This report is predicated upon a resolution of the Senate directed to the Attorney-General and his reply to the same.  This resolution was adopted in executive session devoted entirely to business connected with the consideration of nominations for office.  It required the Attorney-General “to transmit to the Senate copies of all documents and papers that have been filed in the Department of Justice since the 1st day of January, 1885, in relation to the management and conduct of the office of district attorney of the United States for the southern district of Alabama.”

The incumbent of this office on the 1st day of January, 1885, and until the 17th day of July ensuing, was George M. Duskin, who on the day last mentioned was suspended by an Executive order, and John D. Burnett designated to perform the duties of said office.  At the time of the passage of the resolution above referred to the nomination of Burnett for said office was pending before the Senate, and all the papers relating to said nomination were before that body for its inspection and information.

In reply to this resolution the Attorney-General, after referring to the fact that the papers relating to the nomination of Burnett had already been sent to the Senate, stated that he was directed by the President to say that—­

The papers and documents which are mentioned in said resolution and still remaining in the custody of this Department, having exclusive reference to the suspension by the President of George M. Duskin, the late incumbent of the office of district attorney for the southern district of Alabama, it is not considered that the public interests will be promoted by a compliance with said resolution and the transmission of the papers and documents therein mentioned to the Senate in executive session.

Upon this resolution and the answer thereto the issue is thus stated by the Committee on the Judiciary at the outset of the report: 

The important question, then, is whether it is within the constitutional competence of either House of Congress to have access to the official papers and documents in the various public offices of the United States created by laws enacted by themselves.

I do not suppose that “the public offices of the United States” are regulated or controlled in their relations to either House of Congress by the fact that they were “created by laws enacted by themselves.”  It must be that these instrumentalities were created for the benefit of the people and to answer the general purposes of government under the Constitution and the laws, and that they are unencumbered by any lien in favor of either branch of Congress growing out of their construction, and unembarrassed by any obligation to the Senate as the price of their creation.