The Presidential Veto 1881 - 1889
President Chester Arthur (1881 – 1885)
Chester Arthur became President upon James Garfield's assassination in 1881. Chinese immigration continued to be controversial, as it was under the prior President, Rutherford Hayes. Citizens were concerned that Chinese immigrants were undercutting the wages of American workers. In 1879, Hayes had vetoed a bill limiting Chinese immigration because it violated treaty agreements with China. In response to ongoing pressure, the Hayes administration negotiated a new treaty with China (known as the Angell treaty, named for the American diplomat.) This treaty allowed the U.S. to limit, but not prohibit, immigration from China. Such limitations were to be ‘reasonable.’
With Arthur as President, Congress again passed a bill in 1882 to ban Chinese immigration for 20 years. President Arthur vetoed the bill stating that it violated the ‘Angell Treaty’ with China. In his veto message, Arthur praised the contribution of Chinese immigrants: “No one can say that the country has not profited by their [Chinese] work. They were largely instrumental in constructing the railways which connect the Atlantic with the Pacific. The States of the Pacific Slope are full of evidences of their industry.”
President Arthur also felt that profitable trade and commerce with China could be threatened by this bill. “The opening of China to the commerce of the whole world has benefited no section of it more than the States of our own Pacific Slope… San Francisco has before it an incalculable future if our friendly and amicable relations with Asia remain undisturbed. It needs no argument to show that the policy which we now propose [immigration ban] to adopt must have a direct tendency to repel Oriental nations from us and to drive their trade and commerce into more friendly lands.”
The reprieve did not last long. Congress passed the bill again, reducing the 20-year exclusion to 10 years. Arthur signed this bill (the ‘Chinese Exclusion Act’). The 10 years stretched to over 60 years. First, Congress extended the ban for another 10 years. Then Congress made the exclusion perpetual. The act was finally repealed in 1943 when the United States was allied with China in WWII against Japan.
President Grover Cleveland (President from 1885 – 1889 and 1893 – 1897)
The first 21 Presidents of the United States vetoed about 200 bills in total. Cleveland vetoed almost 600 in his two terms. Most were ‘private laws’ intended to benefit a single person*. Hundreds related to Civil War pensions and President Cleveland's vetoes were because the requests were improper. As an example, "An act granting a pension to Mary A. Van Etten." Ms. Van Etten’s husband, a civil war veteran, died in a drowning incident in 1875, 10 years after the end of the Civil War. 10 years later, in 1885, Ms. Van Etten said her husband couldn’t swim due to a military disability and claimed entitlement to a pension. As Cleveland stated – “ It seems to me that there is such an entire absence of direct and tangible evidence that the death of this soldier resulted from any incident of his service that the granting of a pension upon such a theory is not justified.”
I am not sure why so many private bills were passed during his terms. However, believe it or not, Cleveland is only in second place in the all-time leaderboard for the number of vetoes. We will disclose number one in the future.
One of Cleveland’s vetoes is famous, at least for those interested in limiting the role of government. After a drought in Texas, Congress passed a bill to provide crop seeds to the farmers for the upcoming season. Seems straightforward, but Cleveland vetoed the bill:
President Grover Cleveland
“I can find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution, and I do not believe that the power and duty of the General Government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering which is in no manner properly related to the public service or benefit…the lesson should be constantly enforced that though the people support the Government, the Government should not support the people.”
Cleveland believed in private charity, which he thought would be undercut by government involvement:
“The friendliness and charity of our countrymen can always be relied upon to relieve their fellow-citizens in misfortune. This has been repeatedly and quite lately demonstrated. Federal aid in such cases encourages the expectation of paternal care on the part of the Government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character, while it prevents the indulgence among our people of that kindly sentiment and conduct which strengthens the bonds of a common brotherhood.”
Cleveland also vetoed many spending bills. As he stated in his inaugural address, “It is a plain dictate of honesty and good government that public expenditures should be limited by public necessity, and that this should be measured by the rules of strict economy…” I wonder what he would think of today’s governmental spending programs.
Pensions provide an excellent opportunity to view Cleveland’s frugality with public funds. At the end of the Civil War, the Government awarded pensions to Union soldiers disabled because of the War (or their widows and dependents if killed). In 1887, Congress passed a bill granting a pension to any Union veteran who was disabled for any reason, whether or not the disability was related to their war service. Cleveland vetoed the bill. Congress's attempt to override the veto failed. This became an issue in the 1888 Presidential election, which Cleveland narrowly lost to Civil War veteran Benjamin Harrison. Congress again passed this disability act, and Harrison signed it into law. Within several years, over 35% of the Federal budget went to pension payments. About the same portion of today’s Federal Budget for Social Security and Medicare!
(Click for Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 6 of this series)
To be continued.
* Private Bills or laws that relate to a single individual. For example, after the Civil War, the United States awarded pensions to disabled veterans and widows and their children. If a person felt they were not receiving the proper pension, they would appeal to their Congressman to pass a private law on their behalf. Presidents vetoed many of these since the relief request was improper.