a law. These objections,
which had entirely satisfied my own mind of the great impolicy, if not
unconstitutionality, of the measure, were presented in the most
respectful and even deferential terms. I would not have been so far
forgetful of what was due from one department of the Government to
another as to have intentionally employed in my official intercourse
with the House any language that could be in the slightest degree
offensive to those to whom it was addressed. If in assigning my
objections to the bill I had so far forgotten what was due to the
House of Representatives as to impugn its motives in passing the bill,
I should owe, not only to that House, but to the country, the most
profound apology. Such departure from propriety is, however, not
complained of in any proceeding which the House has adopted. It has,
on the contrary, been expressly made a subject of remark, and almost
of complaint, that the language in which my dissent was couched was
studiously guarded and cautious.

Such being the character of the official communication in question,
I confess I was wholly unprepared for the course which has been pursued
in regard to it. In the exercise of its power to regulate its own
proceedings the House for the first time, it is believed, in the history
of the Government thought proper to refer the message to a select
committee of its own body for the purpose, as my respect for the
House would have compelled me to infer, of deliberately weighing the
objections urged against the bill by the Executive with a view to its
own judgment upon the question of the final adoption or rejection of
the measure.

Of the temper and feelings in relation to myself of some of the members
selected for the performance of this duty I have nothing to say.
That was a matter entirely within the discretion of the House of
Representatives. But that committee, taking a different view of its duty
from that which I should have supposed had led to its creation, instead
of confining itself to the objections urged against the bill availed
itself of the occasion formally to arraign the motives of the President
for others of his acts since his induction into office. In the absence
of all proof and, as I am bound to declare, against all law or precedent
in parliamentary proceedings, and at the same time in a manner which
it would be difficult to reconcile with the comity hitherto sacredly
observed in the intercourse between independent and coo