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342 HAR VARD LA W RE VIE W. that the doctrine, which has never reached the court, has not been passed without challenge by the Executive on several occasions. In 1887, for example, when Congress passed an Act to distribute seeds to the drought-stricken counties of Texas, with an appro- priation, the President vetoed it, assigning as a reason : 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. A prevalent tendency to disregard the limited mission of this power and duty should, I think, be steadfastly resisted, to the end that the lesson should be constantly enforced that, though the people support the government, the goverment should not support the people. These instances of national charity relied on by the attorney- general, repay examination. They are thus characterized by the importers counsel at page 22 of their " Reply." An exchange of lands ; the use of a national vessel ; slight extensions of existing debts ; small donations of food, or its purchase (in trifling amounts) from funds already in the public treasury, to be given to foreign or domestic sufferers by earthquake, flood, or fire, or to those to whom the grasshopper had become a burden — evading judicial scrutiny, they prove nothing as to the constitutionality of the present act. 4. Protective Taxes. The government say (p. 75) : It is too late, in this year of grace 1891, for litigants to argue that the encouragement of diversified industries is not a national purpose, and, so far as Congress is concerned, therefore a public purpose. . . . We do not propose to spend further time in a discussion of their {i.e. of " protective " laws) validity. It is an issue long since finally settled. The principle thus established necessarily justifies bounties, for, in the beginning of the operation of a protective tariff, the amount of duty levied is a bounty to the domestic manufacturer, and it is with a view to such a benefit for him that it is levied. The sugar duties have always had the effect of a bounty to domestic sugar-producers. . . . The re- moval of duties would absolutely destroy fifty or sixty million dollars' worth of property invested in this industry and protected by the duties. To enable persons whose property would be thus injuriously affected to prepare for the change, the government was under a moral obligation to reimburse them for their loss, or to permit them by a bounty to con- tinue the business until such time as the business might be self-sustain- ing, (p. 84.) From the acquiescence of the nation during the periods of "protection" under the tariffs of 1789, 1812, 1816, 1824, 1828,