my successor had shorn
himself.

Perhaps the sharp difference between what may be called the
Lincoln-Jackson and the Buchanan-Taft schools, in their views of the
power and duties of the President, may be best illustrated by comparing
the attitude of my successor toward his Secretary of the Interior, Mr.
Ballinger, when the latter was accused of gross misconduct in office,
with my attitude towards my chiefs of department and other subordinate
officers. More than once while I was President my officials were
attacked by Congress, generally because these officials did their duty
well and fearlessly. In every such case I stood by the official
and refused to recognize the right of Congress to interfere with me
excepting by impeachment or in other Constitutional manner. On the other
hand, wherever I found the officer unfit for his position I promptly
removed him, even although the most influential men in Congress fought
for his retention. The Jackson-Lincoln view is that a President who is
fit to do good work should be able to form his own judgment as to his
own subordinates, and, above all, of the subordinates standing highest
and in closest and most intimate touch with him. My secretaries
and their subordinates were responsible to me, and I accepted the
responsibility for all their deeds. As long as they were satisfactory to
me I stood by them against every critic or assailant, within or without
Congress; and as for getting Congress to make up my mind for me about
them, the thought would have been inconceivable to me. My successor took
the opposite, or Buchanan, view when he permitted and requested Congress
to pass judgment on the charges made against Mr. Ballinger as an
executive officer. These charges were made to the President; the
President had the facts before him and could get at them at any time,
and he alone had power to act if the charges were true. However, he
permitted and requested Congress to investigate Mr. Ballinger. The party
minority of the committee that investigated him, and one member of
the majority, declared that the charges were well founded and that Mr.
Ballinger should be removed. The other members of the majority declared
the charges ill founded. The President abode by the view of the
majority. Of course believers in the Jackson-Lincoln theory of the
Presidency would not be content with this town meeting majority and
minority method of determining by another branch of the Government what
it seems