Exchequer bill

“ It is much easier to enfranchise two hundred thousand paupers or bog-trotters, than to issue two or three millions of exchequer bills to sustain their industry. The old panacea, so often applied in the days of Tory Government, when distress became general, to relieve it by issues of exchequer bills, has been totally discarded since a Liberal Administration, 379 resting on the urban constituencies, was installed in power. It is now discovered that it is much better to give the sufferers votes. ”

“ One listening to addresses delivered to the Senate during this debate, as it is called, must think that the majority is arraigned, certainly that the majority wishes to seem and is determined to seem arraigned, merely for insisting that provisions appropriating money to keep the Government alive, and provisions not in themselves improper relating to other matters, may be united in the same bill. With somewhat of monotonous and ostentatious iteration we have been asked whether incorporating general legislation in appropriation bills is revolution, or revolutionary? ”

“ It was indeed an absurdity to call a body a legislature, and at the same time deny them a control over the public purse. If it were not so, where would be the use of going through the forms of that house with a money bill? The executive might as well draw upon the treasury at once for whatever sums he might stand in need of. ”

“ This is the chief purpose of the proposed exchequer, and surely if in the accomplishment of a purpose so essential it affords a sound circulating medium to the country and facilities to trade it should be regarded as no slight recommendation of it to public consideration. Properly guarded by the provisions of law, it can run into no dangerous evil, nor can any abuse arise under it but such as the Legislature itself will be answerable for if it be tolerated, since it is but the creature of the law and is susceptible at all times of modification, amendment, or repeal at the pleasure of Congress. ”

“ What is more, it is small, and markedly smaller than in the past. In the decade beginning with 1868, ninety-four government bills on the average became law each year, but of late the number has not been half so large, and private members' bills have fallen off in about the same proportion. The fact is that a growth in the number of members who want to take part in debate, a more minute criticism, and a more systematic opposition, have made the process of passing a bill through the House increasingly difficult. ”

“ The only provision of law from which such a power could be derived is found in an appropriation bill passed a number of years ago, and it is subject to the suspicion that it was intended as temporary and limited in its application, instead of conferring a continuing discretion and authority. No condition ought to exist which would justify the grant of power to a single official, upon his judgment of its necessity, to withhold from or release to the business of the people, in an unusual manner, money held in the Treasury, and thus affect at his will the financial situation of the country ”

“ A bill is before Congress the object of which is to deprive us of the lands which we have paid for. The Government has got our money in its Treasury for lands we have bought and paid for, and for which it bargained to give us a deed and entered into a compact that we and our children after us should possess this land for ever, and now Congress has got up a law to deprive every man in this Territory, whose religious faith happens to differ from Congress, of these lands. ”

“ The unworthy House of Commons that sat in 1685, not content with a needless augmentation of the revenue, took credit with the king for not having appropriated their supplies. [171] But from the revolution it has been the invariable usage. The lords of the treasury, by a clause annually repeated in the appropriation act of every session, are forbidden, under severe penalties, to order by their warrant any monies in the exchequer, so appropriated, from being issued for any other service, and the officers of the exchequer to obey any such warrant. ”

“ If an enlargement of the powers of the Federal Government should be deemed proper, it is safer and wiser to appeal to the States and the people in the mode prescribed by the Constitution for the grant desired than to assume its exercise without an amendment of the Constitution. If Congress does not possess the general power to construct works of internal improvement within the States, or to appropriate money from the Treasury for that purpose, what is there to exempt some, at least, of the objects of appropriation included in this bill from the operation of the general rule? ”

“ Each House is empowered by the Constitution to make rules governing the modes of its own procedure. The rules permitting, I know of nothing except convenience, common sense, and the danger of log-rolling combinations, which forbids putting all the appropriations into one bill, and in the same bill, all the revenue laws, a provision admitting a State into the Union, another paying a pension to a widow, another changing the name of a steamboat. The votes and the executive approval which would make one of these provisions a law, would make them all a law. ”

“ But in all such cases the votes shall be determined by yeas and nays; and the names of the persons voting for and against the bill shall be entered on the journal. If any bill shall not be returned by the President within ten days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the same shall be a law, in like manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress, by their adjournment, prevent its return, in which case it shall not be a law. The President may veto any appropriation or appropriations, and approve any other appropriation or appropriations, in the same bill. ”

“ Should this bill become a law, the principle which it establishes will inevitably lead to large and annually increasing appropriations and drains upon the Treasury, for it is not to be doubted that numerous other localities not embraced in its provisions, but quite as much entitled to the favor of the Government as those which are embraced, will demand, through their representatives in Congress, to be placed on an equal footing with them. ”

“ The Assembly however continu’d firm, believing they had Justice on their side, and that it would be giving up an essential Right, if they suffered the Governor to amend their Money-Bills. In one of the last, indeed, which was for granting 50,000£ his propos’d Amendment was only of a single Word; the Bill express’d that all Estates real and personal were to be taxed, those of the Proprietaries not excepted. ”

“ The elections were for seven years in most of the states before the late revolution.
I now consider their weight and power, and whether these will be sufficient to give them, as the representatives of the people, their due weight in the government. By the Constitution, they are one entire branch of the legislature, without whose consent no law can be passed;—all money bills are to originate in their house;—they are to have the sole power of impeachment;—their consent is necessary to all acts or resolutions for the appropriation of the public money ”

“ It has now become obvious to all men that the Government must look to its own means for supplying its wants, and it is consoling to know that these means are altogether adequate for the object. The exchequer, if adopted, will greatly aid in bringing about this result. Upon what I regard as a well-rounded supposition that its bills would be readily sought for by the public creditors and that the issue would in a short time reach the maximum of $15,000,000, it is obvious that $10,000,000 would thereby be added to the available means of the Treasury without cost or charge. ”

“ And whenever, in conducting any of the fiscal affairs of the government, the drawing a bill of exchange is the appropriate means of doing that which the department, or officer having the matter in charge, has a right to do, then he can draw and bind the government in doing so. ”

“ The restrictions on the legislative power of the States are obviously founded on this sentiment; and the Constitution of the United States contains what may be deemed a bill of rights for the people of each State.'
'No State shall pass any bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligations of contracts. A bill of attainder may affect the life of an individual, or may confiscate his property, or may do both.'
In this form he says, 'the power of the legislature over the lives and fortunes of individuals is expressly restrained. ”

“ To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition.
The incorporation of a bank, and the powers assumed by this bill, have not, in my opinion, been delegated to the United States by the Constitution.
I. They are not among the powers specially enumerated. For these are,—
1. A power to lay taxes for the purpose of paying the debts of the United States. But no debt is paid by this bill, nor any tax laid. ”

“ A cunning man, looking to what he thought to be his own interest, would have gratified him, and, vetoing the bill would have earned the praise, if not the approval, of a set of men whose voices extend far and are to some extent potent. A timid man, signing it, would have said nothing and left the legislature and the party leaders to share with him the buffets. I made the bill a law and gave my reasons, published with the statute, taking the full responsibility and thereby drew upon myself all of the javelins that could be hurled. ”

“ It is provided by the constitutions of fourteen of our States that the executive may disapprove any item or items of a bill appropriating money, whereupon the part of the bill approved shall be law and the part disapproved shall fail to become law unless repassed according to the provisions prescribed for the passage of bills over the veto of the executive. ”

“ The absolute control of the Commons over the subjects of revenue and supply has been so long established that the upper House would not now dream of disputing it; and as the power of the Lords is simply a privilege to accept or reject a money bill as a whole, including no right to amend, the peers are wont to let such bills go through without much scrutiny. ”

“ It is enough to say that the man of greatest wealth in the House (who was Commissioner of Customs in the new Government) warned them that rejecting this Bill was not the way to protect property, but the way to inflame public opinion against it and to lead to an immediate dissolution of Parliament to be followed in all probability by a more democratic assembly. But remonstrance was in vain: the measure was rejected by a narrow majority; the Government withdrew the second Bill and prepared for a general election. ”

“ A real debate at that stage occurs only in the case of great party measures, where both sides of the House want to be familiar with the scope of the bill, the objections that may be made to it, and the way it strikes the public, before the first effective debate upon its merits opens. The procedure upon money bills, which appears at first sight still more arbitrary, and complex, is perfectly rational also, and the differences from the method of passing ordinary measures arise from the nature of the case. There can be no doubt about the general principle of the annual appropriation bill. ”

“ The introduction of a bill repealing the various Civil Service acts passed for the alleged purpose of “regulating and improving the Civil Service of the United States,” and of another repealing the various acts establishing National Banks, and substituting United States notes for all national bank notes based upon interest bearing bonds, opened the eyes of the Republican opposition to the fact that the President and his party were possessed of the courage of their convictions, and were determined, come good report or evil report, to wipe all conflicting legislation from 22the statute books. ”

“ For the reasons fully stated in my last annual message I repeat my recommendation that Congress propose an amendment to that provision of the Constitution which prescribes the formalities for the enactment of laws, whereby, in respect to bills for the appropriation of public moneys, the Executive may be enabled, while giving his approval to particular items, to interpose his veto as to such others as do not commend themselves to his judgment. ”

“ The President, chafing under the non-admission to their representation in Congress of the Southern States which under his policy had been restored, vetoed the bill February 19 on various grounds, among the more important of which, and the only ones of particular import, were that the measure violated constitutional guarantees in that no person by our organic code should be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law, and that taxation should never be imposed without representation. ”

“ The exact point in the bill that had proved objectionable, and which they desired expunged, was what is known as the three hundred dollar clause, enabling any drafted man by the payment of the above sum to procure a substitute, and so be relieved himself. This very feature of the bill Mr. Blaine had incorporated as his first amendment offered [213] in congress, and enforced by a vigorous speech, which carried it through, and now a repeal of it would compel any business man in the country, if drafted, to go at once, provided only he was fit for military service. ”

“ I need not labor my advice that these measures be enacted into law. Their urgency lies in the manifest circumstances which render their adoption at this time not only opportune but necessary. Even delay would seriously jeopard the interests of the country and of the Government.
Immediate passage of the bill to regulate the expenditure of money in elections may seem to be less necessary than the immediate enactment of the other measures to which I refer, because at least two years will elapse before another election in which Federal offices are to be filled ”