during
the period of upward of seven years during which I have held the office
of President of the United States I have been absent from the seat of
Government, and whether during that period I have performed or have
neglected to perform the duties of my office, I freely inform the House
that from the time of my entrance upon my office I have been in the
habit, as were all of my predecessors (with the exception of one, who
lived only one month after assuming the duties of his office, and one
whose continued presence in Washington was necessary from the existence
at the time of a powerful rebellion), of absenting myself at times from
the seat of Government, and that during such absences I did not neglect
or forego the obligations or the duties of my office, but continued to
discharge all of the executive offices, acts, and duties which were
required of me as the President of the United States. I am not aware
that a failure occurred in any one instance of my exercising the
functions and powers of my office in every case requiring their
discharge, or of my exercising all necessary executive acts, in whatever
part of the United States I may at the time have been. Fortunately, the
rapidity of travel and of mail communication and the facility of almost
instantaneous correspondence with the offices at the seat of Government,
which the telegraph affords to the President in whatever section of the
Union he may be, enable him in these days to maintain as constant and
almost as quick intercourse with the Departments at Washington as may be
maintained while he remains at the capital.

The necessity of the performance of executive acts by the President of
the United States exists and is devolved upon him, wherever he may be
within the United States, during his term of office by the Constitution
of the United States.

His civil powers are no more limited or capable of limitation as to the
place where they shall be exercised than are those which he might be
required to discharge in his capacity of Commander in Chief of the Army
and Navy, which latter powers it is evident he might be called upon to
exercise, possibly, even without the limits of the United States. Had
the efforts of those recently in rebellion against the Government been
successful in driving a late President of the United States from
Washington, it is manifest that he must have discharged his functions,
both civil and military, elsewhere than in the place named by law