The Jackson-Lincoln view is that a President who is fit to do good work should be able to form his own judgment as to his own subordinates, and, above all, of the subordinates standing highest and in closest and most intimate touch with him.

My secretaries and their subordinates were responsible to me, and I accepted the responsibility for all their deeds.

As long as they were satisfactory to me I stood by them against every critic or assailant, within or without Congress; and as for getting Congress to make up my mind for me about them, the thought would have been inconceivable to me.

My successor took the opposite, or Buchanan, view when he permitted and requested Congress to pass judgment on the charges made against Mr.Ballinger as an executive officer.

These charges were made to the President; the President had the facts before him and could get at them at any time, and he alone had power to act if the charges were true.