d are considered by this office valid and serious
objections to the approval of this bill, and they would have been
communicated to the Congressional committee before the passage of the
bill had they called the attention of this office to the subject.

The bill is herewith returned.

I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

B.H. BRISTOW, _Secretary_.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, _April 18, 1876_.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

Herewith I return Senate bill No. 172, entitled "An act fixing the
salary of the President of the United States," without my approval.

I am constrained to this course from a sense of duty to my successors in
office, to myself, and to what is due to the dignity of the position of
Chief Magistrate of a nation of more than 40,000,000 people.

When the salary of the President of the United States, pursuant to the
Constitution, was fixed at $25,000 per annum, we were a nation of but
3,000,000 people, poor from a long and exhaustive war, without commerce
or manufactures, with but few wants and those cheaply supplied. The
salary must then have been deemed small for the responsibilities and
dignity of the position, but justifiably so from the impoverished
condition of the Treasury and the simplicity it was desired to cultivate
in the Republic.

The salary of Congressmen under the Constitution was first fixed at
$6 per day for the time actually in session--an average of about one
hundred and twenty days to each session--or $720 per year, or less than
one-thirtieth of the salary of the President.

Congress have legislated upon their own salaries from time to time
since, until finally it reached $5,000 per annum, or one-fifth that of
the President, before the salary of the latter was increased.

No one having a knowledge of the cost of living at the national capital
will contend that the present salary of Congressmen is too high, unless
it is the intention to make the office one entirely of honor, when the
salary should be abolished--a proposition repugnant to our republican
ideas and institutions.

I do not believe the citizens of this Republic desire their public
servants to serve them without a fair compensation for their services.
Twenty-five thousand dollars does not defray the expenses of the
Executive for one year, or has not in my experience. It is not now
one-fifth in value of what it was at the time of the adoption of the
Constitution in supplying demand