ransmitted to me for my consideration.

If it were consistent with the rights and duties of the executive
department, it would afford me great pleasure to furnish in this, as in
all cases in which proper information is demanded, a ready compliance
with the wishes of the House of Representatives. But since, in my view,
general considerations of policy and propriety, as well as a proper
defense of the rights and safeguards of the executive department,
require of me as the Chief Magistrate to refuse compliance with the
terms of this resolution, it is incumbent on me to urge, for the
consideration of the House of Representatives, my reasons for declining
to give the desired information.

All appointments to office made by a President become from the date of
their nomination to the Senate official acts, which are matter of record
and are at the proper time made known to the House of Representatives
and to the country. But applications for office, or letters respecting
appointments, or conversations held with individuals on such subjects
are not official proceedings, and can not by any means be made to
partake of the character of official proceedings unless after the
nomination of such person so writing or conversing the President shall
think proper to lay such correspondence or such conversations before the
Senate. Applications for office are in their very nature confidential,
and if the reasons assigned for such applications or the names of the
applicants were communicated, not only would such implied confidence be
wantonly violated, but, in addition, it is quite obvious that a mass of
vague, incoherent, and personal matter would be made public at a vast
consumption of time, money, and trouble without accomplishing or tending
in any manner to accomplish, as it appears to me, any useful object
connected with a sound and constitutional administration of the
Government in any of its branches.

But there is a consideration of a still more effective and lofty
character which is with me entirely decisive of the correctness of the
view that I have taken of this question. While I shall ever evince the
greatest readiness to communicate to the House of Representatives all
proper information which the House shall deem necessary to a due
discharge of its constitutional obligations and functions, yet it
becomes me, in defense of the Constitution and laws of the United
States, to protect the executive department from all encroachment o