According to legislative precedents, visitors to academies, regents, directors and trustees of public institutions, and members of temporary commissions who receive no compensation as such, are not officers within the constitutional inhibition of section 6.[190] Government contractors and federal officers who resign before presenting their credentials may be seated as Members of Congress.[191] In 1909, after having increased the salary of the Secretary of State,[192] Congress reduced it to the former figure so that a Member of the Senate at the time the increase was voted would be eligible for that office.[193] The first clause again became a subject of discussion in 1937, when Justice Black was appointed to the Supreme Court in face of the fact that Congress had recently improved the financial position of Justices retiring at seventy and the term for which Mr. Black had been elected to the Senate from Alabama in 1932 had still some time to run. The appointment was defended by the argument that inasmuch as Mr. Black was only fifty-one years old at the time and so would be ineligible for the "increased emolument" for nineteen years, it was not as to him an increased emolument.[194]
Section 7. Clause 1. All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.
Clause 2. Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a Law, be presented to the President of the United States; If he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his Objections to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the Objections at large on their Journal, and proceed to reconsider it. If after such Reconsideration two thirds of that House shall agree to pass the Bill, it shall be sent, together with the Objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two thirds of that House, it shall become a Law. But in all such Cases the Votes of both Houses shall be determined by yeas and Nays, and the Names of the Persons voting for and against the Bill shall be entered on the Journal of each House respectively. If any Bill shall not be returned by the President within ten Days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the Same shall be a Law, in like Manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their Adjournment prevent its Return, in which Case it shall not be a Law.
THE LEGISLATIVE PROCESS
REVENUE BILLS
Only bills to levy taxes in the strict sense of the word are comprehended by the phrase "all bills for raising revenue"; bills for other purposes, which incidentally create revenue, are not included.[195] An act providing a national currency secured by a pledge of bonds of the United States, which, "in the furtherance of that object, and also to meet the expenses attending the execution of the act," imposed a tax on the circulating notes of national banks was held not to be a revenue measure which must originate in the House of Representatives.[196] Neither was a bill which provided that the District of Columbia should raise by taxation and pay to designated railroad companies a specified sum for the elimination of grade crossings and the construction of a union railway station.[197] The substitution of a corporation tax for an inheritance tax,[198] and the addition of a section imposing an excise tax upon the use of foreign built pleasure yachts,[199] have been held to be within the Senate's constitutional power to propose amendments.
The President is not restricted to signing a bill on a day when Congress is in session.[200] He may sign within ten days (Sundays excepted) after the bill is presented to him, even if that period extends beyond the date of the final adjournment of Congress.[201] His duty in case of approval of a measure is merely to sign it. He need not write on the bill the word "approved" nor the date. If no date appears on the face of the roll, the Court may ascertain the fact by resort to any source of information capable of furnishing a satisfactory answer.[202] A bill becomes law on the date of its approval by the President.[203] When no time is fixed by the act it is effective from the date of its approval,[204] which usually is taken to be the first moment of the day, fractions of a day being disregarded.[205]
THE VETO POWER
If Congress adjourns within ten days (Sundays excepted) of the presentation of a bill to the President, the return of the bill is prevented within the meaning of this clause. Consequently it does not become law if the President does not sign it, but succumbs to what in Congressional parlance is called a "pocket veto."[206] But a brief recess by the House in which a bill originated, while the Congress is still in session, does not prevent the return of a bill by delivery to one of the officers of the House who has implied authority to receive it.[207] The two-thirds vote of each House required to pass a bill over a veto means two-thirds of a quorum.[208] After a bill becomes law the President has no authority to repeal it. Asserting this truism, the Supreme Court held in The Confiscation Cases,[209] that the immunity proclamation issued by the President in 1868 did not require reversal of a decree condemning property which had been seized under the Confiscation Act of 1862.[210]