officer at the head of the Treasury
Department entirely independent of the Executive. He should at least
have been removable only upon the demand of the popular branch of
the Legislature. I have determined never to remove a Secretary of the
Treasury without communicating all the circumstances attending such
removal to both Houses of Congress.

The influence of the Executive in controlling the freedom of the
elective franchise through the medium of the public officers can
be effectually checked by renewing the prohibition published by Mr.
Jefferson forbidding their interference in elections further than giving
their own votes, and their own independence secured by an assurance of
perfect immunity in exercising this sacred privilege of freemen under
the dictates of their own unbiased judgments. Never with my consent
shall an officer of the people, compensated for his services out of
their pockets, become the pliant instrument of Executive will.

There is no part of the means placed in the hands of the Executive
which might be used with greater effect for unhallowed purposes than the
control of the public press. The maxim which our ancestors derived from
the mother country that "the freedom of the press is the great bulwark
of civil and religious liberty" is one of the most precious legacies
which they have left us. We have learned, too, from our own as well as
the experience of other countries, that golden shackles, by whomsoever
or by whatever pretense imposed, are as fatal to it as the iron bonds
of despotism. The presses in the necessary employment of the Government
should never be used "to clear the guilty or to varnish crime." A decent
and manly examination of the acts of the Government should be not only
tolerated, but encouraged.

Upon another occasion I have given my opinion at some length upon
the impropriety of Executive interference in the legislation of
Congress--that the article in the Constitution making it the duty of the
President to communicate information and authorizing him to recommend
measures was not intended to make him the source in legislation, and, in
particular, that he should never be looked to for schemes of finance.
It would be very strange, indeed, that the Constitution should have
strictly forbidden one branch of the Legislature from interfering in the
origination of such bills and that it should be considered proper that
an altogether different department of the Government should be perm