Chapter 13

_To the Senate of the United States_:

I return to the Senate, in which it originated, the bill entitled "An act to provide for the ascertainment and satisfaction of claims of American citizens for spoliations committed by the French prior to the 31st day of July, 1801," which was presented to me on the 6th instant, with my objections to its becoming a law.

In attempting to give to the bill the careful examination it requires, difficulties presented themselves in the outset from the remoteness of the period to which the claims belong, the complicated nature of the transactions in which they originated, and the protracted negotiations to which they led between France and the United States.

The short time intervening between the passage of the bill by Congress and the approaching close of their session, as well as the pressure of other official duties, have not permitted me to extend my examination of the subject into its minute details; but in the consideration which I have been able to give to it I find objections of a grave character to its provisions.

For the satisfaction of the claims provided for by the bill it is proposed to appropriate $5,000,000. I can perceive no legal or equitable ground upon which this large appropriation can rest. A portion of the claims have been more than half a century before the Government in its executive or legislative departments, and all of them had their origin in events which occurred prior to the year 1800. Since 1802 they have been from time to time before Congress. No greater necessity or propriety exists for providing for these claims at this time than has existed for near half a century, during all which period this questionable measure has never until now received the favorable consideration of Congress. It is scarcely probable, if the claim had been regarded as obligatory upon the Government or constituting an equitable demand upon the Treasury, that those who were contemporaneous with the events which gave rise to it should not long since have done justice to the claimants. The Treasury has often been in a condition to enable the Government to do so without inconvenience if these claims had been considered just. Mr. Jefferson, who was fully cognizant of the early dissensions between the Governments of the United States and France, out of which the claims arose, in his annual message in 1808 adverted to the large surplus then in the Treasury and its "probable accumulation," and inquired whether it should "lie unproductive in the public vaults;" and yet these claims, though then before Congress, were not recognized or paid. Since that time the public debt of the Revolution and of the War of 1812 has been extinguished, and at several periods since the Treasury has been in possession of large surpluses over the demands upon it. In 1836 the surplus amounted to many millions of dollars, and, for want of proper objects to which to apply it, it was directed by Congress to be deposited with the States.

During this extended course of time, embracing periods eminently favorable for satisfying all just demands upon the Government, the claims embraced in this bill met with no favor in Congress beyond reports of committees in one or the other branch. These circumstances alone are calculated to raise strong doubts in respect to these claims, more especially as all the information necessary to a correct judgment concerning them has been long before the public. These doubts are strengthened in my mind by the examination I have been enabled to give to the transactions in which they originated.

The bill assumes that the United States have become liable in these ancient transactions to make reparation to the claimants for injuries committed by France. Nothing was obtained for the claimants by negotiation; and the bill assumes that the Government has become responsible to them for the aggressions of France. I have not been able to satisfy myself of the correctness of this assumption, or that the Government has become in any way responsible for these claims. The limited time allotted me before your adjournment precludes the possibility of reiterating the facts and arguments by which in preceding Congresses these claims have been successfully resisted.

The present is a period peculiarly unfavorable for the satisfaction of claims of so large an amount and, to say the least of them, of so doubtful a character. There is no surplus in the Treasury. A public debt of several millions of dollars has been created within the last few years.

We are engaged in a foreign war, uncertain in its duration and involving heavy expenditures, to prosecute which Congress has at its present session authorized a further loan; so that in effect the Government, should this bill become a law, borrows money and increases the public debt to pay these claims.

It is true that by the provisions of the bill payment is directed to be made in land scrip instead of money, but the effect upon the Treasury will be the same. The public lands constitute one of the sources of public revenue, and if these claims be paid in land scrip it will from the date of its issue to a great extent cut off from the Treasury the annual income from the sales of the public lands, because payments for lands sold by the Government may be expected to be made in scrip until it is all redeemed. If these claims be just, they ought to be paid in money, and not in anything less valuable. The bill provides that they shall be paid in land scrip, whereby they are made in effect to be a mortgage upon the public lands in the new States; a mortgage, too, held in great part, if not wholly, by nonresidents of the States in which the lands lie, who may secure these lands to the amount of several millions of acres, and then demand for them exorbitant prices from the citizens of the States who may desire to purchase them for settlement, or they may keep them out of the market, and thus retard the prosperity and growth of the States in which they are situated. Why this unusual mode of satisfying demands on the Treasury has been resorted to does not appear. It is not consistent with a sound public policy. If it be done in this case, it may be done in all others. It would form a precedent for the satisfaction of all other stale and questionable claims in the same manner, and would undoubtedly be resorted to by all claimants who after successive trials shall fail to have their claims recognized and paid in money by Congress.

This bill proposes to appropriate $5,000,000, to be paid in land scrip, and provides that "no claim or memorial shall be received by the commissioners" authorized by the act "unless accompanied by a release or discharge of the United States from all other and further compensation" than the claimant "may be entitled to receive under the provisions of this act." These claims are estimated to amount to a much larger sum than $5,000,000, and yet the claimant is required to release to the Government all other compensation, and to accept his share of a fund which is known to be inadequate. If the claims be well founded, it would be unjust to the claimants to repudiate any portion of them, and the payment of the remaining sum could not be hereafter resisted. This bill proposes to pay these claims not in the currency known to the Constitution, and not to their full amount.

Passed, as this bill has been, near the close of the session, and when many measures of importance necessarily claim the attention of Congress, and possibly without that full and deliberate consideration which the large sum it appropriates and the existing condition of the Treasury and of the country demand, I deem it to be my duty to withhold my approval, that it may hereafter undergo the revision of Congress. I have come to this conclusion with regret. In interposing my objections to its becoming a law I am fully sensible that it should be an extreme case which would make it the duty of the Executive to withhold his approval of any bill passed by Congress upon the ground of its inexpediency alone. Such a case I consider this to be.

JAMES K. POLK.

PROCLAMATIONS.

[From Statutes at Large (Little & Brown), Vol. IX, p. 999.]

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas by an act of the Congress of the United States of the 3d of March, 1845, entitled "An act allowing drawback upon foreign merchandise exported in the original packages to Chihuahua and Santa Fe, in Mexico, and to the British North American Provinces adjoining the United States," certain privileges are extended in reference to drawback to ports therein specially enumerated in the seventh section of said act, which also provides "that such other ports situated on the frontiers of the United States adjoining the British North American Provinces as may hereafter be found expedient may have extended to them the like privileges on the recommendation of the Secretary of the Treasury and proclamation duly made by the President of the United States specially designating the ports to which the aforesaid privileges are to be extended;" and

Whereas the Secretary of the Treasury has duly recommended to me the extension of the privileges of the law aforesaid to the port of Lewiston, in the collection district of Niagara, in the State of New York:

Now, therefore, I, James K. Polk, President of the United States of America, do hereby declare and proclaim that the port of Lewiston, in the collection district of Niagara, in the State of New York, is and shall be entitled to all the privileges extended to the other ports enumerated in the seventh section of the act aforesaid from and after the date of this proclamation.

In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

[SEAL.]

Done at the city of Washington, this 17th day of January, A.D. 1846, and of the Independence of the United States of America the seventieth.

JAMES K. POLK.

By the President: JAMES BUCHANAN, _Secretary of State_.

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas the Congress of the United States, by virtue of the constitutional authority vested in them, have declared by their act bearing date this day that "by the act of the Republic of Mexico a state of war exists between that Government and the United States:"

Now, therefore, I, James K. Polk, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim the same to all whom it may concern; and I do specially enjoin on all persons holding offices, civil or military, under the authority of the United States that they be vigilant and zealous in discharging the duties respectively incident thereto; and I do, moreover, exhort all the good people of the United States, as they love their country, as they feel the wrongs which have forced on them the last resort of injured nations, and as they consult the best means, under the blessing of Divine Providence, of abridging its calamities, that they exert themselves in preserving order, in promoting concord, in maintaining the authority and the efficacy of the laws, and in supporting and invigorating all the measures which may be adopted by the constituted authorities for obtaining a speedy, a just, and an honorable peace.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed to these presents.

[SEAL.]

Done at the city of Washington, the 13th day of May, A.D. 1846, of the Independence of the United States the seventieth.

JAMES K. POLK.

By the President: JAMES BUCHANAN, _Secretary of State_.

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas by the act of Congress approved July 9, 1846, entitled "An act to retrocede the county of Alexandria, in the District of Columbia, to the State of Virginia," it is enacted that, with the assent of the people of the county and town of Alexandria, to be ascertained in the manner therein prescribed, all that portion of the District of Columbia ceded to the United States by the State of Virginia and all the rights and jurisdiction therewith ceded over the same shall be ceded and forever relinquished to the State of Virginia in full and absolute right and jurisdiction, as well of soil as of persons residing or to reside thereon; and

Whereas it is further provided that the said act "shall not be in force until after the assent of the people of the county and town of Alexandria shall be given to it in the mode therein provided," and, if a majority of the votes should be in favor of accepting the provisions of the said act, it shall be the duty of the President to make proclamation of the fact; and

Whereas on the 17th day of August, 1846, after the close of the late session of the Congress of the United States, I duly appointed five citizens of the county or town of Alexandria, being freeholders within the same, as commissioners, who, being duly sworn to perform the duties imposed on them as prescribed in the said act, did proceed within ten days after they were notified to fix upon the 1st and 2d days of September, 1846, as the time, the court-house of the county of Alexandria as the place, and _viva voce_ as the manner of voting, and gave due notice of the same; and at the time and at the place, in conformity with the said notice, the said commissioners presiding and deciding all questions arising in relation to the right of voting under the said act, the votes of the citizens qualified to vote were taken _viva voce_ and recorded in poll books duly kept, and on the 3d day of September instant, after the said polls were closed, the said commissioners did make out and on the next day did transmit to me a statement of the polls so held, upon oath and under their seals; and of the votes so cast and polled there were in favor of accepting the provisions of the said act 763 votes, and against accepting the same 222, showing a majority of 541 votes for the acceptance of the same:

Now, therefore, be it known that I, James K. Polk, President of the United States of America, in fulfillment of the duty imposed upon me by the said act of Congress, do hereby make proclamation of the "result" of said "poll" as above stated, and do call upon all and singular the persons whom it doth or may concern to take notice that the act aforesaid "is in full force and effect."

In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

[SEAL.]

Done at the city of Washington, this 7th day of September, A.D. 1846, and of the Independence of the United States the seventy-first.

JAMES K. POLK.

By the President: N.P. TRIST, _Acting Secretary of State_.

SECOND ANNUAL MESSAGE.

WASHINGTON, _December 8, 1846_.

_Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and of the House of Representatives:_

In resuming your labors in the service of the people it is a subject of congratulation that there has been no period in our past history when all the elements of national prosperity have been so fully developed. Since your last session no afflicting dispensation has visited our country. General good health has prevailed, abundance has crowned the toil of the husbandman, and labor in all its branches is receiving an ample reward, while education, science, and the arts are rapidly enlarging the means of social happiness. The progress of our country in her career of greatness, not only in the vast extension of our territorial limits and the rapid increase of our population, but in resources and wealth and in the happy condition of our people, is without an example in the history of nations.

As the wisdom, strength, and beneficence of our free institutions are unfolded, every day adds fresh motives to contentment and fresh incentives to patriotism.

Our devout and sincere acknowledgments are due to the gracious Giver of All Good for the numberless blessings which our beloved country enjoys.

It is a source of high satisfaction to know that the relations of the United States with all other nations, with a single exception, are of the most amicable character. Sincerely attached to the policy of peace early adopted and steadily pursued by this Government, I have anxiously desired to cultivate and cherish friendship and commerce with every foreign power. The spirit and habits of the American people are favorable to the maintenance of such international harmony. In adhering to this wise policy, a preliminary and paramount duty obviously consists in the protection of our national interests from encroachment or sacrifice and our national honor from reproach. These must be maintained at any hazard. They admit of no compromise or neglect, and must be scrupulously and constantly guarded. In their vigilant vindication collision and conflict with foreign powers may sometimes become unavoidable. Such has been our scrupulous adherence to the dictates of justice in all our foreign intercourse that, though steadily and rapidly advancing in prosperity and power, we have given no just cause of complaint to any nation and have enjoyed the blessings of peace for more than thirty years. From a policy so sacred to humanity and so salutary in its effects upon our political system we should never be induced voluntarily to depart.

The existing war with Mexico was neither desired nor provoked by the United States. On the contrary, all honorable means were resorted to to avert it. After years of endurance of aggravated and unredressed wrongs on our part, Mexico, in violation of solemn treaty stipulations and of every principle of justice recognized by civilized nations, commenced hostilities, and thus by her own act forced the war upon us. Long before the advance of our Army to the left bank of the Rio Grande we had ample cause of war against Mexico, and had the United States resorted to this extremity we might have appealed to the whole civilized world for the justice of our cause. I deem it to be my duty to present to you on the present occasion a condensed review of the injuries we had sustained, of the causes which led to the war, and of its progress since its commencement. This is rendered the more necessary because of the misapprehensions which have to some extent prevailed as to its origin and true character. The war has been represented as unjust and unnecessary and as one of aggression on our part upon a weak and injured enemy. Such erroneous views, though entertained by but few, have been widely and extensively circulated, not only at home, but have been spread throughout Mexico and the whole world. A more effectual means could not have been devised to encourage the enemy and protract the war than to advocate and adhere to their cause, and thus give them "aid and comfort." It is a source of national pride and exultation that the great body of our people have thrown no such obstacles in the way of the Government in prosecuting the war successfully, but have shown themselves to be eminently patriotic and ready to vindicate their country's honor and interests at any sacrifice. The alacrity and promptness with which our volunteer forces rushed to the field on their country's call prove not only their patriotism, but their deep conviction that our cause is just.

The wrongs which we have suffered from Mexico almost ever since she became an independent power and the patient endurance with which we have borne them are without a parallel in the history of modern civilized nations. There is reason to believe that if these wrongs had been resented and resisted in the first instance the present war might have been avoided. One outrage, however, permitted to pass with impunity almost necessarily encouraged the perpetration of another, until at last Mexico seemed to attribute to weakness and indecision on our part a forbearance which was the offspring of magnanimity and of a sincere desire to preserve friendly relations with a sister republic.

Scarcely had Mexico achieved her independence, which the United States were the first among the nations to acknowledge, when she commenced the system of insult and spoliation which she has ever since pursued. Our citizens engaged in lawful commerce were imprisoned, their vessels seized, and our flag insulted in her ports. If money was wanted, the lawless seizure and confiscation of our merchant vessels and their cargoes was a ready resource, and if to accomplish their purposes it became necessary to imprison the owners, captains, and crews, it was done. Rulers superseded rulers in Mexico in rapid succession, but still there was no change in this system of depredation. The Government of the United States made repeated reclamations on behalf of its citizens, but these were answered by the perpetration of new outrages. Promises of redress made by Mexico in the most solemn forms were postponed or evaded. The files and records of the Department of State contain conclusive proofs of numerous lawless acts perpetrated upon the property and persons of our citizens by Mexico, and of wanton insults to our national flag. The interposition of our Government to obtain redress was again and again invoked under circumstances which no nation ought to disregard. It was hoped that these outrages would cease and that Mexico would be restrained by the laws which regulate the conduct of civilized nations in their intercourse with each other after the treaty of amity, commerce, and navigation of the 5th of April, 1831, was concluded between the two Republics; but this hope soon proved to be vain. The course of seizure and confiscation of the property of our citizens, the violation of their persons, and the insults to our flag pursued by Mexico previous to that time were scarcely suspended for even a brief period, although the treaty so clearly defines the rights and duties of the respective parties that it is impossible to misunderstand or mistake them. In less than seven years after the conclusion of that treaty our grievances had become so intolerable that in the opinion of President Jackson they should no longer be endured. In his message to Congress in February, 1837, he presented them to the consideration of that body, and declared that--

The length of time since some of the injuries have been committed, the repeated and unavailing applications for redress, the wanton character of some of the outrages upon the property and persons of our citizens, upon the officers and flag of the United States, independent of recent insults to this Government and people by the late extraordinary Mexican minister, would justify in the eyes of all nations immediate war.

In a spirit of kindness and forbearance, however, he recommended reprisals as a milder mode of redress. He declared that war should not be used as a remedy "by just and generous nations, confiding in their strength for injuries committed, if it can be honorably avoided," and added:

It has occurred to me that, considering the present embarrassed condition of that country, we should act with both wisdom and moderation by giving to Mexico one more opportunity to atone for the past before we take redress into our own hands. To avoid all misconception on the part of Mexico, as well as to protect our own national character from reproach, this opportunity should be given with the avowed design and full preparation to take immediate satisfaction if it should not be obtained on a repetition of the demand for it. To this end I recommend that an act be passed authorizing reprisals, and the use of the naval force of the United States by the Executive against Mexico to enforce them, in the event of a refusal by the Mexican Government to come to an amicable adjustment of the matters in controversy between us upon another demand thereof made from on board one of our vessels of war on the coast of Mexico.