Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. III.djvu/182

148 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS dom from the wholesome restraints of law, or that the place of an election should be sanctuary for lawlessness and crime." If any oppression, any partisan partiality, had been shown in the execution of the existing law, he added, efficient correctives of the mischief should be applied; but as no con gressional election was immediately impending, the matter might properly be referred to the regular session of congress. In a bill "making appropriations for certain judicial expenses," passed by congress, it was at tempted, not indeed to repeal the election laws, but to make their enforcement impossible by prohibit ing the payment of any salaries, fees or expenses under or in virtue of them, and providing also that no contract should be made, and no liability in curred, under any of their provisions. President Hayes vetoed this bill, June 23, 1879, on the ground that, as no bill repealing the election laws had been passed over his veto, those laws were still in existence, and the present bill, if it became a law, would make it impossible for the executive to per form his constitutional duty to see to it that the laws be faithfully executed. On the same ground the president returned with his veto a bill making appropriations to pay fees of United States mar shals and their general deputies, in which the same attempt was made to defeat the execution of the election laws by withholding the necessary funds