748 



UNITED STATES. 



by him to the public, and only to the President in 

 obedience to a requisition for all the dispatches. 



No one regrets more than myself that General 

 Baird's request was not brought to my notice. It is 

 clear from his dispatch and letter, that if the Secre- 

 tary of "War had given him proper instructions, the 

 riot which arose on the assembling of the convention 

 would have been averted. 



There may be those ready to say that I would have 

 given no instructions even if the 'dispatch had 

 reached me in time ; but all must admit that I ought 

 to have had the opportunity. 



The following is the testimony g_iven by Mr. Stan- 

 ton before the Impeachment Investigation Committee 

 as to this dispatch : 



Q. Preferring to the dispatch of the 28th of July by Gen- 

 eral Baird, I ask you whether that dispatch, on its receipt, 

 was communicated? 



A. I received that dispatch on Sunday forenoon ; I exam- 

 ined it carefully, and considered the question presented : I 

 did not see that I could give any instructions different from 

 the line of action which General Baird proposed, and made 

 no answer to the dispatch. 



Q. I see it stated this was received at 10.20 p. M. "Was 

 that the hour at which it was received by you? 



A. That is the date of its reception in the telegraph office 

 Saturday night; I received it on Sunday forenoon, at my 

 residence. A copy of the dispatch was furnished to the 

 President several days afterward, along with all the other 

 dispatches and communications on that subject, but it was 

 not furnished by me before that time; I suppose it may 

 have been ten or fifteen days afterward. 



Q. The President himself being in correspondence with 

 those parties upon the same subject, would it not have been 

 proper to have advised him of the reception of that dis- 

 patch ? 



A. I know nothing about his correspondence, and know 

 nothing about any correspondence except this one dispatch. 

 We had intelligence of the riot on Thursday morning. The 

 riot had taken place on Monday. 



It is a difficult matter to define all the relations 

 which exist between the heads of departments and 

 the President. The legal relations are well enough 

 defined. The Constitution pfaces these officers in 

 the relation of his advisers when he calls upon them 

 for advice. The Acts of Congress go further : take, 

 for example, the Act of 1789, creating the War De- 

 partment. It provides that " there shall be a princi- 

 Bil officer therein, to be called the Secretary for the 

 epartment of W ar. who shall perform and execute 

 such duties as shall from time to time be enjoined on 

 or intrusted to him by the President of the United 

 States ; " " and furthermore, the said principal officer 

 shall conduct the business of the said!' department in 

 such manner as the President of the United States 

 shall, from time to time, order and instruct." 



Provision is also made for the appointment of an 

 inferior officer by the head of the department, to be 

 called the chief clerk, " who, whenever said princi- 

 pal officer shall be removed from office by the Presi- 

 dent of the United States," shall have 'the' charge 

 and custody of the books, records, and papers of the 

 department. 



The legal relation is analogous to that of principal 

 and agent. It is the President upon whom the Con- 

 stitution devolves, as head of the Executive Depart- 

 ment, the duty to see that the laws are faithfully 

 executed : but, as he cannot execute them in person, 

 he is allowed to select his agents, and is made re- 

 sponsible for their acts within just limits. So com- 

 plete is this presumed delegation of authority in the 

 relation of a head of department to the President, 

 that the Supreme Court of the United States have 

 decided that an order made by a head of department 

 is presumed to be made by the President himself. 



The principal, upon whom such responsibility is 

 placed for the acts of a subordinate, ought to be left as 

 free as possible in the matter of selection and of 

 dismissal. To hold him to responsibility for an offi- 

 cer beyond his control to leave the question of the 

 fitness of such an agent to be decided for him and 

 not by him, to allow such a subordinate, when the 

 President, moved by " public considerations of a 



high character," requests his resignation, to assume 

 for himself an equal right to act upon his own views 

 of " public considerations," and to make his own 

 conclusion paramount to those of the President, to 

 allow all this, is to reverse the just order of admin- 

 istration, and to place the subordinate above the su- 

 perior. 



There are, however, other relations between the 

 President and a head of department beyond these 

 defined legal relations, which necessarily attend 

 them, though not expressed. Chief among these is 

 mutual confidence. This relation is so delicate that 

 it is sometimes hard to say when or how it ceases. 

 A single flagrant act may end it at once, and then 

 there is no difficulty. But confidence may be just as 

 effectually destroyed by a series of causes too subtle 

 for demonstration. As it is a plant of slow growth, 

 so, too, it may be slow in decay. Such has been the 

 process here. 



I will not pretend to say what acts or omissions 

 have broken up this relation. They are hardly sus- 

 ceptible of statement, and still less of formal proof. 

 Nevertheless, no one can read the correspondence of 

 the 5th of August without being convinced-that this 

 relation was effectually gone on both sides, and that, 

 while the President was unwilling to allow Mr. Stan- 

 ton to remain in his administration, Mr. Stanton was 

 equally unwilling to allow the President to carry on 

 his administration without his presence. 



In the great debate which took place in the House 

 of Eepresentatives in 1789, in the first organization 

 of the principal departments, Mr. Madison spoke as 

 follows : 



It is evidently the intention of the Constitution that the 

 first magistrate should be responsible for the Executive De- 

 partment, So fur, therefore, as we do not make the officers 

 who are to aid him in the duties of that department re- 

 sponsible to him, he is not responsible to the country. 

 Again, is there no danger that an officer, when he is ap- 

 pointed by the concurrence of the Senate, and has friends in 

 that body, may choose rather to risk his establishment on 

 the favor of that branch than rest it upon the discharge of 

 his duties to the satisfaction of the executive branch, which 

 is constitutionally authorized to inspect and control his con- 

 duct? And if it should happen that the officers connect 

 themselves with the Senate, they may mutually support 

 each other, and, for want of efficacy, reduce the power of the 

 President to a mere vapor, in which case his responsibility 

 would be annihilated, and the expectation of it is unjust. 

 The high executive officers, joined in cabal with the Senate, 

 would lay the foundation of discord, and end in an assump- 

 tion of the executive power, only to be removed by a revo- 

 lution in the government. 



Mr. Sedgwick, in the same debate, referring to the 

 proposition that a head of department should only 

 be removed or suspended by the concurrence of the 

 Senate, uses this language : 



Bat if proof be necessary, what is then the consequence ? 

 Why, in nine cases out of ten, where the case is very clear 

 to the mind of the President that the man ought to be re- 

 moved, the effect cannot be produced, because it is abso- 

 lutely impossible to produce the necessary evidence. Is the 

 Senate to proceed without evidence? Some gentlemen 

 contend not. Then the object will be lost. Shall a man. 

 tinder these circumstances, be saddled upon the President, 

 who has been appointed for no other purpose but to aid the 

 President in performing certain duties? Shall he be con- 

 tinued, I ask again, against the will of the President? If 

 he is, where is the responsibility ? Are you to look for it in 

 the President, who has no control over the officer, no power 

 to remove him if he acts unfeelingly or unfaithfully ? With- 

 out you make him responsible, you weaken and destroy the 

 strength and beauty of your system. What is to be done 

 in cases which can only be known from a long acquaintance 

 with the conduct of an officer ? 



I had indulged the hope that, upon the assembling 

 of Congress, Mr. Stanton would have ended this un"- 

 pleasant complication, according to the intimation 



fiven in his note of August 12tn. The duty which 

 have felt myself called upon to perform was by no 

 means agreeable ; but I feel that I am not responsible 

 for the controversy^ or for the consequences. 



Unpleasant as this necessary change in my Cabinet 

 has been to me, upon personal considerations, I have 



