ation or appointment to office, or that a
decision or opinion of the Supreme Court is a grievance, and that the
measure of redress is to withhold the appropriations required for the
support of the offending branch of the Government.

Believing that this bill is a dangerous violation of the spirit and
meaning of the Constitution, I am compelled to return it to the House
in which it originated without my approval. The qualified negative
with which the Constitution invests the President is a trust that
involves a duty which he can not decline to perform. With a firm and
conscientious purpose to do what I can to preserve unimpaired the
constitutional powers and equal independence, not merely of the
Executive, but of every branch of the Government, which will be
imperiled by the adoption of the principle of this bill, I desire
earnestly to urge upon the House of Representatives a return to the
wise and wholesome usage of the earlier days of the Republic, which
excluded from appropriation bills all irrelevant legislation. By
this course you will inaugurate an important reform in the method of
Congressional legislation; your action will be in harmony with the
fundamental principles of the Constitution and the patriotic sentiment
of nationality which is their firm support, and you will restore to
the country that feeling of confidence and security and the
repose which are so essential to the prosperity of all of our
fellow-citizens.

RUTHERFORD B. HAYES.

_To the House of Representatives_:

After a careful consideration of the bill entitled "An act to prohibit
military interference at elections," I return it to the House of
Representatives, in which it originated, with the following objections
to its approval:

In the communication sent to the House of Representatives on the 29th
of last month, returning to the House without my approval the bill
entitled "An act making appropriations for the support of the Army
for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1880, and for other purposes,"
I endeavored to show, by quotations from the statutes of the United
States now in force and by a brief statement of facts in regard to
recent elections in the several States, that no additional legislation
was necessary to prevent interference with the elections by the
military or naval forces of the United States. The fact was presented
in that communication that at the time of the passage of the act of
June 18, 1878, in relation to the employ