ht be
inconvenient for the Mexican Government to wait for the whole sum the
payment of which may be stipulated by this treaty until it could be
ratified by our Senate and an appropriation to carry it into effect made
by Congress. Indeed, the necessity for this delay might defeat the
object altogether. The disbursement of this money would of course be
accounted for, not as secret-service money, but like other expenditures.

Two precedents for such a proceeding exist in our past history, during
the Administration of Mr. Jefferson, to which I would call your
attention: On the 26th February, 1803, an act was passed appropriating
$2,000,000 "for the purpose of defraying any extraordinary expenses
which may be incurred in the intercourse between the United States and
foreign nations," "to be applied under the direction of the President of
the United States, who shall cause an account of the expenditure thereof
to be laid before Congress as soon as may be;" and on the 13th of
February, 1806, an appropriation was made of the same amount and in the
same terms. In neither case was the money actually drawn from the
Treasury, and I should hope that the result in this respect might be
similar on the present occasion, although the appropriation may prove
to be indispensable in accomplishing the object. I would therefore
recommend the passage of a law appropriating $2,000,000 to be placed at
the disposal of the Executive for the purpose which I have indicated.

In order to prevent all misapprehension, it is my duty to state that,
anxious as I am to terminate the existing war with the least possible
delay, it will continue to be prosecuted with the utmost vigor until
a treaty of peace shall be signed by the parties and ratified by the
Mexican Republic.

JAMES K. POLK.

VETO MESSAGES.

WASHINGTON, _August 3, 1846_.

_To the House of Representatives_:

I have considered the bill entitled "An act making appropriations for
the improvement of certain harbors and rivers" with the care which
its importance demands, and now return the same to the House of
Representatives, in which it originated, with my objections to its
becoming a law. The bill proposes to appropriate $1,378,450 to be
applied to more than forty distinct and separate objects of improvement.
On examining its provisions and the variety of objects of improvement
which it embraces, many of them of a local character, it is difficult to
conceive, if it shall be sanc