Andrew Johnson: “It is of the first necessity, for the maintenance of the Union, that that commerce should be free and unobstructed.”

Feeling constrained to withhold my consent, I herewith return the resolution to the Senate, in which House it originated, with a brief statement of the reasons which have induced my action.

No power exists in the Constitution authorizing the joint resolution or the supposed law--the only difference being that one would be more palpably unconstitutional and revolutionary than the other.

I would therefore recommend such an amendment of the Constitution as may remove all intermediate agency in the election of the President and Vice-President.

My object in this communication is to suggest certain defects in the Constitution which seem to me to require correction.