rnment in
any contract for the future payment of money in excess of such
appropriations.

SEC. 3732. No contract or purchase on behalf of the United
States shall be made unless the same is authorized by law or
is under an appropriation adequate to its fulfillment, except
in the War and Navy Departments, for clothing, subsistence,
forage, fuel, quarters, or transportation, which, however,
shall not exceed the necessities of the current year.

The object of these sections of the Revised Statutes is plain. It is,
first, to prevent any money from being expended unless appropriations
have been made therefor, and, second, to prevent the Government from
being bound by any contract not previously authorized by law, except
for certain necessary purposes in the War and Navy Departments.

Under the existing laws the failure of Congress to make the
appropriations required for the execution of the provisions of the
election laws would not prevent their enforcement. The right and duty
to appoint the general and special deputy marshals which they provide
for would still remain, and the executive department of the Government
would also be empowered to incur the requisite liability for
their compensation. But the second section of this bill contains a
prohibition not found in any previous legislation. Its design is to
render the election laws inoperative and a dead letter during the
next fiscal year. It is sought to accomplish this by omitting to
appropriate money for their enforcement and by expressly prohibiting
any Department or officer of the Government from incurring any
liability under any of the provisions of title 26 of the Revised
Statutes authorizing the appointment or payment of general or special
deputy marshals for service on election days until an appropriation
sufficient to pay such liability shall have first been made.

The President is called upon to give his affirmative approval to
positive enactments which in effect deprive him of the ordinary and
necessary means of executing laws still left in the statute book
and embraced within his constitutional duty to see that the laws are
executed. If he approves the bill, and thus gives to such positive
enactments the authority of law, he participates in the curtailment
of his means of seeing that the law is faithfully executed, while
the obligation of the law and of his constitutional duty remains
unimpaired.

The appointment of special deputy marshal