receipt was communicated?

A. I received that dispatch on Sunday forenoon. I examined it carefully,
and considered the question presented. I did not see that I could give
any instructions different from the line of action which General Baird
proposed, and made no answer to the dispatch.

Q. I see it stated that this was received at 10.20 p.m. Was that the
hour at which it was received by you?

A. That is the date of its reception in the telegraph office Saturday
night. I received it on Sunday forenoon at my residence. A copy of the
dispatch was furnished to the President several days afterwards, along
with all the other dispatches and communications on that subject, but it
was not furnished by me before that time. I suppose it may have been ten
or fifteen days afterwards.

Q. The President himself being in correspondence with those parties upon
the same subject, would it not have been proper to have advised him of
the reception of that dispatch?

A. I know nothing about his correspondence, and know nothing about any
correspondence except this one dispatch. We had intelligence of the riot
on Thursday morning. The riot had taken place on Monday.

It is a difficult matter to define all the relations which exist between
the heads of Departments and the President. The legal relations are well
enough defined. The Constitution places these officers in the relation
of his advisers when he calls upon them for advice. The acts of Congress
go further. Take, for example, the act of 1789 creating the War
Department. It provides that--

There shall be a principal officer therein to be called the Secretary
for the Department of War, who shall perform and execute such duties
as shall from time to time be enjoined on or intrusted to him by the
President of the United States; and, furthermore, the said principal
officer shall conduct the business of the said Department in such manner
as the President of the United States shall from time to time order and
instruct.

Provision is also made for the appointment of an inferior officer by the
head of the Department, to be called the chief clerk, "who, whenever
said principal officer shall be removed from office by the President
of the United States," shall have the charge and custody of the books,
records, and papers of the Department.

The legal relation is analogous to that of principal and agent. It is
the President upon whom