Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 4.djvu/450

416 Under such circumstances a mere refusal to communicate, or to permit the heads of Departments to communicate to the Senate the information that may be asked for, would, however some newspapers might applaud such a step, be regarded by candid and soberly thinking men as an evasion. It would be thought that if the President's pledge had been well kept, the Administration would find very little difficulty in announcing that fact. It would be useless to speak of the law not providing for such communications, or of encroachments by the Senate upon the rights of the Executive, when every well informed man knows that the President might make such communication to the Senate as a voluntary act of courtesy, expressly reserving all the legal rights of the Executive. It would be equally useless to say that the information had been asked for by Senators from factious motives and for hostile purposes, when everybody knows that nothing would more utterly confound the factionists than a clear showing of strict fidelity to the President's pledge. A flat refusal, or a mere general answer that the removals had been made for the good of the service, would therefore be quite generally taken as equivalent to a confession that the President s pledge had not been kept. If in examining the cases in the light in which they are now coming to your attention, you find that in point of fact your pledge has been violated, no evasion, no shifting of the issue, will avail to conceal that fact. It would only aggravate the difficulty. It seems to me, therefore, that those who advise such a course, fail to keep the honor of the President and the moral effect of the whole proceeding sufficiently in view.

If the Administration should not be able to make a clear showing, the frankest and most courageous course would, as usual, still be the safest refuge. The President, while letting the world know what had happened and how