s with the Great and Little Osage
tribes of Indians, with a view to such legal provisions as may be deemed
proper for fulfilling its stipulations.

JAMES MADISON.

VETO MESSAGES.

FEBRUARY 21, 1811.

_To the House of Representatives of the United States_:

Having examined and considered the bill entitled "An act incorporating
the Protestant Episcopal Church in the town of Alexandria, in the
District of Columbia," I now return the bill to the House of
Representatives, in which it originated, with the following objections:

_Because_ the bill exceeds the rightful authority to which
governments are limited by the essential distinction between civil and
religious functions, and violates in particular the article of the
Constitution of the United States which declares that "Congress shall
make no law respecting a religious establishment." The bill enacts into
and establishes by law sundry rules and proceedings relative purely to
the organization and polity of the church incorporated, and
comprehending even the election and removal of the minister of the same,
so that no change could be made therein by the particular society or by
the general church of which it is a member, and whose authority it
recognizes. This particular church, therefore, would so far be a
religious establishment by law, a legal force and sanction being given
to certain articles in its constitution and administration. Nor can it
be considered that the articles thus established are to be taken as the
descriptive criteria only of the corporate identity of the society,
inasmuch as this identity must depend on other characteristics, as the
regulations established are generally unessential and alterable
according to the principles and canons by which churches of that
denomination govern themselves, and as the injunctions and prohibitions
contained in the regulations would be enforced by the penal consequences
applicable to a violation of them according to the local law.

_Because_ the bill vests in the said incorporated church an
authority to provide for the support of the poor and the education of
poor children of the same, an authority which, being altogether
superfluous if the provision is to be the result of pious charity, would
be a precedent for giving to religious societies as such a legal agency
in carrying into effect a public and civil duty.

JAMES MADISON.

FEBRUARY 28, 1811.

_To the House of Representatives of the United S