keep all the information and evidence upon which he acts in his
own possession. If, for the information of his successors, he shall
leave the evidence on which he acts and the items of the expenditures
which make up the sum for which he has given his "certificate" on the
confidential files of one of the Executive Departments, they do not in
any proper sense become thereby public records. They are never seen or
examined by the accounting officers of the Treasury when they settle an
account on the "President's certificate." The First Congress of the
United States on the 1st of July, 1790, passed an act "providing the
means of intercourse between the United States and foreign nations," by
which a similar provision to that which now exists was made for the
settlement of such expenditures as in the judgment of the President
ought not to be made public. This act was limited in its duration. It
was continued for a limited term in 1793, and between that time and the
date of the act of May 1, 1810, which is now in force, the same
provision was revived and continued. Expenditures were made and settled
under Presidential certificates in pursuance of these laws.

If the President may answer the present call, he must answer similar
calls for every such expenditure of a confidential character, made under
every Administration, in war and in peace, from the organization of the
Government to the present period. To break the seal of confidence
imposed by the law, and heretofore uniformly preserved, would be
subversive of the very purpose for which the law was enacted, and might
be productive of the most disastrous consequences. The expenditures of
this confidential character, it is believed, were never before sought to
be made public, and I should greatly apprehend the consequences of
establishing a precedent which would render such disclosures hereafter
inevitable.

I am fully aware of the strong and correct public feeling which exists
throughout the country against secrecy of any kind in the administration
of the Government, and especially in reference to public expenditures;
yet our foreign negotiations are wisely and properly confined to the
knowledge of the Executive during their pendency. Our laws require the
accounts of every particular expenditure to be rendered and publicly
settled at the Treasury Department. The single exception which exists is
not that the amounts embraced under President's certificates shall be
withheld from