If there were any question which could make a serious appeal to the dispassionate judgment, it must be one which respected the meaning of the constitution; and if any constitutional question could make the appeal with peculiar solemnity, it must be in a case like the present, where two of the constituted authorities interpreted differently the extent of their respective powers.
It was a consolation, however, of which every member would be sensible, to reflect on the happy difference of our situation, on such occurrences, from that of governments in which the constituent members possessed independent and hereditary prerogatives. In such governments, the parties having a personal interest in their public stations, and not being amenable to the national will, disputes concerning the limits of their respective authorities might be productive of the most fatal consequences. With us, on the contrary, although disputes of that kind are always to be regretted, there were three most precious resources against the evil tendency of them. In the first place, the responsibility which every department feels to the public will, under the forms of the constitution, may be expected to prevent the excesses incident to conflicts between rival and irresponsible authorities. In the next place, if the difference cannot be adjusted by friendly conference and mutual concession, the sense of the constituent body, brought into the Government through the ordinary elective channels, may supply a remedy. And if this resource should fail, there remains, in the third and last place, that provident article in the constitution itself, by which an avenue is always open to the sovereignty of the people, for explanations or amendments, as they might be found indispensable.
If, in the present instance, it was to be particularly regretted that the existing difference of opinion had arisen, every motive to the regret was a motive to calmness, to candor, and the most respectful delicacy towards the other constituted authority. On the other hand, the duty which the House of Representatives must feel to themselves and to their constituents, required that they should examine the subject with accuracy, as well as with candor, and decide on it with firmness, as well as with moderation.
In this temper, he should proceed to make some observations on the Message before the committee, and on the reasons contained in it.
The Message related to two points. First. The application made for the papers. Secondly. The constitutional rights of Congress, and of the House of Representatives, on the subject of Treaties.
On the first point, he observed, that the right of the House to apply for any information they might want, had been admitted by a number in the minority, who had opposed the exercise of the right in this particular case. He thought it clear that the House must have a right, in all cases, to ask for information which might assist their deliberations on the subjects submitted to them by the constitution; being responsible, nevertheless, for the propriety of the measure. He was as ready to admit that the Executive had a right, under a due responsibility, also, to withhold information, when of a nature that did not permit a disclosure of it at the time. And if the refusal of the President had been founded simply on a representation that the state of the business within his department, and the contents of the papers asked for, required it, although he might have regretted the refusal, he should have been little disposed to criticise it. But the Message had contested what appeared to him a clear and important right of the House; and stated reasons for refusing the papers, which, with all the respect he could feel for the Executive, he could not regard as satisfactory or proper.
One of the reasons was, that it did not occur to the Executive that the papers could be relative to any purpose under the cognizance, and in the contemplation of the House. The other was, that the purpose for which they were wanted was not expressed in the resolution of the House.
With respect to the first, it implied that the Executive was not only to judge of the proper objects and functions of the Executive Department, but, also, of the objects and functions of the House. He was not only to decide how far the Executive trust would permit a disclosure of information, but how far the Legislative trust could derive advantage from it. It belonged, he said, to each department to judge for itself. If the Executive conceived that, in relation to his own department, papers could not be safely communicated, he might, on that ground, refuse them, because he was the competent, though a responsible judge within his own department. If the papers could be communicated without injury to the objects of his department, he ought not to refuse them as irrelative to the objects of the House of Representatives; because the House was, in such cases, the only proper judge of its own objects.
The other reason of refusal was, that the use which the House meant to make of the papers was not expressed in the resolution.
As far as he could recollect, no precedent could be found in the records of the House, or elsewhere, in which the particular object in calling for information was expressed in the call. It was not only contrary to right to require this, but it would often be improper in the House to express the object. In the particular case of an impeachment referred to in the Message, it might be evidently improper to state that to be the object of information which might possibly lead to it, because it would involve the preposterous idea of first determining to impeach, and then inquiring whether an impeachment ought to take place. Even the holding out an impeachment as a contemplated or contingent result of the information called for, might be extremely disagreeable in practice, as it might inflict a temporary pain on an individual, whom an investigation of facts might prove to be innocent, and perhaps meritorious.