rights of the Senate, I shall be the last man under any circumstances to interfere with them. Knowing those of the Executive, I shall at all times endeavor to maintain them agreeably to the provisions of the Constitution and to the solemn oath I have taken to support and defend it.

"I am constrained, therefore, by a proper sense of my own self-respect and of the rights secured by the Constitution to the executive branch of the government to decline a compliance with your request."

The Senate, on the 12th of June, 1834, called on President JACKSON to transmit to the Senate an official communication from him to Andrew Stevenson relating to his nomination as E. E. and M. P. to Great Britain. The President replied June 13, as follows:

"As a compliance with this Resolution might be deemed an admission of the right of the Senate to call upon the President for confidential correspondence of this description, I consider it proper on this occasion to remark that I do not acknowledge such a right; but to avoid misrepresentation I herewith transmit a copy of the paper in question."

President JACKSON also (January 6, 1835) refused compliance with a Resolution of the House of Representatives demanding certain information.

He asserted the right of the Executive to refuse compliance with a demand of the Senate for copy of an official report, as found in his Message of January 13, 1835.

But for a complete exposition of President JACKSON'S views on the subject, see his Message of February 10, 1835, to the Senate, in which among other emphatic declarations is found the following:

"This is another of those calls for information made upon me by the Senate which have, in my judgment, either related to the subjects exclusively belonging to the Executive Department or otherwise encroached on the

constitutional powers of the Executive. Without conceding the right of the Senate to make either of these requests, I have yet, for the various reasons heretofore assigned in my several replies, deemed it expedient to comply with several of them. It is now, however, my solemn conviction, that I ought no longer, from any motive nor in any degree to yield to these unconstitutional demands. Their continued repetition imposes on me, as the representative and trustee of the American people, the painful but imperious duty of resisting to the utmost any further encroachment on the rights of the Executive."

In March, 1848, President TYLER answered a request by the House of Representatives addressed to the President and heads of the several departments for certain information by a refusal, it not being "consistent with the rights and duties of the Executive Department." He said in his Message, "It becomes me, in defence of the Constitution and laws of the United States, to protect the Executive Department from all encroachments on its powers, rights, and duties."

On January 31, 1843, he again refused compliance with the Resolution of the House requesting certain reports, and reasserted the constitutional discretion of the Executive in such cases; and again in February, while granting the request of the House of Representatives, he reserved the like discretion.

President POLK, in March, 1845, courteously denied the request of the Senate for certain information touching the President's action respecting the annexation of Texas. He also in January, 1848, denied a request from the House for certain instructions given to Officers of the Army or Navy of the United States, concluding his Message in the following words: "I regard it to be my constitutional right and my solemn duty under the circumstances of this case to decline a compliance with the request of the House contained in their Resolution."

President FILLMORE on several occasions also declined the requests of the Senate.

President CLEVELAND, in his Message of March 1, 1886, against the numerous requests and demands of the Senate upon the different departments of the government for information and documents, says:—

"My oath to support and defend the Constitution, my 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, which I must preserve unimpaired in all its dignity and vigor, compel me to refuse compliance with these demands."

On the 16th of May, 1896, the Senate called on President Cleveland for certain correspondence, a portion of which he transmitted; as to the remainder, he said :

"It being, in my judgment, incompatible with the public service, I am constrained to refrain from communicating to the Senate at this time copies of the correspondence described in the third paragraph of said Resolution."

From the foregoing illustrations it appears that the Constitution has been practically interpreted in a manner to exclude any right in either House to dictate the action of the Executive in this respect. Hence the request by either House, addressed to the President or to any Executive Department, for information should never be in the form of an order, direction, or instruction, unless it be a duty imposed by some express law.