present
laws have in practice unquestionably conduced to the prevention of
fraud and violence at the elections. In several of the States members
of different political parties have applied for the safeguards which
they furnish. It is the right and duty of the National Government to
enact and enforce laws which will secure free and fair Congressional
elections. The laws now in force should not be repealed except in
connection with the enactment of measures which will better accomplish
that important end. Believing that section 6 of the bill before me
will weaken, if it does not altogether take away, the power of the
National Government to protect the Federal elections by the civil
authorities, I am forced to the conclusion that it ought not to
receive my approval.

This section is, however, not presented to me as a separate and
independent measure, but is, as has been stated, attached to the bill
making the usual annual appropriations for the support of the Army. It
makes a vital change in the election laws of the country, which is in
no way connected with the use of the Army. It prohibits, under heavy
penalties, any person engaged in the civil service of the United
States from having any force at the place of any election, prepared to
preserve order, to make arrests, to keep the peace, or in any manner
to enforce the laws. This is altogether foreign to the purpose of
an Army appropriation bill. The practice of tacking to appropriation
bills measures not pertinent to such bills did not prevail until more
than forty years after the adoption of the Constitution. It has become
a common practice. All parties when in power have adopted it. Many
abuses and great waste of public money have in this way crept into
appropriation bills. The public opinion of the country is against it.
The States which have recently adopted constitutions have generally
provided a remedy for the evil by enacting that no law shall contain
more than one subject, which shall be plainly expressed in its
title. The constitutions of more than half of the States contain
substantially this provision. The public welfare will be promoted in
many ways by a return to the early practice of the Government and to
the true principle of legislation, which requires that every measure
shall stand or fall according to its own merits. If it were understood
that to attach to an appropriation bill a measure irrelevant to the
general object of the bill would imperil and pr