esolution and
still remaining in the custody of this Department, having exclusive
reference to the suspension by the President of George M. Duskin, the
late incumbent of the office of district attorney for the southern
district of Alabama, it is not considered that the public interests will
be promoted by a compliance with said resolution and the transmission of
the papers and documents therein mentioned to the Senate in executive
session.

Upon this resolution and the answer thereto the issue is thus stated by
the Committee on the Judiciary at the outset of the report:

The important question, then, is whether it is within the constitutional
competence of either House of Congress to have access to the official
papers and documents in the various public offices of the United States
created by laws enacted by themselves.

I do not suppose 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 created 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 complaint of the committee that access to official papers in the
public offices is denied the Senate is met by the statement that at no
time has it been the disposition or the intention of the President or
any Department of the executive branch of the Government to withhold
from the Senate official documents or papers filed in any of the public
offices. 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 specifically
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