US Presidency
1887

A service-pension law was passed for the benefit of the soldiers of 1812 in the year 1871, fifty-six years after the close of that war, which required only sixty days ' service; and another was passed in 1878, sixty-three years after the war, requiring only fourteen days ' service. The service-pension bill passed at this session of Congress, thirty nine years after the close of the Mexican War, for the benefit of the soldiers of that war, requires either some degree of disability or dependency or that the claimant under its provisions should be 62 years of age, and in either case that he should have served sixty days or been actually engaged in a battle.