The appointment of a committee of the Senate to confer
immediately with the Executive himself appears to lose sight of the
coordinate relation between the Executive and the Senate which the
Constitution has established, and which ought therefore to be
maintained.
The relation between the Senate and House of Representatives, in whom
legislative power is concurrently vested, is sufficiently analogous to
illustrate that between the Executive and Senate in making appointments
and treaties. The two Houses are in like manner independent of and
coordinate with each other, and the invariable practice of each in
appointing committees of conference and consultation is to commission
them to confer not with the coordinate body itself, but with a committee
of that body; and although both branches of the Legislature may be too
numerous to hold conveniently a conference with committees, were they to
be appointed by either to confer with the entire body of the other, it
may be fairly presumed that if the whole number of either branch were
not too large for the purpose the objection to such a conference, being
against the principle as derogating from the coordinate relations of the
two Houses, would retain all its force.
I add only that I am entirely persuaded of the purity of the intentions
of the Senate in the course they have pursued on this occasion, and with
which my view of the subject makes it my duty not to accord, and that
they will be cheerfully furnished with all the suitable information in
possession of the Executive in any mode deemed consistent with the
principles of the Constitution and the settled practice under it.
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