ch session of each Congress,
distinguishing also the appropriations made on the recommendations of
the President, heads of Departments, or heads of bureaus from those that
were made without such recommendation, and showing what expenditures
have been made by the Government in each fiscal year, commencing with
the 1st day of July, 1850, and ending on the 30th day of June, 1855; and
also what, if any, defalcations have occurred from the 30th day of June,
1850, to the 1st day of July, 1855, and the amount of such defalcations
severally, and such other information as may be in his power bearing
upon the matters above mentioned," I submit the following reports from
the Secretaries of the Treasury, War, Navy, and Interior Departments and
the Postmaster-General.

FRANKLIN PIERCE.

VETO MESSAGES.

WASHINGTON, _May 19, 1856_.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

I return herewith to the Senate, in which it originated, the bill
entitled "An act to remove obstructions to navigation in the mouth of
the Mississippi River at the Southwest Pass and Pass a l'Outre," which
proposes to appropriate a sum of money, to be expended under the
superintendence of the Secretary of War, "for the opening and keeping
open ship channels of sufficient capacity to accommodate the wants of
commerce through the Southwest Pass and Pass a l'Outre, leading from
the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico."

In a communication addressed by me to the two Houses of Congress on the
30th of December, 1854, my views were exhibited in full on the subject
of the relation of the General Government to internal improvements.
I set forth on that occasion the constitutional impediments, which in
my mind are insuperable, to the prosecution of a system of internal
improvements by means of appropriations from the Treasury of the United
States, more especially the consideration that the Constitution does
not confer on the General Government any express power to make such
appropriations, that they are not a necessary and proper incident of
any of the express powers, and that the assumption of authority on
the part of the Federal Government to commence and carry on a general
system of internal improvements, while exceptionable for the want of
constitutional power, is in other respects prejudicial to the several
interests and inconsistent with the true relation to one another of
the Union and of the individual States.

These objections apply to the whole s