isposition on all
hands to have them prosecuted with energy and to see the benefits sought
to be attained by them fully realized.

The prominent point of difference between those who have been regarded
as the friends of a system of internal improvements by the General
Government and those adverse to such a system has been one of
constitutional power, though more or less connected with considerations
of expediency.

My own judgment, it is well known, has on both grounds been opposed to
"a general system of internal improvements" by the Federal Government. I
have entertained the most serious doubts from the inherent difficulties
of its application, as well as from past unsatisfactory experience,
whether the power could be so exercised by the General Government as to
render its use advantageous either to the country at large or effectual
for the accomplishment of the object contemplated.

I shall consider it incumbent on me to present to Congress at its next
session a matured view of the whole subject, and to endeavor to define,
approximately at least, and according to my own convictions, what
appropriations of this nature by the General Government the great
interests of the United States require and the Constitution will admit
and sanction, in case no substitute should be devised capable of
reconciling differences both of constitutionality and expediency.

In the absence of the requisite means and time for duly considering the
whole subject at present and discussing such possible substitute, it
becomes necessary to return this bill to the House of Representatives,
in which it originated, and for the reasons thus briefly submitted to
the consideration of Congress to withhold from it my approval.

FRANKLIN PIERCE.

[The following message is inserted here because it is an exposition of
the reasons of the President for the veto of August 4, 1854, immediately
preceding.]

WASHINGTON, _December 30, 1854_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:

In returning to the House of Representatives, in which it originated,
a bill entitled "An act making appropriations for the repair,
preservation, and completion of certain public works heretofore
commenced under the authority of law," it became necessary for me, owing
to the late day at which the bill was passed, to state my objections
to it very briefly, announcing at the same time a purpose to resume
the subject for more deliberate discussion at the present sessi