the last session of the present Congress to
comply with a resolution of the House of Representatives calling for
the names of the members of Congress who had applied for offices. As no
further notice was taken in any form of this refusal, it would seem to
be a fair inference that the House itself admitted that there were cases
in which the President had a discretionary authority in respect to the
transmission of information in the possession of any of the Executive
Departments.

Apprehensive that silence under the claim supposed to be set up in the
resolutions of the House of Representatives under consideration might be
construed as an acquiescence in its soundness, I have deemed it due to
the great importance of the subject to state my views, that a compliance
in part with the resolution may not be deemed a surrender of a necessary
authority of the Executive.

Many of the reasons which existed at the date of the report of the
Secretary of War of June 1, 1842, for then declining to transmit the
report of Lieutenant-Colonel Hitchcock concerning the frauds which he
was charged to investigate have ceased to operate. It has been found
wholly impracticable to pursue the investigation in consequence of the
death and removal out of the country of those who would be called upon
to testify, and in consequence of the want of adequate authority or
means to render it effectual. It could not be conducted without expense.
Congress at its last session prohibited the payment of any account
or charge whatever growing out of or in any way connected with any
commission or inquiry, except military and naval courts-martial and
courts of inquiry, unless special appropriations should be made for the
payment of such accounts and charges. Of the policy of that provision of
law it does not become me to speak, except to say that the institution
of inquiries into the conduct of public agents, however urgent the
necessity for such inquiry may be, is thereby virtually denied to the
Executive, and that if evils of magnitude shall arise in consequence
of the law I take to myself no portion of the responsibility.

In relation to the propriety of directing prosecutions against the
contractors to furnish Indians rations who are charged with improper
conduct, a correspondence has been had between the War Department and
the Solicitor of the Treasury, which is herewith transmitted in a
conviction that such prosecution would be entirely ineffectual.

Und