priations for the expenses of the government. The house, controlled by a Democratic majority, attached to the army appropriation bill a legislative provision substantially repealing a law passed in 1865, under President Lincoln, which permitted the use of troops “to keep the peace at the polls” on election-days. The house also attached to the legislative, executive, and judicial appropriation bill a repeal of existing laws providing for the appointment of supervisors of election and special deputy marshals to act at elections of members of congress. The Republican majority of the senate struck out these legislative provisions, and, the two houses disagreeing, the appropriation bills failed. President Hayes, on 4 March, 1879, called an extra session of congress to meet on 18 March. The Democrats then had a majority in the senate as well as in the house, and attached to the army appropriation bill the same legislative provision on which in the preceding congress the two houses had disagreed. President Hayes returned the bill with his veto on 29 April, 1879. He took the ground that there was ample legislation to prevent military interference at elections; that there never had been any such interference since the passage of the act of 1865, and was no danger of any; that if the proposed legislation should become law, there would be no power vested in any officer of the government to protect from violence the officers of the United States engaged in the discharge of their duties; that the states may employ both military and civil power to keep the peace, and to enforce the laws at state elections, but that it was now proposed to deny to the United States even the necessary civil authority to protect the national elections. He pointed out also that the tacking of legislative provisions to appropriation bills was a practice calculated to be used as a means of coercion as to the other branches of the government, and to make the house of representatives a despotic power. Congress then passed the army appropriation bill without the obnoxious clause, but containing the provision that no money appropriated should be paid for the subsistence, equipment, transportation, or compensation of any portion of the army of the United States “to be used as a police force to keep the peace at the polls at any election held within any state.” This President Hayes approved. The two houses then passed a separate bill, substantially embodying the provision objected to by the president in the vetoed army-appropriation bill. This “act to prohibit military interference at elections” President Hayes returned with his veto. He said: “The true rule as to the employment of military force at the elections is not doubtful. No intimidation or coercion should be allowed to influence citizens in the exercise of their right to vote, whether it appears in the shape of combinations of evil-disposed persons, or of armed bodies of the militia of a state, or of the military force of the United States. The elections should be free from all forcible interference, and, as far as practicable, from all apprehension of such interference. No soldiery, either of the United States or of the state militia, should be present at the polls to perform the duties of the ordinary civil police force. There has been and will be no violation of this rule under orders from me during this administration. That there should be no denial of the right of the national government to employ its military force on any day and at any place in case such employment is necessary to enforce the constitution and laws of the United States.” The legislative, executive, and judicial appropriation bill passed by congress contained a legislative provision not, indeed, abolishing the supervisors of election, but divesting the government of the power to protect them, or to prevent interference with their duties, or to punish any violation of the law from which their power was derived. President Hayes returned this bill also with his veto, referring to his preceding veto message as to the impropriety of tacking general legislation to appropriation bills. He further pointed out that, in the various legal proceedings under the law sought to be repealed, its constitutionality had never been questioned; and that the necessity of such a law had been amply demonstrated by the great election frauds in New York city in 1868. He added: “The great body of the people of all parties want free and fair elections. They do not think that a free election means freedom from the wholesome restraints of law, or that the place of an election should be a sanctuary for lawlessness and crime.” If any oppression, any partisan partiality, had been shown in the execution of the existing law, he added, efficient correctives of the mischief should be applied; but as no congressional election was immediately impending, the matter might properly be referred to the regular session of congress.
In a bill “making appropriations for certain judicial expenses,” passed by congress, it was attempted not to repeal the election laws, but to make their enforcement impossible by prohibiting the payment of any salaries, fees, or expenses under or in virtue of them, and providing also that no contract should be made, and no liability incurred, under any of their provisions. President Hayes vetoed this bill, 23 June, 1879, on the ground that as no bill repealing the election laws had been passed over his veto, those laws were still in existence, and the present bill, if it became a law, would make it impossible for the executive to perform his constitutional duty to see to it that the laws be faithfully executed. On the same ground the president returned with his veto a bill making appropriations to pay fees of United States marshals and their general deputies, in which the same attempt was made to defeat the execution of the election laws by withholding the necessary funds as well as the power to incur liabilities under them. All the appropriation bills were passed without the obnoxious provisions except the last. President Hayes appealed to congress in a special message on 30 June, 1879, the end of the fiscal year, not to permit the marshals and their general deputies, officers so necessary to the administration of justice, to go unprovided for, but in vain. The attorney-general then admonished the marshals to continue in the performance of their duties, and to rely upon future legislation by congress, which would be just to them.
In his annual message of 1 Dec., 1879, President Hayes found occasion to congratulate the country upon the successful resumption of specie payments and upon “a very great revival of business.” He announced a most gratifying reduction of the interest on the public debt by refunding at lower rates. He strongly urged congress to authorize the secretary of the treasury to suspend the silver coinage, as the cheaper coin, if forced into circulation, would eventually become the sole standard of value. He also recommended the retirement of United States notes with the capacity of legal tender in private contracts, it being his “firm conviction that the issue of legal-tender paper money based wholly upon the authority and credit of the government, except in extreme emergency, is without warrant in the constitution, and a violation of
