bmission to
their _will_.

"And he feels it due to himself to say this,--first, that his
motives for signing it may be rightly understood; secondly, that his
opinions may not be liable to be misunderstood, or, thirdly, quoted
hereafter erroneously as a precedent. The motives of a President of
the United States for signing an act of Congress can be no other
than because he approves it; and because, in that event, the
constitution enjoins it upon him to sign it as a duty, which he has
sworn to perform, and with which he cannot dispense.

"But no; in the present case the President feels it due to himself
to say that his motives for signing the bill were not because he
approved it, or because it was made by the constitution his duty to
sign it, but to prove his submission to the will of Congress. He
feels it due also to himself to guard against the liability of his
opinions to misconstruction, or to be quoted hereafter erroneously
as a precedent. His signature to the bill, preceded by the word
'_approved_,' taken in connection with the duties prescribed to the
President of the United States by the constitution, certainly was
liable to the construction that his opinions were favorable to the
bill. They were, indeed, liable to no other construction respectful
to him, or trustful to his honor and sincerity; nor can there be a
doubt that they would have been quoted hereafter as a precedent. No
man living could have imagined that the word '_approved_' could be
construed to mean either doubt or obsequious submission to the will
of others; and it is with extreme regret that the committee see, in
the President's exposition of his reasons for signing an act of
Congress, the open avowal that, in his vocabulary, used in the
performance of one of the most solemn and sacred of his duties, the
word '_approved_' means not approval, but doubt; not the expression
of his own opinions, but mere obsequiousness to the will of
Congress."

The report proceeds to deny that the example of the advice given by the
first Secretary of State to the first President of the United States,
which the President adduces in his support, and the following that
advice by that President, gave any "sanction to such recorded
duplicity." It asserts that such an example is of dangerous tendency--an
encroachment by the Executive on legislative