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 corre spondence 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 Depart ment 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 the Constitution devolves, as head of the executive department, the duty to see that the laws are faithfully executed; but as he can not execute them in person, he is allowed to select his agents, and is made responsible for their acts within just limits. So complete is this presumed delegation of authority in the relation of a head of Department to the President that the Supreme Court of the United States have decided that an order made by a head of Department is presumed to be made by the President himself.

The principal, upon whom such responsibility is placed for the acts of a subordinate, ought to be left as free as possible in the matter of selection and of dismissal. To hold him to responsibility for an officer beyond his control; to leave the question of the fitness of such an agent to be decided for him and not by him; to allow such a subordinate, when the President, moved by "public considerations of a high character,” requests his resignation, to assume for himself an equal right to act upon his own views of "public considerations" and to make his own conclusions paramount to those of the President-to allow all this is to reverse the just order of administration and to place the subordinate above the superior.

There are, however, other relations between the President and a head of Department beyond these defined legal relations, which necessarily attend

them, though not expressed. Chief among these is mutual confidence. This relation is so delicate that it is sometimes hard to say when or how it ceases. A single flagrant act may end it at once, and then there is no difficulty. But confidence may be just as effectually destroyed by a series of causes too subtle for demonstration. As it is a plant of slow growth, so, too, it may be slow in decay. Such has been the process here. I will not pretend to say what acts or omissions have broken up this relation. They are hardly susceptible of statement, and still less of formal proof. Nevertheless, no one can read the correspondence of the 5th of August without being convinced that this relation was effectually gone on both sides, and that while the President was unwilling to allow Mr. Stanton to remain in his Administration, Mr. Stanton was equally unwilling to allow the President to carry on his Administration without his presence.

In the great debate which took place in the House of Representatives in 1789, in the first organization of the principal Departments, Mr. Madison spoke as follows:

It is evidently the intention of the Constitution that the first magistrate should be responsible for the executive department. So far, therefore, as we do not make the officers who are to aid him in the duties of that department responsible to him, he is not responsible to the country. Again: Is there no danger that an officer, when he is appointed by the concurrence of the Senate and has friends in that body, may choose rather to risk his establishment on the favor of that branch than rest it upon the discharge of his duties to the satisfaction of the executive branch, which is constitutionally authorized to inspect and control his conduct? And if it should happen that the officers connect themselves with the Senate, they may mutually support each other, and for want of efficacy reduce the power of the President to a mere vapor, in which case his responsibility would be annihilated, and the expectation of it is unjust. The high executive officers, joined in cabal with the Senate, would lay he foundation of discord, and end in an assumption of the executive power only to De removed by a revolution in the Government.

Mr. Sedgwick, in the same debate, referring to the proposition that a head of Department should only be removed or suspended by the concurrence of the Senate, used this language:

But if proof be necessary, what is then the consequence? Why, in nine cases out of ten, where the case is very clear to the mind of the President that the man ought to be removed, the effect can not be produced, because it is absolutely impossible to produce the necessary evidence. Are the Senate to proceed without evidence? Some gentlemen contend not. Then the object will be lost. Shall a man under these circumstances be saddled upon the President who has been appointed for no other purpose but to aid the President in performing certain duties? Shall he be continued, I ask again, against the will of the President? If he is, where is the responsibility? Are you to look for it in the President, who has no control over the officer, no power to remove him if he acts unfeelingly or unfaithfully? Without you make him responsible you weaken and destroy the strength and beauty of your system. What is to be done in cases which can only be known from a long acquaintance with the conduct of an officer?

I had indulged the hope that upon the assembling of Congress Mr. Stanton would have ended this unpleasant complication according to his

intimation given in his note of August 12. The duty which I have felt myself called upon to perform was by no means agreeable, but I feel that I am not responsible for the controversy or for the consequences.

Unpleasant as this necessary change in my Cabinet has been to me upon personal considerations, I have the consolation to be assured that. so far as the public interests are involved there is no cause for regret. Salutary reforms have been introduced by the Secretary ad interim, and great reductions of expenses have been effected under his administration of the War Department, to the saving of millions to the Treasury. ANDREW JOHNSON.

To the House of Representatives:

WASHINGTON, December 14, 1867.

In compliance with the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 9th instant, I transmit herewith a copy of the papers relating to the trial by a military commission of Albert M. D. C. Lusk, of Louisiana. No action in the case has yet been taken by the President.

ANDREW JOHNSON.

To the House of Representatives:

WASHINGTON, December 17, 1867.

I transmit for the information of the House of Representatives a report from the Secretary of State, with an accompanying paper.*

ANDREW JOHNSON.

WASHINGTON, December 17, 1867.

To the Senate of the United States: In answer to the resolution of the Senate of the 6th instant, concerning the International Monetary Conference held at Paris in June last, I transmit a report from the Secretary of State, which is accompanied by the papers called for by the resolution.

To the Senate of the United States:

ANDREW JOHNSON.

WASHINGTON, December 17, 1867.

I transmit, for the consideration of the Senate, an agreement between the diplomatic representatives of certain foreign powers in Japan, including the minister of the United States, on the one part, and plenipotentiaries on the part of the Japanese Government, relative to the settlement of Yokohama.

'Report of George H. Sharpe relative to the assassination of President Lincoln and the attempted assassination of Secretary Seward.

THE IMPEACHMENT OF PRESIDENT JOHNSON

The history of the process of impeachment is recited in the article entitled "Impeachment" in the Encyclopedic Index. The official record of the impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson is contaired on pages 3907, 3916, 3918, 3926 and 3951. The photograph shows the Congressional Committee that managed the proceedings. Those seated are Benjamin F. Butler, Thaddeus Stevens, Thomas Williams and John Bingham; standing are James Wilson, George S. Boutwell and John A. Logan.