The complaint of the committee that access to official papers in the public offices is denied the Senate is met by the statement that at no time has it been the disposition or the intention of the President or any Department of the executive branch of the Government to withhold from the Senate official documents or papers filed in any of the public offices.  While it is by no means conceded that the Senate has the right in any case to review the act of the Executive in removing or suspending a public officer, upon official documents or otherwise, it is considered that documents and papers of that nature should, because they are official, be freely transmitted to the Senate upon its demand, trusting the use of the same for proper and legitimate purposes to the good faith of that body; and though no such paper or document has been specifically demanded in any of the numerous requests and demands made upon the Departments, yet as often as they were found in the public offices they have been furnished in answer to such applications.

The letter of the Attorney-General in response to the resolution of the Senate in the particular case mentioned in the committee’s report was written at my suggestion and by my direction.  There had been no official papers or documents filed in his Department relating to the case within the period specified in the resolution.  The letter was intended, by its description of the papers and documents remaining in the custody of the Department, to convey the idea that they were not official; and it was assumed that the resolution called for information, papers, and documents of the same character as were required by the requests and demands which preceded it.

Everything that had been written or done on behalf of the Senate from the beginning pointed to all letters and papers of a private and unofficial nature as the objects of search, if they were to be found in the Departments, and provided they had been presented to the Executive with a view to their consideration upon the question of suspension from office.

Against the transmission of such papers and documents I have interposed my advice and direction.  This has not been done, as is suggested in the committee’s report, upon the assumption on my part that the Attorney-General or any other head of a Department “is the servant of the President, and is to give or withhold copies of documents in his office according to the will of the Executive and not otherwise,” but because I regard the papers and documents withheld and addressed to me or intended for my use and action purely unofficial and private, not infrequently confidential, and having reference to the performance of a duty exclusively mine.  I consider them in no proper sense as upon the files of the Department, but as deposited there for my convenience, remaining still completely under my control.  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.