re before God and my country that no human being (with an exception
scarcely worthy of notice) has at any period of my life dared to
approach me with a corrupt or dishonorable proposition, and until recent
developments it had never entered into my imagination that any person,
even in the storm of exasperated political excitement, would charge me
in the most remote degree with having made such a proposition to any
human being. I may now, however, exclaim in the language of complaint
employed by my first and greatest predecessor, that I have been abused
"in such exaggerated and indecent terms as could scarcely be applied
to a Nero, to a notorious defaulter, or even to a common pickpocket."

I do therefore, for the reasons stated and in the name of the people of
the several States, solemnly protest against these proceedings of the
House of Representatives, because they are in violation of the rights of
the coordinate executive branch of the Government and subversive of its
constitutional independence; because they are calculated to foster a
band of interested parasites and informers, ever ready, for their own
advantage, to swear before _ex parte_ committees to pretended private
conversations between the President and themselves, incapable from their
nature of being disproved, thus furnishing material for harassing him,
degrading him in the eyes of the country, and eventually, should he be a
weak or a timid man, rendering him subservient to improper influences in
order to avoid such persecutions and annoyances; because they tend to
destroy that harmonious action for the common good which ought to be
maintained, and which I sincerely desire to cherish, between coordinate
branches of the Government; and, finally, because, if unresisted, they
would establish a precedent dangerous and embarrassing to all my
successors, to whatever political party they might be attached.

JAMES BUCHANAN.

WASHINGTON, _June 22, 1860_.

_To the House of Representatives_:

In my message to the House of Representatives of the 28th March last I
solemnly protested against the creation of a committee, at the head of
which was placed my accuser, for the purpose of investigating whether
the President had, "by money, patronage, or other improper means, sought
to influence the action of Congress or any committee thereof for or
against the passage of any law appertaining to the rights of any State
or Territory," I protested against this because it w