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