1856_.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

Having considered the bill, which originated in the Senate, entitled "An
act making an appropriation for deepening the channel over the flats of
the St. Marys River, in the State of Michigan," it is herewith returned
without my approval.

The appropriation proposed by this bill is not, in my judgment, a
necessary means for the execution of any of the expressly granted powers
of the Federal Government. The work contemplated belongs to a general
class of improvements, embracing roads, rivers, and canals, designed
to afford additional facilities for intercourse and for the transit of
commerce, and no reason has been suggested to my mind for excepting
it from the objections which apply to appropriations by the General
Government for deepening the channels of rivers wherever shoals or other
obstacles impede their navigation, and thus obstruct communication
and impose restraints upon commerce within the States or between the
States or Territories of the Union. I therefore submit it to the
reconsideration of Congress, on account of the same objections which
have been presented in my previous communications on the subject of
internal improvements.

FRANKLIN PIERCE.

WASHINGTON, _August 11, 1856_.

_To the House of Representatives_:

I return herewith to the House of Representatives, in which it
originated, a bill entitled "An act for continuing the improvement of
the Des Moines Rapids, in the Mississippi River," and submit it for
reconsideration, because it is, in my judgment, liable to the objections
to the prosecution of internal improvements by the General Government
set forth at length in a communication addressed by me to the two Houses
of Congress on the 30th day of December, 1854, and in other subsequent
messages upon the same subject, to which on this occasion I respectfully
refer.

FRANKLIN PIERCE.

WASHINGTON, _August 14, 1856_.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

I return herewith to the Senate, in which it originated, a bill entitled
"An act for the improvement of the navigation of the Patapsco River and
to render the port of Baltimore accessible to the war steamers of the
United States," and submit it for reconsideration, because it is, in
my judgment, liable to the objections to the prosecution of internal
improvements by the General Government set forth at length in a
communication addressed by me to the two Houses of Congress on the
30th