652 



PUBLIC DOCUMENTS. 



agents for conducting Indian affairs, and upon prob- 

 able suspicion they were promptly displaced by my 

 predecessor, so far as they held their offices under 

 executive authority, and their duties were confided to 

 new and loyal successors. No complaints against 

 that power or doubts of its wisdom were entertained 

 in any quarter. I sincerely trust and believe that no 

 such civil war is likely to occur again. I cannot 

 doubt, however, that in whatever form and on what- 

 ever occasion sedition can rise, an effort to hinder or 

 embarrass or defeat the legitimate action of this Gov- 

 ernment, whether by preventing the collection of 

 revenue or disturbing the public peace, or separating 

 the States or betraying the country to a foreign ene- 

 my, the power of removal from office by the Execu- 

 tive, as it has heretofore existed and been practised, 

 will be found indispensable. Under these circum- 

 stances, as a depository of the executive authority of 

 the nation, I do not feel at liberty to unite with Con- 

 gress in reversing it by giving my approval of the bill. 



At the- early day when the question was settled, 

 and indeed at the several periods when it has subse- 

 quently been agitated, the success of the Constitution 

 of the United States as a new and peculiar system of 

 free representative government was held doubtful in 

 other countries, and was even a subject of patriotic 

 apprehension among the American people themselves. 

 A trial of nearly eighty years, through the vicissi- 

 tudes of foreign conflicts and of civil war, is confi- 

 dently regarded as having extinguished all such 

 doubts and apprehensions for the future. During 

 those eighty years the people of the United States 

 have enjoyed a measure of security, peace, prosper- 

 ity, and happiness never surpasssed by any nation. 

 It cannot be doubted that the triumphant success of 

 the Constitution is due to the wonderful wisdom with 

 which the functions of government were distributed 

 between the three principal departments the legisla- 

 tive, the executive, and the judicial and to the fidel- 

 ity with which each has confined itself, or been con- 

 fined by the general voice of the nation, within its 

 peculiar and proper sphere. 



While a just, proper, and watchful jealousy of ex- 

 ecutive power constantly prevails, as it ought ever to 

 prevail, yet it is equally true that an efficient Execu- 

 tive, capable, in the language of the oath prescribed 

 to the President, of executing the laws within the 

 sphere of executive action, of preserving, protecting, 

 and defending the Constitution of the United States, 

 is an indispensable security for tranquillity at home, 

 and peace, honor, and safety abroad. Governments 

 have been erected in many countries upon our model. 

 If one or many of them have thus far failed in fully 

 securing to their people the benefits which we have 

 derived from our system, it may be confidently as- 

 serted that their misfortune has resulted from their 

 unfortunate failure to maintain the integrity of each 

 of the three great departments while preserving har- 

 mony among them all. 



Having at an early period accepted the Constitu- 

 tion in regard to the executive office in the sense in 

 which it was interpreted with the concurrence of its 

 founders, I have found no sufficient grounds, in the 

 arguments now opposed to that construction or in 

 any assumed necessity of the times, for changingthose 

 opinions. For these reasons I retuTn the bill to the 

 Senate, in which House it originated, for the further 

 consideration of Congress, which the Constitution 

 prescribes. Insomuch as the several parts of the bill 

 which I have not considered are matters chiefly of 

 detail, and are based altogether upon the theory of 

 the Constitution from which I am obliged to dissent, 

 I have not thought it necessary to examine them 

 with a view to make them an occasion of distinct and 

 special objections. Experience, I think, has shown 

 that it is the easiest, as it is also the most attractive, 

 of studies to frame constitutions for the self-govern- 

 ment of free States and nations. 



But I think experience has equafly shown that it is 

 the most difficult of all political labors to preserve 



and maintain such'free constitutions of self-govern- 

 ment when once happily established. I know no 

 other way in which they can be preserved and main- 

 tained except by a constant adherence to them 

 through the various vicissitudes of national exist- 

 ence, with such adaptations as may become necessary, 

 always to be effected, however, through the agencies 

 and in the forms prescribed in the original constitu- 

 tions themselves. Whenever administration fails or 

 seems to fail in securing any of the great ends for 

 which republican government is established, the 

 proper course seems to be to renew the original spir- 

 it and forms of the Constitution itself. 



ANDREW JOHNSON. 

 WASHINGTON, March 2, 1867. 



Veto ~by President JOHNSON of the Mil " to pro- 

 vide for the more efficient government of the 

 rebel States," March 2, 1867. 

 To the House of Representatives : 



I have examined the bill to " provide for the more 

 efficient government of the rebel States " with the 

 care and anxiety which its transcendent importance 

 is calculated to awaken. I am unable to give it my 

 assent for reasons so grave that I hope a statement 

 of them may have some influence on the minds of the 

 patriotic and enlightened men with whom the deci- 

 sion must ultimately rest. 



The bill places "all the people of the ten States 

 therein named under the absolute dominion of mili- 

 tary rulers ; and the preamble undertakes to give the 

 reason upon which the measure is based, and the 

 ground upon which it is justified. It declares that 

 there exist in those States no legal governments and 

 no" adequate protection for life or property, and as- 

 serts the necessity for enforcing peace and good or- 

 der within their limits. Is this true as a matter of 

 fact? 



It is not denied that the States in question have 

 each of them an actual government, with all the 

 powers, executive, judicial, and legislative, which 

 properly belong to a free State. They are organized 

 like the other States of the Union, and, like them, they 

 make, administer, and execute the laws which con- 

 cern their domestic affairs. An existing de facto gov- 

 ernment, exercising such functions as these, is itself 

 the law of the State upon all matters within its ju- 

 risdiction. To pronounce the supreme law-making 

 power of an established State illegal is to say that 

 law itself is unlawful. 



The provisions which these governments have 

 made for the preservation of order, the suppression 

 of crime, and the redress of private injuries, are in 

 substance and principle the same as those which pre- 

 vail in the Northern States and in other civilized 

 countries. They certainly have not succeeded in 

 preventing the commission of all crime, nor has this 

 been accomplished anywhere in the world. There, 

 as well as elsewhere, offenders sometimes escape for 

 want of vigorous prosecution, and occasionally, per- 

 haps, by the inefficiency of courts or the prejudice 

 of jurors. It is undoubtedly true that these evils 

 have been much increased and aggravated, North 

 and South, by the demoralizing influences of civil- 

 war and by the rancorous passions which the contest 

 has engendered. But that these people are main- 

 taining local governments for themselves which ha- 

 bitually defeat the object of all government, and ren- 

 der their own lives and property insecure, is in itself 

 utterly improbable, and the averment of the bill to 

 that effect is not supported by any evidence which 

 has come to my knowledge. All the information 

 I have on the subject convinces me that the masses 

 of the Southern people and those who control their 

 public acts, while they entertain diverse opinions on 

 questions of Federal policy, are completely united in 

 the effort to reorganize their society on the basis of 

 peace, and to restore their mutual prosperity as rap- 



