[Footnote 16: Pocket vetoes.]
WASHINGTON, _December 6, 1832_.
_To the Senate of the United States_:
I avail myself of this early opportunity to return to the Senate, in
which it originated, the bill entitled "An act providing for the final
settlement of the claims of States for interest on advances to the
United States made during the last war," with the reasons which induced
me to withhold my approbation, in consequence of which it has failed to
become a law.
This bill was presented to me for my signature on the last day of your
session, and when I was compelled to consider a variety of other bills
of greater urgency to the public service. It obviously embraced a
principle in the allowance of interest different from that which had
been sanctioned by the practice of the accounting officers or by the
previous legislation of Congress in regard to the advances by the
States, and without any apparent grounds for the change.
Previously to giving my sanction to so great an extension of the
practice of allowing interest upon accounts with the Government, and
which in its consequences and from analogy might not only call for large
payments from the Treasury, but disturb the great mass of individual
accounts long since finally settled, I deemed it my duty to make a more
thorough investigation of the subject than it was possible for me to do
previously to the close of your last session. I adopted this course the
more readily from the consideration that as the bill contained no
appropriation the States which would have been entitled to claim its
benefits could not have received them without the fuller legislation of
Congress.
The principle which this bill authorizes varies not only from the
practice uniformly adopted by many of the accounting officers in the
case of individual accounts and in those of the States finally settled
and closed previously to your last session, but also from that pursued
under the act of your last session for the adjustment and settlement of
the claims of the State of South Carolina. This last act prescribed no
particular mode for the allowance of interest, which, therefore, in
conformity with the directions of Congress in previous cases and with
the uniform practice of the Auditor by whom the account was settled, was
computed on the sums expended by the State of South Carolina for the use
and benefit of the United States, and which had been repaid to the
State; and the payments made by the United States were deducted from the
principal sums, exclusive of the interest, thereby stopping future
interest on so much of the principal as had been reimbursed by the
payment.
I deem it proper, moreover, to observe that both under the act of the
5th of August, 1790, and that of the 12th of February, 1793, authorizing
the settlement of the accounts between the United States and the
individual States arising out of the war of the Revolution, the interest
on those accounts was computed in conformity with the practice already
adverted to, and from which the bill now returned is a departure.
With these reasons and considerations I return the bill to the Senate.