The resolution now before me purports to have been passed in executive
session, and I am bound to presume that if the information requested
therein should be communicated it would be applied in secret session to
"the investigation of frauds in the sales of the public lands." But,
if so applied, the distinction between the executive and legislative
functions of the Senate would not only be destroyed, but the citizen
whose conduct is impeached would lose one of his valuable securities,
that which is afforded by a public investigation in the presence of his
accusers and of the witnesses against him. Besides, a compliance with
the present resolution would in all probability subject the conduct and
motives of the President in the case of Mr. Fitz to the review of the
Senate when not sitting as judges on an impeachment, and even if this
consequence should not occur in the present case the compliance of the
Executive might hereafter be quoted as a precedent for similar and
repeated applications,
Such a result, if acquiesced in, would ultimately subject the
independent constitutional action of the Executive in a matter of great
national concernment to the domination and control of the Senate; if not
acquiesced in, it would lead to collisions between coordinate branches
of the Government, well calculated to expose the parties to indignity
and reproach and to inflict on the public interest serious and lasting
mischief.
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