blic
interest, and will tend to other special acts of relief under which
thousands of muster rolls certified at the date, under the Articles of
War, as exhibiting the true state of the command will be invalidated,
and large appropriations of money will be required to settle claims the
justness of which can not always be determined at a date so remote from
their origin.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

WM. W. BELKNAP,

_Secretary of War_.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, _April 22, 1874_.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

Herewith I return Senate bill No. 617, entitled "An act to fix the
amount of United States notes and the circulation of national banks,
and for other purposes," without my approval.

In doing so I must express my regret at not being able to give my assent
to a measure which has received the sanction of a majority of the
legislators chosen by the people to make laws for their guidance, and
I have studiously sought to find sufficient arguments to justify such
assent, but unsuccessfully.

Practically it is a question whether the measure under discussion would
give an additional dollar to the irredeemable paper currency of the
country or not, and whether by requiring three-fourths of the reserve to
be retained by the banks and prohibiting interest to be received on the
balance it might not prove a contraction.

But the fact can not be concealed that theoretically the bill increases
the paper circulation $100,000,000, less only the amount of reserves
restrained from circulation by the provision of the second section. The
measure has been supported on the theory that it would give increased
circulation. It is a fair inference, therefore, that if in practice the
measure should fail to create the abundance of circulation expected of
it the friends of the measure, particularly those out of Congress, would
clamor for such inflation as would give the expected relief.

The theory, in my belief, is a departure from true principles of
finance, national interest, national obligations to creditors,
Congressional promises, party pledges (on the part of both political
parties), and of personal views and promises made by me in every annual
message sent to Congress and in each inaugural address.

In my annual message to Congress in December, 1869, the following
passages appear:

Among the evils growing out of the rebellion, and not yet referred to,
is that of an irredeemable currency. It is an e