ct.

Erroneous impressions, arising from the want of a proper attention to
the structure of our Government, to the duties of its Chief Magistrate,
to the principles it has adopted and its strict adherence to them in
similar cases, might raise expectations which could never be realized
and lead to measures destructive of all harmony between the parties.
This communication is made in full confidence that it is the wish of His
Majesty's Government, as it most sincerely is that of the President, to
avoid all measures of that description; and it is hoped, therefore, that
it will be received in the spirit by which it is dictated--that of
conciliation and peace.

The form of our Government and the functions of the President as
a component part of it have in their relation to this subject been
sufficiently explained in my previous correspondence, especially in
my letter to the Comte de Rigny of the 29th of January last. I have
therefore little to add to that part of my representation which is
drawn from the form of our Government and the duties of the President
in administering it. If these are fully understood, the principles of
action derived from them can not be mistaken.

The President, as the chief executive power, must have a free and
entirely unfettered communication with the coordinate powers of
Government. As the organ of intercourse with other nations, he is
the only source from which a knowledge of our relations with them
can be conveyed to the legislative branches. It results from this
that the utmost freedom from all restraint in the details into which
he is obliged to enter of international concerns and of the measures
in relation to them is essential to the proper performance of this
important part of his functions. He must exercise them without having
continually before him the fear of offending the susceptibility of the
powers whose conduct he is obliged to notice. In the performance of this
duty he is subject to public opinion and his own sense of propriety
for an indiscreet, to his constituents for a dangerous, and to his
constitutional judges for an illegal, exercise of the power, but to no
other censure, foreign or domestic. Were any foreign powers permitted to
scan the communications of the Executive, their complaints, whether real
or affected, would involve the country in continual controversies; for
the right being acknowledged, it would be a duty to exercise it by
demanding a disavowal of every phras