I suppose if I desired to take them into my custody I might do so with entire propriety, and if I saw fit to destroy them no one could complain." Moreover, there were cases in which action was prompted by oral communications which did not go on record in any form.

As to this, Cleveland observed, "It will not be denied, I suppose, that the President may suspend a public officer in the entire absence of any papers or documents to aid his official judgment and discretion; and I am quite prepared to avow that the cases are not few in which suspensions from office have depended more upon oral representations made to me by citizens of known good repute and by members of the House of Representatives and Senators of the United States than upon any letters and documents presented for my examination." Nor were such representations confined to members of his own party for, said he, "I recall a few suspensions which bear the approval of individual members identified politically with the majority in the Senate." The message then reviewed the legislative history of the Tenure of Office Act and questioned its constitutionality.

The position which the President had taken and would maintain was exactly defined by this vigorous statement in his message: "The requests and demands which by the score have for nearly three months been presented to the different Departments of the government, whatever may be their form, have but one complexion.

They assume the right of the Senate to sit in judgement upon the exercise of my exclusive discretion and executive function, for which I am solely responsible to the people from whom I have so lately received the sacred trust of office.

My oath to support and defend the Constitution, my duty to the people who have chosen me to execute the powers of their great office and not relinquish them, and my duty to the chief magistracy which I must preserve unimpaired in all its dignity and vigor, compel me to refuse compliance with these demands." There is a ringing quality in the style of this message not generally characteristic of President Cleveland's state papers.