EXECUTIVE MANSION, February 14, 1877.

To the House of Representatives: 

I return the House bill No. 3155, entitled “An act to perfect the revision of the statutes of the United States,” without my approval.  My objection is to the single provision which amends section 3823 of the Revised Statutes.

That section is as follows: 

SEC. 3823.  The Clerk of the House of Representatives shall select in Virginia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas one or more newspapers, not exceeding the number allowed by law, in which such treaties and laws of the United States as may be ordered for publication in newspapers according to law shall be published, and in some one or more of which so selected all such advertisements as may be ordered for publication in said districts by any United States court or judge thereof, or by any officer of such courts, or by any executive officer of the United States, shall be published, the compensation for which and other terms of publication shall be fixed by said Clerk at a rate not exceeding $2 per page for the publication of treaties and laws, and not exceeding $1 per square of eight lines of space for the publication of advertisements, the accounts for which shall be adjusted by the proper accounting officers and paid in the manner now authorized by law in the like cases.

The bill proposes to amend this section as follows: 

By striking out all after the word “in” in the first line to the word “one” in the third line, and inserting therefor the words “each State and Territory of the United States.”

Prior to 1867 the advertising of the Executive Departments had been subject to the direction of the heads of those Departments, and had been published in newspapers selected by them and on terms fixed by them.  In the year 1867 (14 U.S.  Statutes at Large, pp. 466, 467), while the ten States above named were yet unrestricted, and when there existed a radical difference of opinion between the executive and legislative departments as to the administration of the Government in those States, this provision was enacted.  Subsequently, during the same year (15 U.S.  Statutes at Large, p. 8), so much of this provision “as relates to the publication of the laws and treaties of the United States” was extended to all the States and Territories, leaving the advertisements ordered by Congress and by the Executive Departments unaffected thereby.  The continuance of this provision after the reconstruction acts had taken effect and the bringing it forward into the Revised Statutes were probably through inadvertence.