The escheated property was held by the Government until 1896 and meanwhile, the Mormon Church submitted to the law and made a formal declaration that it had abandoned polygamy.
Another instance in which a lack of agreement between the executive and the legislative branches of the Government manifested itself, arose out of a scheme which President Arthur recommended to Congress for the improvement of the waterways of the Mississippi and its tributaries.

The response of Congress was a bill in which there was an appropriation of about $4,000,000 for the general improvements recommended, but about $14,000,000 were added for other special river and harbor schemes which had obtained congressional favor.

President Arthur's veto message of August 1, 1882, condemned the bill because it contained provisions designed "entirely for the benefit of the particular localities in which it is proposed to make the improvements." He thus described a type of legislation of which the nation had and is still having bitter experience: "As the citizens of one State find that money, to raise which they in common with the whole country are taxed, is to be expended for local improvements in another State, they demand similar benefits for themselves, and it is not unnatural that they should seek to indemnify themselves for such use of the public funds by securing appropriations for similar improvements in their own neighborhood.

Thus as the bill becomes more objectionable it secures more support." The truth of this last assertion Congress immediately proved by passing the bill over the President's veto.

Senator Hoar, who defended the bill, has admitted that "a large number of the members of the House who voted for it lost their seats" and that in his opinion the affair "cost the Republican party its majority in the House of Representatives." Legislation regarding the tariff was, however, the event of Arthur's administration which had the deepest effect upon the political situation.