Grover Cleveland

Veto Message

July 30, 1886

To the Senate:

I return without approval Senate bill No. 63, entitled "An act to authorize the construction of a highway bridge across that part of the waters of Lake Champlain lying between the towns of North Hero and Alburg, in the State of Vermont."

On the 20th day of June, 1884, a bill was approved and became a law having the same title and containing precisely the same provisions and in the exact words of the bill herewith returned.

The records of the War Department indicate that nothing has been done toward building the bridge permitted by such prior act. It is hardly possible that the bill now before me is intended to authorize an additional bridge between the two towns named, and I have been unable to discover any excuse or necessity for new legislation on the subject.

I conclude, therefore, that Congress in passing this bill acted in ignorance of the fact that a law providing for its objects and purposes was already on the statute book.

My approval of the bill is withheld for this reason and in order to prevent an unnecessary and confusing multiplicity of laws.

GROVER CLEVELAND

Grover Cleveland, Veto Message Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/204812

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