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President James Buchanan Vetoes Payment of Mail Contract Curtailment Compensation
President James Buchanan Vetoes Payment of Mail Contract Curtailment Compensation
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Description:

James Buchanan
Washington, DC, January 25, 1861
President James Buchanan Vetoes Payment of Mail Contract Curtailment Compensation
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JAMES BUCHANAN, Autograph Document, Draft Veto Message to the U.S. House of Representatives, [January 25, 1861], Washington, D.C. 9 pp., 8.5" x 13", 6.25" x 8", 8" x 9.75". Some toning and light staining; scattered spots.

President James Buchanan wrote these drafts of his veto message to the House of Representatives for "An Act for the Relief of Hockaday & Leggit." The House had passed a bill on March 30, 1860, to compensate John M. Hockaday and William Leggit in the amount of $59,576 for the reduction in service on the postal route they operated from St. Joseph, Missouri, via Fort Kearney and Fort Leavenworth, to Salt Lake City. The service was conducted weekly from May 1, 1858, to June 30, 1859, but the Postmaster General reduced it to semi-monthly beginning July 1, 1859. The Senate amended the amount of compensation to $40,000 and approved the bill on June 21, 1860. Because the bill was passed so late in the session, President Buchanan could not consider it before the session ended on June 25, and it failed for lack of presidential approval.

Congress again passed the bill and presented it to President Buchanan on January 15, 1861, but this time the amount was $59,576. Concerned about the precedent in many other cases of mail contracts, Buchanan vetoed the bill on January 25.

The next day, the House voted to override Buchanan's veto, with 81 representatives voting to override and 67 against, but the effort fell short of the two-thirds majority (99) necessary to override a presidential veto.

The Senate and House both introduced new bills for the relief of Hockaday and Leggit in the amount of $40,000 in February 1861 and after resolving differences, Congress passed the bill again. On February 28, President Buchanan signed the new bill into law.

Complete Transcript
To the House of Representatives of the United States

I return to the House in which it originated the Bill entitled "An Act for the relief of Hockaday & Leggit" presented to me on the 15th Instant.

This Bill passed both Houses of Congress at their last session appropriating $40.000 "for damages sustained by them in reduction of pay for carrying the mails on route number 8911." This Bill was presented to me at so late a period of the Session that no sufficient time was left to me before the adjournment to examine its provision & it therefore failed to become a law.

The Bill which I now return appropriates $59.576 in the very same language for the same services, increasing the appropriation made by the Bill of last within a fraction of $20.000. Had the present Bill appropriated $40.000 for this purpose I should have approved it without delay; because it would be an extraordinary case in which a President would be justified in vetoing a Bill for the payment of a mere private claim which had passed twice through Congress. The extraordinary increase of the amount appropriated between your last & present session has caused me to examine this question with some attention & I find it involves an important general principle which if established may take large sums of money out of the Treasury.

2 June 20—1860. The Bill passed for $40.000.
1 June 20—1860. The Bill passed the Senate with an amendment reducing it from $59.576 to 40.000.

Had the present Bill appropriated $40.000 as the last had done I should have approved it; because it would be an extraordinary case which would justify the President in vetoing a Bill providing for the payment of a mere private claim after it had twice passed both Houses of Congress.

The increase of the sum appropriated being within a fraction of $20.000 has caused me to examine the question with some attention & I found the Bill involves an important principle which if established may take large sums of money out of the Treasury. If this be correct, then there is no other alternative.

This Bill appropriates $59.576 "for damages sustained by Hockaday & Ligget, sustained by them in reduction of pay for carrying the mails on route No 8911," paid to William Ligget.

A Bill containing the same language with the single exception that the sum appropriated for this purpose was $40.000 instead of $59.576 passed both Houses of Congress at their last session; but was presented to me at so late a period of the Session that I could not examine into its merits before the time fixed for the adjournment & it therefore, under the Constitution, failed to become a law.

It appears that On the first day of April 1858 John M. Hockaday entered into a contract with the Postmaster General for transporting the mail on route No 8911 from St Joseph, Mo, by Fort Kearny, Neb. Ter. & Fort Laramie at Salt Lake City for the sum of $190.000 per annum for a weekly service. The service was to commence on the 1st day of May 1858 & to terminate on the 30 November 1860. By this contract the Postmaster General reserved to himself the right "to reduce the service to semi-monthly whenever the necessities of the public & the condition of affairs in the Territory of Utah may not require it more frequently." And again "that the Postmaster General may discontinue or curtail the service, in whole or in part, in order to place on the route a greater degree of service, or whenever the public interests require such discontinuance or curtailment for any other cause; he allowing one month extra pay on the amount of service dispensed with."

On the 14 April 1859, the Postmaster General curtailed the service, which he had a clear right to do under the contract, to semi monthly with an annual deduction of $65.000 leaving the compensation $125.000 for twenty four trips per year instead of $190.000 for the fifty two trips. This curtailment was not to take effect till the 1 July 1859.

At the time the contract was made it was expected that the army in Utah might be engaged in active operations; & hence the necessity of frequent communications between the War Department & that Territory. The reservation of the power to curtail the service itself to semi-monthly trips proves conclusively that the parties had in view the contingency of such curtailment "whenever the necessities of the public & & the condition of affairs in the Territory of Utah may not require it more frequently."

Before the Postmaster General ordered this curtailment he had an interview with the Secretary of War upon the subject in the course of which the Secretary agreed that a weekly mail to St. Josephs & Salt Lake City was no longer needed for the purposes of the Government. This evidently because the troubles in Utah had ended.

Mr Hockaday faithfully complied with his contract & the full compensation was paid at the rate of $190.000 per annum up till the 1st July 1859—and one month's extra pay on the amount curtailed, according to the contract.

Previous to that date, as has been already stated, on the 14th April 1859 The Postmaster General curtailed the service to twice per month & on the 11th May 1859 Messrs Hockaday & Company assigned the contract to Jones, Russell & Co for a bonus of fifty thousand dollars. Their property connected with the route was to be appraised which was effected they received on this account the sum of $94.000, making the whole to amount to $144.000.

There is no doubt that Hockaday has sustained considerable loss in the whole transaction ^sale which he made to^. The amount I shall not pretend to decide, whether $40.000 or 59.000 or any other sum.

My solicitude simply is that a precedent shall not be established which may render contracts with the Post Office Department a mere nullity: & enable Contractors violate their agreements with the Department in the expectation that Congress will relieve them from their engagements. I am informed by the Post Office that there are many cases depending upon the same principle which if established by Congress will make serious inroads on the Treasury.

James Buchanan (1791-1868) was born in Pennsylvania and graduated from Dickinson College in 1809. He served in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives as a Federalist from 1814-1816. With the collapse of the Federalist Party, Buchanan became a Republican-Federalist and served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1821 to 1831, where he largely supported Andrew Jackson. He served as ambassador to Russia for eighteen months in 1832 and 1833, then as U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania from 1834 to 1845. President James K. Polk appointed him as Secretary of State, a position he held from 1845 to 1849. President Franklin Pierce sent Buchanan as the U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom, a position he held from 1853 to 1856. Being out of the country in the increasing sectional tensions caused by the Kansas-Nebraska Act and other controversies aided Buchanan's political fortunes in 1856, when he won the Democratic nomination on the 17th ballot over incumbent Pierce and Stephen Douglas of Illinois. Buchanan supported Douglas's doctrine of popular sovereignty, hoping to keep the divisive issue of slavery out of Congress and national debate. Two days after his inauguration, the Supreme Court issued its Dred Scott decision, declaring that Congress could not outlaw slavery in the territories. Far from settling the issue, the Court's decision fueled more sectional outrage. He took little direct action in response to the Panic of 1857, which hit northern cities and states hardest. Buchanan's poor handling of the Utah War and Bleeding Kansas also contributed to his poor reputation as president. As he left office, he famously declared that the southern states had no right to secede and that the federal government had no right to prevent them. He spent the Civil War weakly supporting the Union war effort and writing a memoir in defense of his presidency, published in 1866. Buchanan never married, the only president to remain a bachelor.

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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