Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 March 1886 — PRESIDENT CLEVELAND [ARTICLE]

PRESIDENT CLEVELAND

He Will Not Furnish Certain Papers Regarding Suspensions from Office. In a Message to the Senate He Maintains His Right to Withhold Them. The President sent to the Senate, on the Ist of March, a message stating hjs position in relation to tho suspensions of officials, und defending his action in refusing to send tb the Senate papers on file in departments upon which it is assumed by the Senate that the suspensions of certain officials oro based. The messago was read in tho open session of the Senate. It is as follows : To the Senate of tho United States : Ever since the beginning of the present session of the Senate the different heads of tho departments attached to the Executive bmnch of the Government have been plied with various requests and demands from committees of the Senate, from members of such committees, and at last from tho Senate itself, requiring the transmission of reasons for the suspension of certain officials during the recess of that bedy, or for the papers touching the conduct of such officials, or for all papers and documents relating to such suspensions,or for all documents and papers filed in such departments in relation to the management and conduct of the offices held by such suspended officials. The different ter.ns from time to time adopted in making these requests and demands, the order in which they succeeded each other, and the fact that when mado by the Senate the resolution for'that purpose was passed in executive session, have led to a presumption, the correctness of which will, I suppose, be candidly admitted, that from first to last tho information thus sought and,the papers thus demanded were for use by the Sen-; ate and its committees, in considering the propriety of the suspensions referred to. Though those suspensions are my executive acts, based upon considerations addressed to me alone, and for which I am wholly responsible, I have bad no invitation from the Senate to state the position which I have.felt constrained to assume in relation to the same, or to interpret for myself my nets and motives in the premises. In this condition of affairs I have forborne addressing the Senato upon tho subjoctlest I' might be accused of thrusting myself unbidden upon the attention of that body. * But the report of the Committee on the Judiciary of the Senate, lately presented and published, which censures the Attorney General of the United States for his refusal to transmit certain papers relating to a suspension from Office, and which also, if I correctly interpret it, evinces a misapprehension of the position of the Executive upon such suspensions, will, I hope, justify this communication. The President refers to the resolution of the

Senate calling for tho Dustin papers and the reply of the Attorney General thereto, and says : Upon this resolution and the answer thereto the issue is thus stated by the Committee ou the Judiciary at tho outset of the report: “The important question, then, is whether it is within the constitutional competence of either house of Congress to have access to the official papers and documents in the various public offices of the United States created by laws enacted by themselves." I do not suppose that “the public offices of tho United States” are regulated or controlled in their relations to either house of Congress by the fact that they were “created bylaws enacted by themselves.” It must he that these instrumentations were created for the benefit of the people and to answer the general purposes of govemmentlunder the Constitution and the laws, and that they are unincumbered by auy Xian in favor of either branch of Congress growing out of their Constitution, and unembarrassed by any obligation to the Senate as the p<rice of their creation. The complaint of the committee that access to official papers in the public offices is denied the Senate is met by the statement that at no t me has it been the. disposition or the intention of the President or any department of the executive branch of the Government to withhold from the Senate official documents or papers filed in any of the public offices. While it is by no means conceded that the Senate has the right in any case to review the act pf the Executive in removing j or suspending a public officer upon official documents or otherwise, it is considered that documents and papers of that nature should, because they arei official, be freely transmitted to tho Senate ypon 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 specifically 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-ap-

plications. The letter of the Attorney General in response to the resolutions of the Senate in the particular case mentioned in tho committee’s report was written at hay suggestion and by any direction. There had been no official papers or documents filed in his department relating to the case within the period specified in the resolution. The letter was intended, by its description of the papers and documents .remaining in the custody of the department, tb convey the idea that they were not official; and it was assumed that the resolution called for information, papers, and documents of tho same character as were required by tho requests and demands which precedeedTt. Everything that hod been written or done bn behalf of the Senate from the beginning pointed to all letters and papers of a private and unofficial nature as, the objects of search, if they were to be found in the departments, and provided they had been presented to the Executive with a view to their consideration upon the question of suspension from office. , Against tho transmission of such papers and documents I have interposed n.y advice and direction. This has not been done, aH is suggested in the committee’s report, upon the assumption on my part that the Attorney General cr any other head of a department “is the servant of the President, and is to give or 'withhold of documents in his office according to tho will of the Executive aul not otherwise,” but because I regarded the papers and documents withheld, ajiil addressed to me or intended for my use and action purely unofficial and private, not infrequently confidential, and having reference to the performance of a duty exclusively mine. I consider them in no proper sense as upon the files of the department, hut as deposited there for my convenience, remaining still completely under my con’rol. I suppose, if I desired to take them into n>v custody, I might do so with entire propriety, and if I raw fit to destroy them ho

one 1 ould complain.:, The papers and d< oumsnts that are now the objects of the Senate's quest consist of letters and representations addressed to the Executive or intended for his- inspection; they are voluntarily writt n amfpreseated by private citizens who are not in the Last instituted thereto by any official invitation or at all subject to official control. While seme of them are entitled to executive consideration', many efthem are so irrelevant,w, in the light of other facts, so worthless, that tlev have not been given the least/ weight in determining the question to which they are supposed to relate. Are all these. sUnply'b. cause they are preserved, to be considered official documents, and subject to th'efiusnection of the Senate? If not, who is to deb rmino which belong to this class ? Are. the motives and purposes of the Senate, as they are dav by dav developed, such as would be satisfied with mv selection? Am I to submit to theirs at the riik . f being charged with making a suspension from office upon evidence which was not even considered? Arei, these pjqHfi to be regarded official because they have not only been presented but preserved iu the public offioes? The r nature and character remain t:ie same whether they are kept in the Executive Mi n-dou or deposited iu the departments. There is no mysterious power of trans‘mutation in departmental custody, nor is there magi 1 in the undefined and Bacred solemnity of department flies. If the presecca of these papers in the public offices a stumbling block in the way of the performance of senatorial duty, it can be easily.rimoved. . The papers and documents, which have been described derive no official'character from any constitutional, statutory, bt other requirement making them necessary to the performance of the official duty of the Executive. It will not be denied, I suppose, that the 1 , President may suspend a public officer [njhe entire absence of any paper*? or documents to aid bis official judgment and ' discretion. Arid lam quite prepared to avow that the oases orq not few in which suspensions fr.vm office have depended more upon oral representations made to me by citizens of known good rep Ute and bv m* m’urs of the House of Represents: 1 von and Sena or* of the United States, than upon any letters and documents presents*! for rpy examination. I have not felt justified in suspecting the veracity, integrity, and patriotism of Senators, or ignoring their representations, because they were not in party affiliation with the majority of their assomatep; .arid I recall a few’ suspensions which > pear the apuroval of individual members identified politically with tlia majority m-, the _ Senate. While, therofore, I am constrained to deny the right of the Senate to the papers anddocuments described, no for as the right to'the same is bwed upon the claim that they are in any view of the sub jest official, lam also led unoqtilv-

ocally to dispute the right of the Senate, by the aid of any documents whatever, or in any way save through the judicial process of trial on impeachment, to review or reverse the act of the Executive in the suspension during the recess of the Senate of Federal officials. I believe the power to remove or suspend such officials is vesttd in the President alone by the Constitution, which in oxpress terms provides that “the executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America," and that “he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed." The Senate belongs to the legislative branch of the Government. When the Constitution by express provision superadded to its legislative duties the right to advise and consent to appointments to office, and to sit as a court of impeachment it conferred upon that body all the control and regulation of executive action supposed to lie necessary for the Bafetv of the people; and this express and special grant of such extraordinary powers, not in any way related to or growing put of general Senatorial duty, and in itself a. departure from the general plan of our Government, should be hold, under a familiar maxim of construction, to exclude every other right of interference with executive functions. ,r In the first Congress which assembled after the adoption of the Constitution, comprising many who aided in its preparation, a legislative construction was given to that instrument in which the independence of the Executive in the matter of removalsi from office was fully 1 Busstained. I tniuk it will be found that, in, the subsequent discussions of this question, there was generally, if not at all tivpes, a proposition pending to in some way curtail this power of the President by legislation, which furnishes evidehce that to limit such power it was supposed to be necessary to supplement the Constitution by such legislation. The first enactment of this description was passed under a stress of partisanship and political bitterness, which culminated in tjttae President's impeachment. Tho law provided that tho Federal officers to whom it applied could only be suspended during the recess of the Senate when shown by evidence satisfactory to the President to be guilty of misconduct in office* or crime, or when incapable or disqualified to perform their duties, and that, within twenty days after the next meeting of the Senate, it should be the duty of the President “to report to the Senato such suspension, with tho evidence and reasons for his action in the case." This statute passed iu 1807, when Congress was overwhelmingly and bitterly opposed, politically, to the President, may be regarded as an indication that even then it was thought nesessary by a Congress determined upon the subjugation of the executive to the legislative will t i furnish a law for that purpose, instead of attempting to reach the object intended by an invocation of any pretended constitutional right.

The law which thus found its way to_our-sta-tute-book was plain in its terms, and its intent needed no avowal. If valid and now irpoperation it would justify the pi-esent conrse'of the Senate and command the obedience of the Executive to its demands. It may, however, be remarked in passing that under this law the President had the privilege of presenting tb the body which assumed to review his executive acts his reasons therefor, instead of being excluded from explanation or judged by papers found in the department. Two years after the law Of 1867 was parsed, and within less than five weeks after the inauguration of the President in political jcoord with both branches of Congress, the sections of the act regulating suspensions from office during the recess of the Senate were entirely repealed, and in their place were substituted provisions which, instead of limiting the causes of suspension to misconduct, crime, disability, or disqualification, expressly permitted such suspension by the President “in his discretion," and completely abandoned tho requirement obliging him to report to the Senate “the evidence and reasons” for his action. With these modifications, and with all branches of the Government in political harmony, and in the absence of partisan incentive to captious discussion, the law, ns it was left by the amendment of 1869, was much less destructive of executive discretion ; and yet the great General and patriotic citizen who, on the 4th day of March, 1869, assumed the duties of chief executive, and for whose freer administration of his high office the most hateful restraints of the law of 1867 were, on the sth day of April, 1869, removed, mindful of his obligation to defend and protect every prerogative of his great trust, and apprehensive of the injury threatened the public service tn the continued operation of these statutes, even in their modification, in hiß first message to Congress advised their repeal and set forth their unconstitutional character and hurtful tendency. lam unable to state whether or not this recommendation for a rqpeal of these laws has been since repeated. If it has not, the reason can probably be found in the experience which demonstrated the fact that the necessities of the political situation but rarely developed their vicious character. And so it happens that after an extension of nearly twenty years of almost innocuous desuetude, these laws are brought forth, apparently the repealed as well as the unrepealed, and put in the way of an executive who is willing, if permitted, to attempt an improvement in the methods of administration. Tho constitutionality of these laws is by no means admitted. But Why should the provisions of the repealed law, which required specific cause for suspension and a report to tho Senate of “evidence and reasons,” be now, in effect, applied to the present executive instead of the law, afterward passed and unrepealed,- which distinctly permits “suspensions by the President” in his discretion, and carefully omits the requirement that “evidence and reasons for his action in the case” shall be reported to tho Senate ?

The requests and demands which by tho score have for nearly three months been presented to the difierent departments of the Gove.nmsntjj whatever,may be their form, havo blit one com? piexion. 'They assume the right of the Senate to sit in judgment upon the exercise of my executive function, for which I am solely responsible to the people from whom I have so lately received the sacred trust of office. My Oath to support and defend the Constitution ; rny duty to the people who have chosen me to execute the'powers of their great office, and not to relinquish them, and my duty to the Chief Magistracy, wliich I must preserve unimpaired in all its dignity and vigor, compel me to refuse to comply with these demands. To the end that the service may be improved, thy Senate is invited to the fullest scrutiny of the persons submitted to them for public office, in recognition of the constitutional power of that body to advise and const nt to their appointment. I shall continue, as I have thus lar done, to fumish,-»at the request of the confirming body, all thb information I possess touching the fitness of the nomineos placed btf iro them for their action, both when they are proposed to fill vacancies and to take the places of suspended officials. Upon a refusal to confirm I shall not nasume the right to ask the reasons for the action of the Senate, nor question its determination. I cannot think ..that anything more is required to secure worthy incumbents in public office than a careful arid independent discharge of our respective duties within their well-defined limits. Though the propriety of suspensions might be better assured if the action of the President waß subject to review by the Seimte, yet if the Constitution and the laws have placed this responsibility upon the executive branch of the Governmeht it should not be divided nor the discretion which it involved relinquished. It has been claiinv d that, tfie present Executive having pi edit*! himself not to remove officials except for cause, the fact of their suspension implies such misconduct ou tho i art of a. ] /suspended official as injur< s his character and reputation, and therefore tue Senate should review the case for his vindication. I have said that certain officials should not, in my opinion, be removed during the continuance of the term for which they were appointed solely for the perjose of putting in their place those in p litical affiliation 5 --w ith tlje appointing power; ana this declara* lon was immediately followed by a description of official partisanship wh#ch ought nut to entitle those id whom it whs exhibited to lonaidevation. It is not apparent how an adherence to the course thus announced carries with it the consequences described. If in any degree the suggestion is worthy of'Consideration it is to be hoped that there may be a defense against unjust suspension ip the justioe of the Executive.

Every pledge which i have made by which I have placed a limitation upon my exercise of Executive power has been faithfully redeemed. Of course the pretense is not put forth that no mistakes have been oommitted ; but not a suspension has been made.exceptit appeared to my Satisfaction that the public welfare would be improved thereby. Many applications for suspension have been denied, and the adherence to the rule laid down tq govern my action as to such suspensions has caused much irritation and impatience on the part of those who have insisted upon more changes in the offices. . The pledges I have made were made to the people, and to them I am responsible for the maimer in which they have been redeemed. I. 1 nm not responsible to the. Senate, and I am unwilling to submit mv actions and official conduct to them for judgment There no grounds for an allegation that the fear of being found false to my professions influences me, in declining to submit to the demands of the Senat3. I have not constantly refused to suspend officials, and thus incurred the displeasure of polit cal friends', andyet willfully broken faith with the people for the sake of being false to them. Neither the discontent of party friends nor the allurement constantly offered , of confirmations of appointees conditioned upon the avowal that suspensions have been made on party grounds alone, nor the threat proposed in the resolutions now Ik sere the Senate that no ..confirmations will bi made unless the demands of that body be complied with, is sufficient to disoonroge or deter me from following in' the aray which 1 am

convinced leads to better government for the people. Grover Cleveland. Executive Mansion, Washington, D. C., March 1, 1886.