ttee had not transcended
the authority conferred upon it by the resolution of the House of
Representatives, broad and general as this was, I should have remained
silent upon the subject. What I now charge is that they have acted as
though they possessed unlimited power, and, without any warrant whatever
in the resolution under which they were appointed, have pursued a course
not merely at war with the constitutional rights of the Executive, but
tending to degrade the Presidential office itself to such a degree as to
render it unworthy of the acceptance of any man of honor or principle.

The resolution of the House, so far as it is accusatory of the
President, is confined to an inquiry whether he had used corrupt or
improper means to influence the action of Congress or any of its
committees on legislative measures pending before them--nothing more,
nothing less. I have not learned through the newspapers or in any other
mode that the committee have touched the other accusatory branch of the
resolution, charging the President with a violation of duty in failing
to execute some law or laws. This branch of the resolution is therefore
out of the question. By what authority, then, have the committee
undertaken to investigate the course of the President in regard to the
convention which framed the Lecompton constitution? By what authority
have they undertaken to pry into our foreign relations for the purpose
of assailing him on account of the instructions given by the Secretary
of State to our minister in Mexico relative to the Tehuantepec route?
By what authority have they inquired into the causes of removal from
office, and this from the parties themselves removed, with a view to
prejudice his character, notwithstanding this power of removal belongs
exclusively to the President under the Constitution, was so decided by
the First Congress in the year 1789, and has accordingly ever since been
exercised? There is in the resolution no pretext of authority for the
committee to investigate the question of the printing of the post-office
blanks; nor is it to be supposed that the House, if asked, would have
granted such an authority, because this question had been previously
committed to two other committees--one in the Senate and the other in
the House. Notwithstanding this absolute want of power, the committee
rushed into this investigation in advance of all other subjects.

The committee proceeded for months, from March 22, 1860,