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.
They assume the right of the Senate to sit in judgement upon the
exercise of my exclusive discretion and 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, my duty to the people who have
chosen me to execute the powers of their great office and not
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."

There is a ringing quality in the style of this message not