principles. Attention may also be called to the fact that a postmaster at Baltimore, appointed after March 4, 1885, resigned his office, and was condemned, because he had violated the civil service rules by making appointments to and removals from the classified service of his office for partisan reasons.

THE OFFICE BROKER'S OCCUPATION GONE.

Since the passage of the act no appointments have been or could have been made "on the lapse." The place-purveyor's occupation is gone in so far as it relates to those parts of the service that are operated upon by this law. He can no longer demand a place for the party henchman who has no adequate qualifications for the public service, and, as a general rule, no person can now be appointed until after his qualifications have been tested, not by theoretic, hair-splitting tests unnecessary to the ascertainment of his fitness for the employment sought, but by examinations practical in their character. The demorelizing methods of the patronage system of appointments have been replaced, within the classified service, by the better methods of the law, under which the demands of common Justice are complied with, that, in so far as practicable, all citizens duly qualified shall be allowed equal opportunity, on grounds of personal fitness, for securing appointment and employment in the subordinate civil-service.

And even outside the classified service the effects of the law are apparent. The wisdom of making dismissals from unclassified subordinate places for partisan reasons is now challenged by the better sentiment of the country. The political assessor no longer does his work in an openmanner. He is not now a familiar presence in the departments, the custom houses, and the postoffices. He has become a skulker in his work, and pursues his vocation as if it were dishonorable. Senators and representatives no longer organizr themselves into assessing committees, for the purpose of making requests for money for political purposes, requests to which potency was formerly given by the implied threat that non-compliance would result in dismissal, and which were therefore, in effect, imperative demands for money upon the employes of the government, who were thus compelled by fear of loss of employment to "stand and deliver."

CHAPTER X.

THE CONTEST WITH THE SENATE.

HOW THE PRESIDENT RESENTED DICTATION FROM THE SENATEA PLUCKY AND SUCCESSFUL ASSERTION OF THE RIGHTS

OF THE EXECUTIVE.

The controversy between the President of the United States and the United States Senate, during the first year of his term, became familiar to the entire country, and its result fully vindicated the wisdom, the ability and the courage of President Cleveland.

Exercising the power which the Constitution and the laws of the country expressly invest in him, the President of the United States, from the time of his inauguration on the 4th of March, 1885, to January 5th, 1886, inclusive, suspended from office and sent to the Senate as their successors the names of six hundred and fortythree officials. These included Chief Justices and Associate Justices of Territories, United States District Attorneys and Marshals, Collectors of Internal Revenue, Melters and Refiners, Assayers in the Mint, Collectors of Customs, Appraisers of Merchandise, Surveyors of Customs, Consuls, Surveyors-General, Receivers of Public Money, Registers of the Land Office, Indian Inspectors, Agents, and 298 Presidential Postmasters.

The Republican majority in the Senate, usurping the functions of the Executive, asserted their privilege to put the Chief Executive of the country on the witness stand, and cross-examine him concerning his discharge of the duties pertaining to the Chief Executive. The Republican Senate undertook, upon this pretext, to throw its majority as an obstruction in the way of the selection by the President, under the laws and the Constitution, of agents of his own choice to succeed those he found in office on his inauguration. The Senate passed the following resolution :

Resolved, That the Attorney-General of the United States be, and he hereby is, directed to transmit to the Senate copies of all documents and papers that have been filed in the Department of Justice since the 1st day of January, A. D. 1885, in relation to the management and conduct of the office of district attorney of the United States of the southern district of Alabama.

The Attorney-General made the following reply:

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE,
January 28, 1886.

The President pro tempore of the Senate of the United States: I acknowledge the receipt of a resolution of the Senate adopted on the 25th instant, in executive session, as follows:

"Resolved, That the Attorney-General of the United States be, and he hereby is, directed to transmit to the Senate copies of all documents and papers that have been filed in the Department of Justice since the 1st day of January, A. D. 1885, in relation to the management and conduct of the office of district attorney of the United States of the southern district of Alabama."

In response to the said resolution the President of the United States directs me to say that the papers which were in this Department relating to the fitness of John D. Burnett, recently nominated to said office, having been sent to the Judiciary Committee of the Senate, and the papers and documents which are mentioned in the said resolution, and still remaining in the custody of this Department, having exclusive reference to the suspension by the President of George M. Duskin, the late incumbent of the office of district attorney of the United States for the southern district of Alabama, it is not considered that the public interest will be promoted by a compliance with said resolution and the transmission of the papers and documents therein mentioned to the Senate in executive session.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

A. H. GARLAND,

Attorney-General.

WHY THE SENATE ABANDONED THE CONTEST.

As the result of this correspondence and upon the report of the AttorneyGeneral to comply with the demands of the Senate, that body passed the following resolutions reported by the majority members of the committee on judiciary:

Resolved, That the foregoing report of the Committee on the Judiciary be agreed to and adopted.

Resolved, That the Senate hereby expresses its condemnation of the refusal of the Attorney-General, under whatever influence, to send to the Senate copies of papers called for by its resolution of the 25th of January, and set forth in the report of the commitee on judiciary, as in violation of his official duty and subversive of the fundamental principles of the Government and of a good administration thereof.

Resolved, That it is, under these circumstances, the duty of the Senate to refuse its advice and consent to proposed removals of officers, the documents and papers in reference to the supposed official or personal misconduct of whom are withheld by the Executive or any head of a department when deemed necessary by the Senate and called for in considering the matter.

These resolutions were passed by a strict party vote in the Senate. The Republicans were not able to maintain their whole strength on the third resolution, which passed by a majority of one in a Senate with a Republican majority of eight. However, this action on the part of the Senate simply covered a hasty and ignominious retreat, for from that time on the false issue made by Edmunds, Hoar and others, was abandoned by the Republicans of the Senate, and the President was completely vindicated in his assertion and maintenance of the prerogatives of his office.

Nothing was ever heard of the resolutions after the country had had time and opportunity to understand the merits of the question as set forth in the following message of the President:

THE PRESIDENT TO THE SENATE.

To the Senate of the United States:

Ever since the beginning of the present session of the Senate, the different heads of the Departments attached to the Executive branch of the Government have been plied with various requests and demands from committees of the Senate, from members of such committees, and at last from the Senate itself, requiring the transmission of reasons for the suspension of certain officials during the recess of that body, or for the papers touching the conduct of such officials, or for all papers and documents relating to such suspensions, or for all documents and papers filed in such Departments in relation to the management and conduct of the offices held by such suspended officials.

The different terms from time to time adopted in making these requests and demands, the order in which they succeeded each other, and the fact that when made by the Senate

the resolution for that purpose was passed in executive session, have led to a presumption, the correctness of which will, I suppose, be candidly admitted, that from first to last the information thus sought and the papers thus demanded were desired for use by the Senate and its committees in considering the propriety of the suspensions referred to.

Though these suspensions are my executive acts, based upon considerations addressed to me alone, and for which am wholly responsible, I have had no invitation from the Senate to state the position which I have felt constrained to assume in relation to the same, or to interpret for myself my acts and my motives in the premises.

In this condition of affairs, I have forborne addressing the Senate upon the subject, lest I might be accused of thrusting myself unbidden upon the attention of that body.

THE ISSUE SUCCINCTLY STATED.

But the report of the committee on the Judiciary of the Senate, lately presented and published, which censures the Attorney-General of the United States for his refusal to transmit certain papers relating to a suspension from office, and which also, if I correctly interpret it, evinces a misapprehension of the position of the Executive upon the question of such suspensions, will, I hope, justify this communication.

This report is predicated upon a resolution of the Senate directed to the AttorneyGeneral and his reply to the same. This resolution was adopted in executive session devoted entirely to business connected with the consideration of nominations for office. It required the Attorney-General "to transmit to the Senate copies of all documents and papers that have been filed in the Department of Justice since the 1st day of January, 1885, in relation to the management and conduct of the office of district attorney of the United States of the southern district of Alabama."

The incumbent of this office on the 1st day of January, 1885, and until the 17th day of July ensuing, was George M. Duskin, who, on the day last mentioned, was suspended by an Executive order, and John D. Burnett designated to perform the duties of said office. At the time of the passage of the resolution above referred to, the nomination of Burnett for said office was pending before the Senate, and all the papers relating to said nomination were before that body for its inspection and information.

In reply to this resolution, the Attorney-General, after referring to the fact that the papers relating to the nomination of Burnett had already been sent to the Senate, stated that he was directed by the President to say that "the papers and documents which are mentioned in said resolution and still remaining in the custody of this Department, having ex clusive reference to the suspension by the President of George M. Duskin, the late incumbent of the office of district attorney for the southern district of Alabama, it is not considered that the public interests will be promoted by a compliance with said resolution and the transmission of the papers and documents therein mentioned to the Senate in executive session."

Upon this resolution and the answer thereto the issue is thus stated by the Committee on the Judiciary at the outset of the report:

"The important question, then, is whether it is within the constitutional competence of either house of Congress to have access to the official papers and documents in the various public offices of the United States created by laws enacted by themselves."

WILL NOT SURRENDER LETTERS OR DOCUMENTS OF A PRIVATE NATURE.

"

I do not suppose that "the public offices of the United States are regulated or controlled in their relations to either house of Congress by the fact that they were "created by laws enacted by themselves." It must be that these instrumentalities were created for the benefit of the people and to answer the general purposes of government under the Constitution and the laws, and that they are unincumbered by any lien in favor of either branch of Congress growing out of their construction, and unembarrassed by any obligation to the Senate as the price of their creation,

The complaint of the committee, that access to official papers in the public offices is denied the Senate, is met by the statement that at no time has it been the disposition or the intention of the President or any department of the executive branch of the Government to withhold from the Senate official documents or papers filed in any of the public offices. While it is by no means conceded that the Senate has the right in any case to

review the act of the executive in removing or suspending a public officer upon official documents or otherwise, it is considered that documents and papers of that nature should because they are official, be freely transmitted to the Senate upon its demand, trusting the use of the same for proper and legitimate purposes to the good faith of that body. And though no such paper or document has been specifically demanded in any of the numerous requests and demands made upon the departments, yet as often as they were found in the public offices they have been furnished in answer to such applications.

The letter of the Attorney-General in response to the resolution of the Senate in the particular case mentioned in the committee's report was written at my suggestion and by my direction. There had been no official papers or documents filed in his department relating to the case within the period specified in the resolution. The letter was intended, by its description of the papers and documents remaining in the custody of the department, to convey the idea that they were not official; and it was not assumed that the resolution called for information, papers, and documents of the same character as were required by the requests and demands which preceded it.

Everything that had been written or done on behalf of the Senate from the beginning, pointed to all letters and papers of a private and unofficial nature as the objects of search, if they were to be found in the departments, and provided they had been presented to the Executive with a view to their consideration upon the question of suspension from office.

THEY ARE IN NO SENSE OFFICIAL.

Against the transmission of such papers and documents I have interposed my advice and direction. This has not been done, as is suggested in the committee's report, upon the assumption on my part that the Attorney-General or any other head of a department "is the servant of the President, and is to give or withhold copies of documents in his office according to the will of the Executive and not otherwise,” but because I regard the papers and documents withheld and addressed to me or intended for my use and action, purely unofficial and private, not infrequently confidential, and having reference to the performance of a duty exclusively mine. I consider them in no proper sense as upon the files of the department, but as deposited there for my convenience, remaining still completely under my control. I suppose if I desired to take them into my custody I might do so with entire propriety, and if I saw fit to destroy them no one could complain.

Even the committee in its report appears to concede that there may be with the President, or in the Departments, papers and documents which, on account of their unofficial character, are not subject to the inspection of the Congress. A reference in the report to instances where the House of Representatives ought not to succeed in a call for the production of papers is immediately followed by this statement:

"The committee feels authorized to state. after a somewhat careful research, that within the foregoing limits there is scarcely in the history of this Government, until now, any instance of a refusal by a head of a Department, or even of the President himself, to communicate official facts and information as distinguished from private and unofficial papers, motions, views, reasons, and opinions, to either house of Congress when unconditionally demanded."

To which of the classes thus recognized do the papers and documents belong that are now the objects of the Senate's quest?

They consist of letters and representations addressed to the Executive or intended for his inspection; they are voluntarily written and presented by private citizens who are not in the least instigated thereto by any official invitation or at all subject to official control. While some of them are entitled to Executive consideration, many of them are so irrelevant, or in the light of other facts so worthless, that they have not been given the least weight in determining the question to which they are supposed to relate.

Are all these, simply because they are preserved, to be considered official documents and subject to the inspection of the Senate? If not, who is to determine which belong to this class? Are the motives and purposes of the Senate, as they are day by day developed, such as would be satisfied with my selection? Am I to submit to theirs at the risk of being charged with making a suspension from office upon evidence which was not even considered?

Are these papers to be regarded official because they have not only been presented but preserved in the public offices?