the President under this clause to come to the aid of the judicial authority in order that the law as expounded by a co-ordinate branch of the government may be carried out and enforced, in case the enforcement of the orders, or construction of the court is resisted by a force too strong for its ministerial officers to overcome.31 The President can not under this clause prevent or forbid the execution of the laws.32

The President may order the dismissal of a suit brought in the name of the United States when such an order would be proper, but this would be the exercise of an unusual power and should be resorted to with great care and discretion.32a The same power and duty, says a recent writer, would enable him to protect the public and private rights and enforce the execution of the laws of the United States.32b

Shall commission all the Officers of the United States.— This is the last power conferred on the President by this clause. The act of appointing to office and commissioning the person appointed can not be considered as one and the same thing. The last act necessary to complete the commission is the signature of the President, and the signature, which gives force and effect to the commission, is conclusive evidence that the appointment is made.33 The President may withhold a commission from the appointee even after the appointment has been confirmed by the Senate.34

There is nothing in the Constitution which prevents the President from transacting public business away from the seat of government, and all the Presidents have done so.

On April 3, 1876, The House of Representatives passed the following resolution, "Resolved, that the President of the United States be requested to inform this House, if, in his opinion, it is not incompatible with the public interest, whether since the 4th day of March, 1869, any executive offices, acts, or duties, and, if any, what, have been performed at a distance from the seat of Government 31 17 Fed. Cases, 9487, 149.

32 12 Wheaton, 612.

32a 2 Op. A. G., 53, 54.

32b Findley's American Executive, 124.

33 Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch, 137, 157, 158.

34 4 Op. A. G., 218.

established by law, and for how long a period at any one time, and in what part of the United States; also, whether any public necessity existed for such performance, and, if so, of what character, and how far the performance of such executive offices, acts, or duties at such distances from the seat of Government by law was in compliance with the act of Congress of the 16th day of July, 1790.34a

The President replied as follows:

"Washington, May 4, 1876.

"To the House of Representatives:

"I have given very attentive consideration to a resolution of the House of Representatives passed on the 3rd of April, requesting the President of the United States to inform the House whether any executive offices, acts, or duties, and, if any, what, have within a specified period been performed at a distance from the seat of Government established by law, etc.

"I have never hesitated and shall not hesitate to communicate to Congress, and to either branch thereof, all the information which the Constitution makes it the duty of the President to give, or which my judgment may suggest to me or a request from either House may indicate to me will be useful in the discharge of the appropriate duties confided to them. I fail, however, to find in the Constitution of the United States the authority given to the House of Representatives (one branch of the Congress, in which is vested the legislative power of the Government) to require of the Executive, an independent branch of the Government, coordinate with the Senate and House of Representatives, an account of his discharge of his appropriate and purely executive offices, acts, and duties either as to when, where, or how performed.

"What the House of Representatives may require as a right in its demand upon the Executive for information is limited to what is necessary for the proper discharge of its powers of legislation or of impeachment.

"The inquiry in the resolution of the House as to where executive acts have within the last seven years been performed and at what distance from any particular spot or 34a Cong. Record, Vol. 4, pt. 3, 2158.

for how long a period at any one time, etc., does not necessarily belong to the province of legislation. It does not profess to be asked for that object.

"If this information be sought through an inquiry of the President as to his executive acts in view or in aid of the power of impeachment vested in the House, it is asked in derogation of an inherent natural right, recognized in this country by a constitutional guaranty which protects every citizen, the President as well as the humblest in the land, from being made a witness against himself.

"During the time that I have had the honor to occupy the position of the President of this Government it has been, and while I continue to occupy that position it will continue to be, my earnest endeavor to recognize and to respect the several trusts and duties and powers of the coordinate branches of the Government, not encroaching upon them nor allowing encroachments upon the proper powers of the office which the people of the United States have confided to me, but aiming to preserve in their proper relations the several powers and functions of each of the coordinate branches of the Government, Government, agreeably to the Constitution and in accordance with the solemn oath which I have taken to 'preserve, protect, and defend' that instrument.

"In maintenance of the rights secured by the Constitution to the executive branch of the Government I am compelled to decline any specific or detailed answer to the request of the House for information as to 'any executive offices, acts, or duties, and, if any, what, have been performed at a distance from the seat of Government established by law, and for how long a period at any one time and in what part of the United States.'

"If, however, the House of Representatives desires to know whether during the period of upward of seven years. during which I have held the office of President of the United States I have been absent from the seat of Government, and whether during that period I have performed or have neglected to perform the duties of my office, I freely inform the House that from the time of my entrance upon my office, I have been in the habit as were all of my predecessors (with the exception of one who lived only one month after assuming the duties of his office,

and one whose continued presence in Washington was necessary from the existence at the time of a powerful rebellion), of absenting myself at times from the seat of Government, and that during such absences I did not neglect or forgo the obligations or the duties of my office, but continued to the discharge all of the executive offices, acts, and duties which were required of me as the President of the United States. I am not aware that a failure occurred in any one instance of my exercising the functions and powers of my office in every case requiring their discharge, or of my exercising all necessary executive acts, in whatever part of the United States I may at the time have been. Fortunately, the rapidity of travel and mail communication and the facility of almost instantaneous correspondence with the offices at the seat of Government, which the telegraph affords to the President in whatever section of the Union he may be, enable him in these days to maintain as constant and almost as quick intercourse with the Departments at Washington as may be maintained while he remains at the capitol.

"The necessity of the performance of the executive acts by the President of the United States exists and is devolved upon him wherever he may be within the United States, during his term of office by the Constitution of the United States.

"His civil powers are no more limited or capable of limitation as to the place where they shall be exercised than are those which he might be required to discharge in his capacity of commander-in-chief of the Army and Navy, which latter powers it is evident he might be called upon to exercise, possibly, even without the limits of the United States. Had the efforts of those recently in rebellion against the Government been successful in driving a late President of the United States from Washington, it is manifest that he must have discharged his functions, both civil and military elsewhere than in the place named by law as the seat of the Government.

"No act of Congress can limit, suspend, or confine this constitutional duty. I am not aware of the existence of any act of Congress which assumes thus to limit or restrict the exercise of the functions of the Executive. Were there such acts, I should nevertheless recognize the sup

erior authority of the Constitution and should exercise the powers required thereby of the President.

"The act to which reference is made in the resolution of the House relates to the establishing of the seat of Government and the providing of suitable buildings and removal thereto of the offices attached to the Government, etc. It was not understood at its date and by General Washington to confine the President in the discharge of his duties and powers to actual presence at the seat of Government. On the 30th of March 1791, shortly after the passage of the act referred to, General Washington issued an Executive proclamation having reference to the subject of this very act from Georgetown, a place remote from Philadelphia, which then was the seat of Government, where the act referred to directed that 'all offices attached to the seat of Government' should for the time remain.

"That none of his successors have entertained the idea that their executive offices could be performed only at the seat of Government is evidenced by the hundreds upon hundreds of such acts performed by my predecessors in unbroken line from Washington to Lincoln, a memorandum of the general nature and character of some of which acts is submitted herewith; and no question has ever been raised as to the validity of those acts or as to the right and propriety of the Executive to exercise the powers of his office in any part of the United States.35

"U. S. Grant."

35 Messages of the Presidents, vol. 7, 361-364. The following is an abstract of the exhibit or memorandum referred to in President Grant's reply to Congress:

President Washington was absent from the Capitol during his two terms at least one hundred and eighty-one days and transacted important official business during that time.

President John Adams was absent during his term of four years three hundred and eighty-five days, and during such time he performed many important public acts.

President Jefferson during his two terms was absent from the seat of Government seven hundred and ninety-six days, more than onefourth the whole period of his presidency, and during that time performed many public acts from Monticello.

Madison, during his two terms was absent six hundred and thirtyseven days and also performed many official acts from his home at Montpellier.