ill, its effect,
if passed, I am apprehensive will be to facilitate the prosecution of
fraudulent claims against the United States. Believing that justice can
and will be done to honest claimants in the Court of Claims as the law
now stands, and believing also that the proposed change in the law will
remove a valuable safeguard to the Treasury, I must for these reasons
respectfully withhold my assent to the bill.

U.S. GRANT.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, _January 29, 1873_.

_To the Senate of the United States:_

I have the honor to return herewith Senate bill No. 490, entitled
"An act for the relief of the East Tennessee University," without
my approval.

This claim, for which $18,500 are appropriated out of the moneys of the
United States, arises in part for the destruction of property by troops
in time of war, and therefore the same objections attach to it as were
expressed in my message of June 1, 1872, returning the Senate bill
awarding $25,000 to J. Milton Best.

If the precedent is once established that the Government is liable for
the ravages of war, the end of demands upon the public Treasury can not
be forecast.

The loyalty of the people of the section in which the university
is located, under circumstances of personal danger and trials, thus
entitling them to the most favorable construction of the obligation of
the Government toward them, is admitted, and nothing but regard for my
duty to the whole people, in opposing a principle which, if allowed,
will entail greater burdens upon the whole than the relief which will be
afforded to a part by allowing this bill to become a law, could induce
me to return it with objections.

Recognizing the claims of these citizens to sympathy and the most
favorable consideration of their claims by the Government, I would
heartily favor a donation of the amount appropriated by this bill for
their relief.

U.S. GRANT.

WASHINGTON, _February 8, 1873_.

_To the House of Representatives:_

I have the honor to return herewith House bill (H.R. 2852) entitled
"An act for the relief of James A. McCullah, late collector of the fifth
district of Missouri," without my approval, for the following reasons:

It is provided in section 34 of the act of June 30, 1864, as amended by
the act of July 13, 1866, that it shall be proved to the satisfaction
of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue that due diligence was used by
the collector, who shall certify the facts to the First C