ATTEMPTED ASSASSINATION OF ANDREW JACKSON June 30, 1835 For the first time in our history the hand of the assassin was raised against a President on January 30, 1835, when a painter named Lawrence attempted to shoot Andrew Jackson. Lawrence stood on the portico of the Capitol, near one of the columns. Jackson, leaning on the arm of his Secretary of the Treasury, came within two yards of him. Lawrence drew a pistol from under his coat, raised his arm and fired point blank at Jackson's breast. The percussion cap exploded with a great noise, but the pistol was not fired. Taking another pistol from his coat, the assassin was about to fire when the President sprang upon him, brandishing his cane. The assassin then fled, followed hotly by the aged Executive, but was captured. The pistols, when taken from him, were found to be excellently made, well charged with the best kind of powder, and crammed almost to the muzzle with balls. Their failure to explode was inexplicable and excited the religious fervor of the people as a providential miracle. Lawrence was tried, but being manifestly insane was committed to an insane asylum where he died thirty or forty years later. He departed this life at half past 6 o'clock on the morning of the 28th instant, full of years and full of honors. I hasten this communication in order that Congress may adopt such measures as may be proper to testify their sense of the respect which is due to the memory of one whose life has contributed so essentially to the happiness and glory of his country and the good of mankind. To the Senate and House of Representatives: ANDREW JACKSON. I transmit to Congress copies of a treaty of peace, friendship, navigation, and commerce between the United States and the Republic of Venezuela, concluded on the 20th of January, and the ratifications of which were exchanged at Caracas on the 31st of May last. JUNE 30, 1836. To the House of Representatives: ANDREW JACKSON. WASHINGTON, June 30, 1836. I return to the House of Representatives the papers which accompanied their resolution of the 6th of May last, relative to the claim of Don Juan Madrazo, together with a report of the Secretary of State and copies of a correspondence between him and the Attorney-General, showing the grounds upon which that officer declines giving the opinion requested by the resolution. ANDREW JACKSON. To the Senate of the United States: WASHINGTON, July 1, 1836. In answer to the resolution of the Senate of the 21st January last, I transmit a report* of the Secretary of War, containing the copies called for so far as relates to his Department. ANDREW JACKSON. VETO MESSAGE. WASHINGTON, June 9, 1836. To the Senate of the United States: The act of Congress "to appoint a day for the annual meeting of Congress," which originated in the Senate, has not received my signature. The power of Congress to fix by law a day for the regular annual meeting of Congress is undoubted, but the concluding part of this act, which * Relating to frauds in sales of public lands or Indian reservations. is intended to fix the adjournment of every succeeding Congress to the second Monday in May after the commencement of the first session, does not appear to me in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution of the United States. The Constitution provides, Article I, section 5, that Neither House, during the session of Congress, shall, without the consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to any other place than that in which the two Houses shall be sitting. Article I, section 7, that— Every order, resolution, or vote to which the concurrence of the Senate and House of Representatives may be necessary (except on a question of adjournment) shall be presented to the President of the United States, and before the same shall take effect shall be approved by him. * Article II, section 3, that He [the President] may, on extraordinary occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in case of disagreement between them with respect to the time of adjournment he may adjourn them to such time as he shall think proper. According to these provisions the day of the adjournment of Congress is not the subject of legislative enactment. Except in the event of disagreement between the Senate and House of Representatives, the President has no right to meddle with the question, and in that event his power is exclusive, but confined to fixing the adjournment of the Congress whose branches have disagreed. The question of adjournment is obviously to be decided by each Congress for itself, by the separate action of each House for the time being, and is one of those subjects upon which the framers of that instrument did not intend one Congress should act, with or without the Executive aid, for its successors. As a substitute for the present rule, which requires the two Houses by consent to fix the day of adjournment, and in the event of disagreement the President to decide, it is proposed to fix a day by law to be binding in all future time unless changed by consent of both Houses of Congress, and to take away the contingent power of the Executive which in anticipated cases of disagreement is vested in him. This substitute is to apply, not to the present Congress and Executive, but to our successors. Considering, therefore, that this subject exclusively belongs to the two Houses of Congress whose day of adjournment is to be fixed, and that each has at that time the right to maintain and insist upon its own opinion, and to require the President to decide in the event of disagreement with the other, I am constrained to deny my sanction to the act herewith respectfully returned to the Senate. I do so with greater reluctance as, apart from this constitutional difficulty, the other provisions of it do not appear to me objectionable. ANDREW JACKSON, PROCLAMATION. [From Statutes at Large (Little, Brown & Co.), Vol. XI, p. 782.] BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. A PROCLAMATION. Whereas by an act of Congress of the United States of the 24th of May, 1828, entitled "An act in addition to an act entitled 'An act concerning discriminating duties of tonnage and impost' and to equalize the duties on Prussian vessels and their cargoes," it is provided that, upon satisfactory evidence being given to the President of the United States by the government of any foreign nation that no discriminating duties of tonnage or impost are imposed or levied in the ports of the said nation upon vessels wholly belonging to citizens of the United States or upon the produce, manufactures, or merchandise imported in the same from the United States or from any foreign country, the President is hereby authorized to issue his proclamation declaring that the foreign discriminating duties of tonnage and impost within the United States are and shall be suspended and discontinued so far as respects the vessels of the said foreign nation and the produce, manufactures, or merchandise imported into the United States in the same from the said foreign nation or from any other foreign country, the said suspension to take effect from the time of such notification being given to the President of the United States and to continue so long as the reciprocal exemption of vessels belonging to citizens of the United States and their cargoes, as aforesaid, shall be continued, and no longer; and Whereas satisfactory evidence has lately been received by me from the Government of His Imperial and Royal Highness the Grand Duke of Tuscany, through an official communication of Baron Lederer, the consulgeneral of His Imperial and Royal Highness in the United States, under date of the 6th day of August, 1836, that no discriminating duties of tonnage or impost are imposed or levied in the ports of Tuscany upon vessels wholly belonging to citizens of the United States or upon the produce, manufactures, or merchandise imported in the same from the United States or from any foreign country: Now, therefore, I, Andrew Jackson, President of the United States of America, do hereby declare and proclaim that the foreign discriminating duties of tonnage and impost within the United States are and shall be suspended and discontinued so far as respects the vessels of the Grand Dukedom of Tuscany and the produce, manufactures, or merchandise im-, ported into the United States in the same from the said Grand Dukedom' or from any other foreign country, the said suspension to take effect from the 6th day of August, 1836, above mentioned, and to continue so long as |