Chapter 35 1816

JANUARY 25, 1817. 

To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States: 

I lay before Congress copies of ratified treaties between the United States and the following Indian tribes: 

First. The Wea and Kickapoo. 

Second. The united tribes of Ottawas, Chippawas, and Potowotomies residing on the Illinois and Melwakee rivers and their waters and on the southwestern parts of Lake Michigan. 

Third. That portion of the Winnebago tribe or nation residing on the Ouisconsin River, 

Fourth. The Sacs of Rock River and the adjacent country. 

Fifth. Eight bands of the Siouxs, composing the three tribes called the Siouxs of the Leaf, the Siouxs of the Broad Leaf, and the Siouxs who Shoot in the Pine Tops. 

Sixth. The Chickasaw tribe of Indians. 

Seventh. The Cherokee tribe of Indians. 

Eighth. The Chactaw tribe of Indians. 

Congress will take into consideration how far legislative provisions may be necessary for carrying into effect stipulations contained in the said treaties, 

JAMES MADISON. 

JANUARY 31, 1817. 

To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States: 

The envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary of His Most Christian Majesty having renewed, under special instructions from his Government, the claim of the representative of Baron de Beaumarchais for 1,000,000 livres, which were debited to him in the settlement of his accounts with the United States, I lay before Congress copies of the memoir on that subject addressed by the said envoy to the Secretary of State. 

Considering that the sum of which the million of livres in question made a part was a gratuitous grant from the French Government to the United States, and the declaration of that Government that that part of the grant was put into the hands of M. de Beaumarchais as its agent, not as the agent of the United States, and was duly accounted for by him to the French Government; considering also the concurring opinions of two Attorneys-General of the United States that the said debit was not legally sustainable in behalf of the United States, I recommend the case to the favorable attention of the Legislature, whose authority alone can finally decide on it. 

JAMES MADISON. 

FEBRUARY 3, 1817. 

To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States: 

The Government of Great Britain, induced by the posture of the relations with the United States which succeeded the conclusion of the recent commercial convention, issued an order on the 17th day of August, 1815, discontinuing the discriminating duties payable in British ports on American vessels and their cargoes. It was not until the 22d of December following that a corresponding discontinuance of discriminating duties on British vessels and their cargoes in American ports took effect under the authority vested in the Executive by the act of March, 1816. During the period between those two dates there was consequently a failure of reciprocity or equality in the existing regulations of the two countries. I recommend to the consideration of Congress the expediency of paying to the British Government the amount of the duties remitted during the period in question to citizens of the United States, subject to a deduction of the amount of whatever discriminating duties may have commenced in British ports after the signature of that convention and been collected previous to the 17th of August, 1815. 

JAMES MADISON. 

FEBRUARY 6, 1817. 

To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States: 

On comparing the fourth section of the act of Congress passed March 31, 1814, providing for the indemnification of certain claimants of public lands in the Mississippi Territory, with the article of agreement and cession between the United States and State of Georgia, bearing date April 30, 1802, it appears that the engagements entered into with the claimants interfere with the rights and interests secured to that State. I recommend to Congress that provision be made by law for payments to the State of Georgia equal to the amount of Mississippi stock which shall be paid into the Treasury until the stipulated sum of $1,250,000 shall be completed. 

JAMES MADISON. 

VETO MESSAGE. 
MARCH 3, 1817. 

To the House of Representatives of the United States: 

Having considered the bill this day presented to me entitled "An act to set apart and pledge certain funds for internal improvements," and which sets apart and pledges funds "for constructing roads and canals, and improving the navigation of water courses, in order to facilitate, promote, and give security to internal commerce among the several States, and to render more easy and less expensive the means and provisions for the common defense," I am constrained by the insuperable difficulty I feel in reconciling the bill with the Constitution of the United States to return it with that objection to the House of Representatives, in which it originated. 

The legislative powers vested in Congress are specified and enumerated in the eighth section of the first article of the Constitution, and it does not appear that the power proposed to be exercised by the bill is among the enumerated powers, or that it falls by any just interpretation within the power to make laws necessary and proper for carrying into execution those or other powers vested by the Constitution in the Government of the United States. 

"The power to regulate commerce among the several States" can not include a power to construct roads and canals, and to improve the navigation of water courses in order to facilitate, promote, and secure such a commerce without a latitude of construction departing from the ordinary import of the terms strengthened by the known inconveniences which doubtless led to the grant of this remedial power to Congress. 

To refer the power in question to the clause "to provide for the common defense and general welfare" would be contrary to the established and consistent rules of interpretation, as rendering the special and careful enumeration of powers which follow the clause nugatory and improper. Such a view of the Constitution would have the effect of giving to Congress a general power of legislation instead of the defined and limited one hitherto understood to belong to them, the terms "common defense and general welfare" embracing every object and act within the purview of a legislative trust. It would have the effect of subjecting both the Constitution and laws of the several States in all cases not specifically exempted to be superseded by laws of Congress, it being expressly declared "that the Constitution of the United States and laws made in pursuance thereof shall be the supreme law of the land, and the judges of every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding." Such a view of the Constitution, finally, would have the effect of excluding the judicial authority of the United States from its participation in guarding the boundary between the legislative powers of the General and the State Governments, inasmuch as questions relating to the general welfare, being questions of policy and expediency, are unsusceptible of judicial cognizance and decision. 

A restriction of the power "to provide for the common defense and general welfare" to cases which are to be provided for by the expenditure of money would still leave within the legislative power of Congress all the great and most important measures of Government, money being the ordinary and necessary means of carrying them into execution. 

If a general power to construct roads and canals, and to improve the navigation of water courses, with the train of powers incident thereto, be not possessed by Congress, the assent of the States in the mode provided in the bill can not confer the power. The only cases in which the consent and cession of particular States can extend the power of Congress are those specified and provided for in the Constitution. 

I am not unaware of the great importance of roads and canals and the improved navigation of water courses, and that a power in the National Legislature to provide for them might be exercised with signal advantage to the general prosperity. But seeing that such a power is not expressly given by the Constitution, and believing that it can not be deduced from any part of it without an inadmissible latitude of construction and a reliance on insufficient precedents; believing also that the permanent success of the Constitution depends on a definite partition of powers between the General and the State Governments, and that no adequate landmarks would be left by the constructive extension of the powers of Congress as proposed in the bill, I have no option but to withhold my signature from it, and to cherishing the hope that its beneficial objects may be attained by a resort for the necessary powers to the same wisdom and virtue in the nation which established the Constitution in its actual form and providently marked out in the instrument itself a safe and practicable mode of improving it as experience might suggest. 

JAMES MADISON. 

PROCLAMATION. 
[From Annals of Congress, Fourteenth Congress, second session, 218.] 
WASHINGTON, January 1, 1817. 

To the Senators of the United States, respectively: 

SIR: Objects interesting to the United States requiring that the Senate should be in session on the 4th of March next to receive such communications as may be made to it on the part of the Executive, your attendance in the Senate Chamber in this city on that day is accordingly requested. 

JAMES MADISON.