Cleveland's message opened with the statement that "ever since the beginning of the present session of the Senate, the different heads of the departments attached to the executive branch of the government have been plied with various requests and documents from committees of the Senate, from members of such committees, and at last from the Senate itself, requiring the transmission of reasons for the suspension of certain officials during the recess of that body, or for papers touching the conduct of such officials." The President then observed that "though these suspensions are my executive acts, based upon considerations addressed to me alone and for which I am wholly responsible, Ihave had no invitation from the Senate to state the position which I have felt constrained to assume." Further on, he clinched this admission of full responsibility by declaring that "the letter of the Attorney-General in response to the resolution of the Senate...was written at my suggestion and by my direction."This statement made clear in the 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 control.While some of them are entitled to Executive consideration, many of them are so irrelevant or in the light of other facts so worthless, that they have not been given the least weight in determining the question to which they are supposed to relate." If such matter were to be considered public records and subject to the inspection of the Senate, the President would thereby incur "the risk of being charged with making a suspension from office upon evidence which was not even considered."Issue as to the status of such documents was joined by the President in the sharpest possible way by the declaration: "Iconsider them in no proper sense as upon the files of the department but as deposited there for my convenience, remaining still completely under my control.I suppose if I desired to take them into my custody I might do so with entire propriety, and if I saw fit to destroy them no one could complain."Moreover, there were cases in which action was prompted by oral communications which did not go on record in any form.As to this, Cleveland observed, "It will not be denied, I suppose, that the President may suspend a public officer in the entire absence of any papers or documents to aid his official judgment and discretion; and I am quite prepared to avow that the cases are not few in which suspensions from office have depended more upon oral representations made to me by citizens of known good repute and by members of the House of Representatives and Senators of the United States than upon any letters and documents presented for my examination." Nor were such representations confined to members of his own party for, said he, "I recall a few suspensions which bear the approval of individual members identified politically with the majority in the Senate." The message then reviewed the legislative history of the Tenure of Office Act and questioned its constitutionality.The position which the President had taken and would maintain was exactly defined by this vigorous statement in his message:
"The requests and demands which by the score have for nearly three months been presented to the different Departments of the government, whatever may be their form, have but one complexion.
