Part 84

To the Senate of the United States;

The resolution of the Senate of the 3d instant, requesting the President to lay before that body, confidentially, "a copy of any instructions which may have been given by the Executive to the American minister in England on the subject of the title to and occupation of the Territory of Oregon since the 4th of March, 1841; also a copy of any correspondence which may have passed between this Government and that of Great Britain in relation to the subject since that time," has been received.

In reply I have to state that in the present state of the subject-matter to which the resolution refers it is deemed inexpedient to communicate the information requested by the Senate.

JOHN TYLER.

WASHINGTON, June 15, 1844.

To the House of Representatives of the United States:

I herewith transmit to the House of Representatives, in answer to their resolution of the 4th instant, a report from the Secretary of State, with the correspondence therein referred to.

JOHN TYLER.

WASHINGTON, June 17, 1844.

The PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE:

I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of State, in answer to a resolution of the 12th instant. Although the contingent fund for foreign intercourse has for all time been placed at the disposal of the President, to be expended for the purposes contemplated by the fund without any requisition upon him for a disclosure of the names of persons employed by him, the objects of their employment, or the amount paid to any particular person, and although any such disclosures might in many cases disappoint the objects contemplated by the appropriation of that fund, yet in this particular instance I feel no desire to withhold the fact that Mr. Duff Green was employed by the Executive to collect such information, from private or other sources, as was deemed important to assist the Executive in undertaking a negotiation then contemplated, but afterwards abandoned, upon an important subject, and that there was paid to him through the hands of the Secretary of State $1,000, in full for all such service. It is proper to say that Mr. Green afterwards presented a claim for an additional allowance, which has been neither allowed nor recognized as correct.

JOHN TYLER.

WASHINGTON, June 17, 1844.

To the Senate:

I have learned that the Senate has laid on the table the nomination, heretofore made, of Reuben H. Walworth to be an associate justice of the Supreme Court, in the place of Smith Thompson, deceased. I am informed that a large amount of business has accumulated in the second district, and that the immediate appointment of a judge for that circuit is essential to the administration of justice. Under these circumstances I feel it my duty to withdraw the name of Mr. Walworth, whose appointment the Senate by their action seems not now prepared to confirm, in the hope that another name may be more acceptable.

The circumstances under which the Senate heretofore declined to advise and consent to the nomination of John C. Spencer have so far changed as to justify me in my again submitting his name to their consideration.

I therefore nominate John C. Spencer, of New York, to be appointed an associate justice of the Supreme Court, in the place of Smith Thompson, deceased.

JOHN TYLER.

VETO MESSAGES.

WASHINGTON, December 18, 1843.

To the House of Representatives:

I received within a few hours of the adjournment of the last Congress a resolution "directing payment of the certificates or awards issued by the commissioners under the treaty with the Cherokee Indians." Its provisions involved principles of great importance, in reference to which it required more time to obtain the necessary information than was allowed.

The balance of the fund provided by Congress for satisfying claims under the seventeenth article of the Cherokee treaty, referred to in the resolution, is wholly insufficient to meet the claims still pending. To direct the payment, therefore, of the whole amount of those claims which happened to be first adjudicated would prevent a ratable distribution of the fund among those equally entitled to its benefits. Such a violation of the individual rights of the claimants would impose upon the Government the obligation of making further appropriations to indemnify them, and thus Congress would be obliged to enlarge a provision, liberal and equitable, which it had made for the satisfaction of all the demands of the Cherokees. I was unwilling to sanction a measure which would thus indirectly overturn the adjustment of our differences with the Cherokees, accomplished with so much difficulty, and to which time is reconciling those Indians.

If no such indemnity should be provided, then a palpable and very gross wrong would be inflicted upon the claimants who had not been so fortunate as to have their claims taken up in preference to others. Besides, the fund having been appropriated by law to a specific purpose, in fulfillment of the treaty, it belongs to the Cherokees, and the authority of this Government to direct its application to particular claims is more than questionable.

The direction in the joint resolution, therefore, to pay the awards of the commissioners to the amount of $100,000 seemed to me quite objectionable, and could not be approved.

The further direction that the certificates required to be issued by the treaty, and in conformity with the practice of the board heretofore, shall be proper and sufficient vouchers, upon which payments shall be made at the Treasury, is a departure from the system established soon after the adoption of the Constitution and maintained ever since. That system requires that payments under the authority of any Department shall be made upon its requisition, countersigned by the proper Auditor and Comptroller. The greatest irregularity would ensue from the mode of payment prescribed by the resolution.

I have deemed it respectful and proper to lay before the House of Representatives these reasons for having withheld my approval of the above-mentioned joint resolution.

JOHN TYLER.