both of the leading political parties of the country have submitted reports to the House of Representatives on the extent of those frauds. A committee of the Fortieth Congress, after a full investigation, reached the conclusion that the number of fraudulent votes cast in the city of New York alone in 1868 was not less than 25,000. A committee of the Forty-fourth Congress in their report, submitted in 1877, adopted the opinion that for every 100 actual voters of the city of New York in 1868 108 votes were cast, when in fact the number of lawful votes cast could not have exceeded 88 per cent of the actual voters of the city. By this statement the number of fraudulent votes at that election in the city of New York alone was between thirty and forty thousand. These frauds completely reversed the result of the election in the State of New York, both as to the choice of governor and State officers and as to the choice of electors of President and Vice-President of the United States. They attracted the attention of the whole country. It was plain that if they could be continued and repeated with impunity free government was impossible. A distinguished Senator, in opposing the passage of the election laws, declared that he had "for a long time believed that our form of government was a comparative failure in the larger cities." To meet these evils and to prevent these crimes the United States laws regulating Congressional elections were enacted.

The framers of these laws have not been disappointed in their results. In the large cities, under their provisions, the elections have been comparatively peaceable, orderly, and honest. Even the opponents of these laws have borne testimony to their value and efficiency and to the necessity for their enactment. The committee of the Forty-fourth Congress, composed of members a majority of whom were opposed to these laws, in their report on the New York election of 1876, said:

The committee would commend to other portions of the country
and to other cities this remarkable system, developed through
the agency of both local and Federal authorities acting in
harmony for an honest purpose. In no portion of the world and
in no era of time where there has been an expression of the
popular will through the forms of law has there been a more
complete and thorough illustration of republican institutions.
Whatever may have been the previous habit or conduct of
elections in those cities, or howsoever they may conduct
themselves in the future, this election of 1876 will stand as
a monument of what good faith, honest endeavor, legal forms,
and just authority may do for the protection of the electoral
franchise.

This bill recognizes the authority and duty of the United States to appoint supervisors to guard and scrutinize the Congressional elections, but it denies to the Government of the United States all power to make its supervision effectual. The great body of the people of all parties want free and fair elections. They do not think that a free election means freedom from the wholesome restraints of law or that the place of election should be a sanctuary for lawlessness and crime. On the day of an election peace and good order are more necessary than on any other day of the year. On that day the humblest and feeblest citizens, the aged and the infirm, should be, and should have reason to feel that they are, safe in the exercise of their most responsible duty and their most sacred right as members of society--their duty and their right to vote. The constitutional authority to regulate the Congressional elections which belongs to the Government of the United States, and which it is necessary to exert to secure the right to vote to every citizen possessing the requisite qualifications, ought to be enforced by appropriate legislation. So far from public opinion in any part of the country favoring any relaxation of the authority of the Government in the protection of elections from violence and corruption, I believe it demands greater vigor both in the enactment and in the execution of the laws framed for that purpose. Any oppression, any partisan partiality, which experience may have shown in the working of existing laws may well engage the careful attention both of Congress and of the Executive, in their respective spheres of duty, for the correction of these mischiefs. As no Congressional elections occur until after the regular session of Congress will have been held, there seems to be no public exigency that would preclude a seasonable consideration at that session of any administrative details that might improve the present methods designed for the protection of all citizens in the complete and equal exercise of the right and power of the suffrage at such elections. But with my views, both of the constitutionality and of the value of the existing laws, I can not approve any measure for their repeal except in connection with the enactment of other legislation which may reasonably be expected to afford wiser and more efficient safeguards for free and honest Congressional elections.

RUTHERFORD B. HAYES.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, _June 23, 1879_.

_To the House of Representatives_:

After careful examination of the bill entitled "An act making appropriations for certain judicial expenses," I return it herewith to the House of Representatives, in which it originated, with the following objections to its approval:

The general purpose of the bill is to provide for certain judicial expenses of the Government for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1880, for which the sum of $2,690,000 is appropriated. These appropriations are required to keep in operation the general functions of the judicial department of the Government, and if this part of the bill stood alone there would be no objection to its approval. It contains, however, other provisions, to which I desire respectfully to ask your attention.

At the present session of Congress a majority of both Houses, favoring a repeal of the Congressional election laws embraced in title 26 of the Revised Statutes, passed a measure for that purpose, as part of a bill entitled "An act making appropriations for the legislative, executive, and judicial expenses of the Government for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1880, and for other purposes." Unable to concur with Congress in that measure, on the 29th of May last I returned the bill to the House of Representatives, in which it originated, without my approval, for that further consideration for which the Constitution provides. On reconsideration the bill was approved by less than two-thirds of the House, and failed to become a law. The election laws therefore remain valid enactments, and the supreme law of the land, binding not only upon all private citizens, but also alike and equally binding upon all who are charged with the duties and responsibilities of the legislative, the executive, and the judicial departments of the Government.

It is not sought by the bill before me to repeal the election laws. Its object is to defeat their enforcement. The last clause of the first section is as follows:

And no part of the money hereby appropriated is appropriated
to pay any salaries, compensation, fees, or expenses under
or in virtue of title 26 of the Revised Statutes, or of any
provision of said title.

Title 26 of the Revised Statutes, referred to in the foregoing clause, relates to the elective franchise, and contains the laws now in force regulating the Congressional elections.

The second section of the bill reaches much further. It is as follows:

SEC. 2. That the sums appropriated in this act for the persons
and public service embraced in its provisions are in full for
such persons and public service for the fiscal year ending
June 30, 1880; and no Department or officer of the Government
shall during said fiscal year make any contract or incur any
liability for the future payment of money under any of the
provisions of title 26 of the Revised Statutes of the United
States authorizing the appointment or payment of general
or special deputy marshals for service in connection with
elections or on election day until an appropriation sufficient
to meet such contract or pay such liability shall have first
been made by law.

This section of the bill is intended to make an extensive and essential change in the existing laws. The following are the provisions of the statutes on the same subject which are now in force:

SEC. 3679. 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.

SEC. 3732. 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.

The object of these sections of the Revised Statutes is plain. It is, first, to prevent any money from being expended unless appropriations have been made therefor, and, second, to prevent the Government from being bound by any contract not previously authorized by law, except for certain necessary purposes in the War and Navy Departments.

Under the existing laws the failure of Congress to make the appropriations required for the execution of the provisions of the election laws would not prevent their enforcement. The right and duty to appoint the general and special deputy marshals which they provide for would still remain, and the executive department of the Government would also be empowered to incur the requisite liability for their compensation. But the second section of this bill contains a prohibition not found in any previous legislation. Its design is to render the election laws inoperative and a dead letter during the next fiscal year. It is sought to accomplish this by omitting to appropriate money for their enforcement and by expressly prohibiting any Department or officer of the Government from incurring any liability under any of the provisions of title 26 of the Revised Statutes authorizing the appointment or payment of general or special deputy marshals for service on election days until an appropriation sufficient to pay such liability shall have first been made.

The President is called upon to give his affirmative approval to positive enactments which in effect deprive him of the ordinary and necessary means of executing laws still left in the statute book and embraced within his constitutional duty to see that the laws are executed. If he approves the bill, and thus gives to such positive enactments the authority of law, he participates in the curtailment of his means of seeing that the law is faithfully executed, while the obligation of the law and of his constitutional duty remains unimpaired.

The appointment of special deputy marshals is not made by the statute a spontaneous act of authority on the part of any executive or judicial officer of the Government, but is accorded as a popular right of the citizens to call into operation this agency for securing the purity and freedom of elections in any city or town having 20,000 inhabitants or upward. Section 2021 of the Revised Statutes puts it in the power of any two citizens of such city or town to require of the marshal of the district the appointment of these special deputy marshals. Thereupon the duty of the marshal becomes imperative, and its nonperformance would expose him to judicial mandate or punishment or to removal from office by the President, as the circumstances of his conduct might require. The bill now before me neither revokes this popular right of the citizens, nor relieves the marshal of the duty imposed by law, nor the President of his duty to see that this law is faithfully executed.

I forbear to enter again upon any general discussion of the wisdom and necessity of the election laws or of the dangerous and unconstitutional principle of this bill--that the power vested in Congress to originate appropriations involves the right to compel the Executive to approve any legislation which Congress may see fit to attach to such bills, under the penalty of refusing the means needed to carry on essential functions of the Government. My views on these subjects have been sufficiently presented in the special messages sent by me to the House of Representatives during their present session. What was said in those messages I regard as conclusive as to my duty in respect to the bill before me. The arguments urged in those communications against the repeal of the election laws and against the right of Congress to deprive the Executive of that separate and independent discretion and judgment which the Constitution confers and requires are equally cogent in opposition to this bill. This measure leaves the powers and duties of the supervisors of elections untouched. The compensation of those officers is provided for under permanent laws, and no liability for which an appropriation is now required would therefore be incurred by their appointment. But the power of the National Government to protect them in the discharge of their duty at the polls would be taken away. The States may employ both civil and military power at the elections, but by this bill even the civil authority to protect Congressional elections is denied to the United States. The object is to prevent any adequate control by the United States over the national elections by forbidding the payment of deputy marshals, the officers who are clothed with authority to enforce the election laws.