sight of the nation that the true issue
was between the President and the Senate. The strength of the Senate's
position lay in its claim to the right of access to the records
of public offices "created by laws enacted by themselves." The
counterstroke of the President was one of the most effective passages
of his message in its effect upon public opinion. "I do not suppose,"
he said, "that the public offices of the United States are regulated or
controlled in their relations to either House of Congress by the fact
that they were 'created by laws enacted by themselves.' It must be that
these instrumentalities were enacted for the benefit of the people and
to answer the general purposes of government under the Constitution and
the laws, and that they are unencumbered by any lien in favor of either
branch of Congress growing out of their construction, and unembarrassed
by any obligation to the Senate as the price of their creation."

The President asserted that, as a matter of fact, no official papers
on file in the departments had been withheld. "While it is by no means
conceded that the Senate has the right, in any case, to review the
act of the Executive in removing or suspending a public officer upon
official documents or otherwise, it is considered that documents and
papers of that nature should, because they are official, be freely
transmitted to the Senate upon its demand, trusting the use of the same,
for proper and legitimate purposes, to the good faith of that body; and
though no such paper or document has been especially demanded in any
of the numerous requests and demands made upon the departments, yet as
often as they were found in the public offices they have been furnished
in answer to such applications." The point made by the President, with
sharp emphasis, was that there was nothing in his action which could be
construed as a refusal of access to official records; what he did refuse
to acknowledge was the right of the Senate to inquire into his motives
and to exact from him a disclosure of the facts, circumstances, and
sources of information that prompted his action. The materials upon
which his judgment was formed were of a varied character. "They consist
of letters and representations addressed to the Executive or intended
for his inspection; they are voluntarily written and presented by
private citizens who are not in the least instigated thereto by any
official invitation or at all subject to official