Speech of William H. Seward, on the President's veto of the land bill for the insane, in the Senate of the United States, June 19, 1854.
- William H. Seward
- Date:
- 1854
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Speech of William H. Seward, on the President's veto of the land bill for the insane, in the Senate of the United States, June 19, 1854. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.
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![SPEECH OF WILLIAM H. SEWARD. Congress ha3 passed a bill by -which ten mil- lions of acres of the public domain are granted to the several States, with unquestioned equality, on condition that they shall accept the same, and sell the lands at not less than one dollar per acre, and safely invest the gross proceeds, and forever apply the interest thereon to the maintenance of their indigent insane inhabitants. Thi3 bill is a contribution to the States, made from a peculiar national resource, at a time when the Treasury is overflowing. It is made at the suggestion, and it is not stating the case too strongly to say, through the unaided, unpaid, and purely disinterested in- fluence of an American woman, [Miss Dix,] who, while all other members of society have been seeking how to advance their own fortunes and happiness, or the prosperity and greatness of their country, has consecrated her life to the relief of the most pitiable form in which the Divine Ruler afflicts our common humanity. The purpose of the bill has commended it to onr warmest and most active sympathies. Not a voice has censured it, in cither House of Con- gress. It is the one only purpose of legislation, suf- ficiently great to arrestattention, that has met with universal approbation throughout the country, during the present session. It seems as if some sad fatality attends our public action, when this measure is singled out from among all others, to be baffled and defeated by an Executive veto. Such, however, is the fact. The bill has been returned by the President with objections whicA it is now our constitutional duty to consider. I shall confine myself to the consideration of these objections alone, and shall not look back- ward to questions raised in previous discussions here, nor dwell upon any that have been raised since the veto message was received, which are not contained in that document. Five years of Congressional discussion have exhausted the sub- ject,°so far as all objections, except those of the President, arc concerned. In considering the President's message, we are struck with the fact that it is desultory, illogical, and confused. While commending the purpose of the bill, the President denies the expediency of the measure, and denies also the power of Con- gress to adopt it. It is impossible, however, to separate the argumeut directed against the expe- diency of the measure from the argument directed against the power. So the argument against the expediency rests chiefly on an assumption that the measure is a usurpation of power, while the argument against the power reposes chiefly on the inexpediency of its exercise. This criticism is important, because the confu- sion I have described impairs the force of the ar- gument, and because, moreover, Congress may well confide in their own conclusions as to the expediency of a measure, while they are bound to pay extraordinary respect to Executive sugges- tions impugning its constitutionality. I do not stop to demonstrate the correctness of this criti- cism. Every Senator who has discussed the message, on either side, has betrayed, I think, an embarrassment resulting from it. In the second place, the message seems to me, I do not say disingenuous, but singularly unfair and unjust in the statement of the question. The bill confines itself to a single purpose, viz : that of aiding the States in enabling them to maintain one peculiar class of destitute persons, by an appropriation of equal and just parts of the public domain, leaving all other objects and all other sources of public wealth out of view, and abstaining altogether from interference with the States in the performance of even that one duty. But the President is not content to state the question thus. He approaches it by an induc- tion. It cannot be questioned, he says, that ' if Congress have power to mako provision for ' the indigent insane without the limits of this Dis- ' trict, it has the same power to provide for the ' indigent who are not insane, and thus to transfer 1 to the Federal Government the charge of all the ' poor in all the States. After amplification of this proposition, without argument, the President arrives at the statement of the question before him, and announces it in these words : The question presented, therefore, clearly is ' npon the constitutionality and propriety of the 1 Federal Government assuming to enter into a 1 novel and vast field of legislation, namely, that ' of providing for the care and support of all ' those among the people of the United States 1 who by any form of calamity become fit objects ' of public philanthropy. You need only place this statement of the CB e by the side of the President's own statement of the provisions of the bill, to enable you to sec that it is flagrantly erroneous and unju3t. But I will illustrate it directly. Congress does, in un- questioned conformity with the Constitution, exer- cise some powers in the States which are concur- rent with similar powers enjoyed by the Sf themselves. Thus Congress establishes here and there, throughout the States, hospitals for sick and disabled seamen. Is that equivalent t.< as- suming the support and care of all the poor, on land al well as on sea. belonging to the States ?](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21004201_0005.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
