cature or of
legislation that certain communications and papers are privileged, and
that the general authority to compel testimony must give way in certain
cases to the paramount rights of individuals or of the Government. Thus
no man can be compelled to accuse himself, to answer any question that
tends to render him infamous, or to produce his own private papers
on any occasion. The communications of a client to his counsel and
the admissions made at the confessional in the course of religious
discipline are privileged communications. In the courts of that country
from which we derive our great principles of individual liberty and the
rules of evidence it is well settled--and the doctrine has been fully
recognized in this country--that a minister of the Crown or the head of
a department can not be compelled to produce any papers or disclose any
transactions relating to the executive functions of the Government which
he declares are confidential or such as the public interest requires
should not be divulged; and the persons who have been the channels of
communication to officers of the State are in like manner protected
from the disclosure of their names. Other instances of privileged
communications might be enumerated if it were deemed necessary. These
principles are as applicable to evidence sought by a legislature as
to that required by a court.

The practice of the Government since its foundation has sanctioned the
principle that there must necessarily be a discretionary authority in
reference to the nature of the information called for by either House
of Congress.

The authority was claimed and exercised by General Washington in 1796.
In 1825 President Monroe declined compliance with a resolution of the
House of Representatives calling for the correspondence between the
Executive Departments of this Government and the officers of the United
States Navy and others at or near the ports of South America on the
Pacific Ocean. In a communication made by the Secretary of War in 1832
to the Committee of the House on the Public Lands, by direction of
President Jackson, he denies the obligation of the Executive to furnish
the information called for and maintains the authority of the President
to exercise a sound discretion in complying with calls of that
description by the House of Representatives or its committees. Without
multiplying other instances, it is not deemed improper to refer to the
refusal of the President at