l Monday, the 1st day of April, 1867, two days after the
adjournment. It is not believed that the approval of any bill after
the adjournment of Congress, whether presented before or after such
adjournment, is authorized by the Constitution of the United States,
that instrument expressly declaring that no bill shall become a law the
return of which may have been prevented by the adjournment of Congress.
To concede that under the Constitution the President, after the
adjournment of Congress, may, without limitation in respect to time,
exercise the power of approval, and thus determine at his discretion
whether or not bills shall become laws, might subject the executive and
legislative departments of the Government to influences most pernicious
to correct legislation and sound public morals, and--with a single
exception, occurring during the prevalence of civil war--would be
contrary to the established practice of the Government from its
inauguration to the present time. This bill will therefore be filed
in the office of the Secretary of State without my approval.

ANDREW JOHNSON.

[Footnote 28: Pocket veto. Was never sent to Congress, but was deposited
in the Department of State.]

[Footnote 29: Joint resolution placing certain troops of Missouri on an
equal footing with others as to bounties.]

WASHINGTON, D.C., _July 19, 1867_.

_To the House of Representatives of the United States_:

I return herewith the bill entitled "An act supplementary to an act
entitled 'An act to provide for the more efficient government of the
rebel States,' passed on the 2d day of March, 1867, and the act
supplementary thereto, passed, on the 23d day of March, 1867," and will
state as briefly as possible some of the reasons which prevent me from
giving it my approval.

This is one of a series of measures passed by Congress during the last
four months on the subject of reconstruction. The message returning the
act of the 2d of March last states at length my objections to the
passage of that measure. They apply equally well to the bill now before
me, and I am content merely to refer to them and to reiterate my
conviction that they are sound and unanswerable.

There are some points peculiar to this bill, which I will proceed at
once to consider.

The first section purports to declare "the true intent and meaning,"
in some particulars, of the two prior acts upon this subject.

It is declared that the intent of those acts was, first