Chapter V: Front Matter (5)

Also, for the further information of the Senate, a report prepared by direction of the Secretary of State, from the original records in his custody, of the awards made by the said commissioners in claims allowed by them.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, _Washington, D.C., March 1, 1886_.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

Ever since the beginning of the present session of the Senate the different heads of the Departments attached to the executive branch of the Government have been plied with various requests and demands from committees of the Senate, from members of such committees, and at last from the Senate itself, requiring the transmission of reasons for the suspension of certain officials during the recess of that body, or for the papers touching the conduct of such officials, or for all papers and documents relating to such suspensions, or for all documents and papers filed in such Departments in relation to the management and conduct of the offices held by such suspended officials.

The different terms from time to time adopted in making these requests and demands, the order in which they succeeded each other, and the fact that when made by the Senate the resolution for that purpose was passed in executive session have led to the presumption, the correctness of which will, I suppose, be candidly admitted, that from first to last the information thus sought and the papers thus demanded were desired for use by the Senate and its committees in considering the propriety of the suspensions referred to.

Though these suspensions are my executive acts, based upon considerations addressed to me alone and for which I am wholly responsible, I have had no invitation from the Senate to state the position which I have felt constrained to assume in relation to the same or to interpret for myself my acts and motives in the premises.

In this condition of affairs I have forborne addressing the Senate upon the subject, lest I might be accused of thrusting myself unbidden upon the attention of that body.

But the report of the Committee on the Judiciary of the Senate lately presented and published, which censures the Attorney-General of the United States for his refusal to transmit certain papers relating to a suspension from office, and which also, if I correctly interpret it, evinces a misapprehension of the position of the Executive upon the question of such suspensions, will, I hope, justify this communication.

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.

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.

Even the committee in its report appears to concede that there may be with the President or in the Departments papers and documents which, on account of their unofficial character, are not subject to the inspection of the Congress. A reference in the report to instances where the House of Representatives ought not to succeed in a call for the production of papers is immediately followed by this statement:

The committee feels authorized to state, after a somewhat careful
research, that within the foregoing limits there is scarcely in the
history of this Government, until now, any instance of a refusal by a
head of a Department, or even of the President himself, to communicate
official facts and information, as distinguished from private and
unofficial papers, motions, views, reasons, and opinions, to either
House of Congress when unconditionally demanded.

To which of the classes thus recognized do the papers and documents belong that are now the objects of the Senate's quest?

They consist of letters and representations addressed to the Executive or intended for his inspection; they are voluntarily written and presented by private citizens who are not in the least instigated thereto by any official invitation or at all subject to official control. While some of them are entitled to Executive consideration, many of them are so irrelevant, or in the light of other facts so worthless, that they have not been given the least weight in determining the question to which they are supposed to relate.

Are all these, simply because they are preserved, to be considered official documents and subject to the inspection of the Senate? If not, who is to determine which belong to this class? Are the motives and purposes of the Senate, as they are day by day developed, such as would be satisfied with my selection? Am I to submit to theirs at the risk of being charged with making a suspension from office upon evidence which was not even considered?

Are these papers to be regarded official because they have not only been presented but preserved in the public offices?

Their nature and character remain the same whether they are kept in the Executive Mansion or deposited in the Departments. There is no mysterious power of transmutation in departmental custody, nor is there magic in the undefined and sacred solemnity of Department files. If the presence of these papers in the public offices is a stumbling block in the way of the performance of Senatorial duty, it can be easily removed.

The papers and documents which have been described derive no official character from any constitutional, statutory, or other requirement making them necessary to the performance of the official duty of the Executive.

It will not be denied, I suppose, that the President may suspend a public officer in the entire absence of any papers or documents to aid his official judgment and discretion; and I am quite prepared to avow that the cases are not few in which suspensions from office have depended more upon oral representations made to me by citizens of known good repute and by members of the House of Representatives and Senators of the United States than upon any letters and documents presented for my examination. I have not felt justified in suspecting the veracity, integrity, and patriotism of Senators, or ignoring their representations, because they were not in party affiliation with the majority of their associates; and I recall a few suspensions which bear the approval of individual members identified politically with the majority in the Senate.

While, therefore, I am constrained to deny the right of the Senate to the papers and documents described, so far as the right to the same is based upon the claim that they are in any view of the subject official, I am also led unequivocally to dispute the right of the Senate by the aid of any documents whatever, or in any way save through the judicial process of trial on impeachment, to review or reverse the acts of the Executive in the suspension, during the recess of the Senate, of Federal officials.

I believe the power to remove or suspend such officials is vested in the President alone by the Constitution, which in express terms provides that "the executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America," and that "he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed."

The Senate belongs to the legislative branch of the Government. When the Constitution by express provision superadded to its legislative duties the right to advise and consent to appointments to office and to sit as a court of impeachment, it conferred upon that body all the control and regulation of Executive action supposed to be necessary for the safety of the people; and this express and special grant of such extraordinary powers, not in any way related to or growing out of general Senatorial duty, and in itself a departure from the general plan of our Government, should be held, under a familiar maxim of construction, to exclude every other right of interference with Executive functions.

In the first Congress which assembled after the adoption of the Constitution, comprising many who aided in its preparation, a legislative construction was given to that instrument in which the independence of the Executive in the matter of removals from office was fully sustained.

I think it will be found that in the subsequent discussions of this question there was generally, if not at all times, a proposition pending to in some way curtail this power of the President by legislation, which furnishes evidence that to limit such power it was supposed to be necessary to supplement the Constitution by such legislation.

The first enactment of this description was passed under a stress of partisanship and political bitterness which culminated in the President's impeachment.

This law provided that the Federal officers to which it applied could only be suspended during the recess of the Senate when shown by evidence satisfactory to the President to be guilty of misconduct in office, or crime, or when incapable or disqualified to perform their duties, and that within twenty days after the next meeting of the Senate it should be the duty of the President "to report to the Senate such suspension, with the evidence and reasons for his action in the case."

This statute, passed in 1867, when Congress was overwhelmingly and bitterly opposed politically to the President, may be regarded as an indication that even then it was thought necessary by a Congress determined upon the subjugation of the Executive to legislative will to furnish itself a law for that purpose, instead of attempting to reach the object intended by an invocation of any pretended constitutional right.

The law which thus found its way to our statute book was plain in its terms, and its intent needed no avowal. If valid and now in operation, it would justify the present course of the Senate and command the obedience of the Executive to its demands. It may, however, be remarked in passing that under this law the President had the privilege of presenting to the body which assumed to review his executive acts his reasons therefor, instead of being excluded from explanation or judged by papers found in the Departments.

Two years after the law of 1867 was passed, and within less than five weeks after the inauguration of a President in political accord with both branches of Congress, the sections of the act regulating suspensions from office during the recess of the Senate were entirely repealed, and in their place were substituted provisions which, instead of limiting the causes of suspension to misconduct, crime, disability, or disqualification, expressly permitted such suspension by the President "in his discretion," and completely abandoned the requirement obliging him to report to the Senate "the evidence and reasons" for his action.

With these modifications and with all branches of the Government in political harmony, and in the absence of partisan incentive to captious obstruction, the law as it was left by the amendment of 1869 was much less destructive of Executive discretion. And yet the great general and patriotic citizen who on the 4th day of March, 1869, assumed the duties of Chief Executive, and for whose freer administration of his high office the most hateful restraints of the law of 1867 were, on the 5th day of April, 1869, removed, mindful of his obligation to defend and protect every prerogative of his great trust, and apprehensive of the injury threatened the public service in the continued operation of these statutes even in their modified form, in his first message to Congress advised their repeal and set forth their unconstitutional character and hurtful tendency in the following language:

It may be well to mention here the embarrassment possible to arise from
leaving on the statute books the so-called "tenure-of-office acts," and
to earnestly recommend their total repeal. It could not have been the
intention of the framers of the Constitution, when providing that
appointments made by the President should receive the consent of the
Senate, that the latter should have the power to retain in office
persons placed there by Federal appointment against the will of the
President. The law is inconsistent with a faithful and efficient
administration of the Government. What faith can an Executive put in
officials forced upon him, and those, too, whom he has suspended for
reason? How will such officials be likely to serve an Administration
which they know does not trust them?

I am unable to state whether or not this recommendation for a repeal of these laws has been since repeated. If it has not, the reason can probably be found in the experience which demonstrated the fact that the necessities of the political situation but rarely developed their vicious character.

And so it happens that after an existence of nearly twenty years of almost innocuous desuetude these laws are brought forth--apparently the repealed as well as the unrepealed--and put in the way of an Executive who is willing, if permitted, to attempt an improvement in the methods of administration.

The constitutionality of these laws is by no means admitted. But why should the provisions of the repealed law, which required specific cause for suspension and a report to the Senate of "evidence and reasons," be now in effect applied to the present Executive, instead of the law, afterwards passed and unrepealed, which distinctly permits suspensions by the President "in his discretion" and carefully omits the requirement that "evidence and reasons for his action in the case" shall be reported to the Senate.

The requests and demands which by the score have for nearly three months been presented to the different Departments of the Government, whatever may be their form, have but one complexion. They assume the right of the Senate to sit in judgment upon the exercise of my exclusive discretion and Executive function, for which I am solely responsible to the people, from whom I have so lately received the sacred trust of office. My oath to support and defend the Constitution, my duty to the people who have chosen me to execute the powers of their great office and not to relinquish them, and my duty to the Chief Magistracy, which I must preserve unimpaired in all its dignity and vigor, compel me to refuse compliance with these demands.

To the end that the service may be improved, the Senate is invited to the fullest scrutiny of the persons submitted to them for public office, in recognition of the constitutional power of that body to advise and consent to their appointment. I shall continue, as I have thus far done, to furnish, at the request of the confirming body, all the information I possess touching the fitness of the nominees placed before them for their action, both when they are proposed to fill vacancies and to take the place of suspended officials. Upon a refusal to confirm I shall not assume the right to ask the reasons for the action of the Senate nor question its determination. I can not think that anything more is required to secure worthy incumbents in public office than a careful and independent discharge of our respective duties within their well-defined limits.

Though the propriety of suspensions might be better assured if the action of the President was subject to review by the Senate, yet if the Constitution and the laws have placed this responsibility upon the executive branch of the Government it should not be divided nor the discretion which it involves relinquished.

It has been claimed that the present Executive having pledged himself not to remove officials except for cause, the fact of their suspension implies such misconduct on the part of a suspended official as injures his character and reputation, and therefore the Senate should review the case for his vindication.

I have said that certain officials should not, in my opinion, be removed during the continuance of the term for which they were appointed solely for the purpose of putting in their place those in political affiliation with the appointing power, and this declaration was immediately followed by a description of official partisanship which ought not to entitle those in whom it was exhibited to consideration. It is not apparent how an adherence to the course thus announced carries with it the consequences described. If in any degree the suggestion is worthy of consideration, it is to be hoped that there may be a defense against unjust suspension in the justice of the Executive.

Every pledge which I have made by which I have placed a limitation upon my exercise of executive power has been faithfully redeemed. Of course the pretense is not put forth that no mistakes have been committed; but not a suspension has been made except it appeared to my satisfaction that the public welfare would be improved thereby. Many applications for suspension have been denied, and the adherence to the rule laid down to govern my action as to such suspensions has caused much irritation and impatience on the part of those who have insisted upon more changes in the offices.

The pledges I have made were made to the people, and to them I am responsible for the manner in which they have been redeemed. I am not responsible to the Senate, and I am unwilling to submit my actions and official conduct to them for judgment.

There are no grounds for an allegation that the fear of being found false to my professions influences me in declining to submit to the demands of the Senate. I have not constantly refused to suspend officials, and thus incurred the displeasure of political friends, and yet willfully broken faith with the people for the sake of being false to them.

Neither the discontent of party friends, nor the allurements constantly offered of confirmations of appointees conditioned upon the avowal that suspensions have been made on party grounds alone, nor the threat proposed in the resolutions now before the Senate that no confirmations will be made unless the demands of that body be complied with, are sufficient to discourage or deter me from following in the way which I am convinced leads to better government for the people.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, _March 1, 1886_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:

It is made the constitutional duty of the President to recommend to the consideration of Congress from time to time such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient. In no matters can the necessity of this be more evident than when the good faith of the United States under the solemn obligation of treaties with foreign powers is concerned.

The question of the treatment of the subjects of China sojourning within the jurisdiction of the United States presents such a matter for the urgent and earnest consideration of the Executive and the Congress.

In my first annual message, upon the assembling of the present Congress, I adverted to this question in the following words:

The harmony of our relations with China is fully sustained.

In the application of the acts lately passed to execute the treaty of
1880, restrictive of the immigration of Chinese laborers into the United
States, individual cases of hardship have occurred beyond the power of
the Executive to remedy, and calling for judicial determination.

The condition of the Chinese question in the Western States and
Territories is, despite this restrictive legislation, far from being
satisfactory. The recent outbreak in Wyoming Territory, where numbers
of unoffending Chinamen, indisputably within the protection of the
treaties and the law, were murdered by a mob, and the still more recent
threatened outbreak of the same character in Washington Territory, are
fresh in the minds of all, and there is apprehension lest the bitterness
of feeling against the Mongolian race on the Pacific Slope may find vent
in similar lawless demonstrations. All the power of this Government
should be exerted to maintain the amplest good faith toward China in
the treatment of these men, and the inflexible sternness of the law in
bringing the wrongdoers to justice should be insisted upon.

Every effort has been made by this Government to prevent these violent
outbreaks and to aid the representatives of China in their investigation
of these outrages; and it is but just to say that they are traceable to
the lawlessness of men not citizens of the United States engaged in
competition with Chinese laborers.

Race prejudice is the chief factor in originating these disturbances,
and it exists in a large part of our domain, jeopardizing our domestic
peace and the good relationship we strive to maintain with China.

The admitted right of a government to prevent the influx of elements
hostile to its internal peace and security may not be questioned, even
where there is no treaty stipulation on the subject. That the exclusion
of Chinese labor is demanded in other countries where like conditions
prevail is strongly evidenced in the Dominion of Canada, where Chinese
immigration is now regulated by laws more exclusive than our own. If
existing laws are inadequate to compass the end in view, I shall be
prepared to give earnest consideration to any further remedial measures,
within the treaty limits, which the wisdom of Congress may devise.

At the time I wrote this the shocking occurrences at Rock Springs, in Wyoming Territory, were fresh in the minds of all, and had been recently presented anew to the attention of this Government by the Chinese minister in a note which, while not unnaturally exhibiting some misconception of our Federal system of administration in the Territories while they as yet are not in the exercise of the full measure of that sovereign self-government pertaining to the States of the Union, presents in truthful terms the main features of the cruel outrage there perpetrated upon inoffensive subjects of China. In the investigation of the Rock Springs outbreak and the ascertainment of the facts on which the Chinese minister's statements rest the Chinese representatives were aided by the agents of the United States, and the reports submitted, having been thus framed and recounting the facts within the knowledge of witnesses on both sides, possess an impartial truthfulness which could not fail to give them great impressiveness.

The facts, which so far are not controverted or affected by any exculpatory or mitigating testimony, show the murder of a number of Chinese subjects in September last at Rock Springs, the wounding of many others, and the spoliation of the property of all when the unhappy survivors had been driven from their habitations. There is no allegation that the victims by any lawless or disorderly act on their part contributed to bring about a collision; on the contrary, it appears that the law-abiding disposition of these people, who were sojourners in our midst under the sanction of hospitality and express treaty obligations, was made the pretext for an attack upon them. This outrage upon law and treaty engagements was committed by a lawless mob. None of the aggressors--happily for the national good fame--appear by the reports to have been citizens of the United States. They were aliens engaged in that remote district as mining laborers, who became excited against the Chinese laborers, as it would seem, because of their refusal to join them in a strike to secure higher wages. The oppression of Chinese subjects by their rivals in the competition for labor does not differ in violence and illegality from that applied to other classes of native or alien labor. All are equally under the protection of law and equally entitled to enjoy the benefits of assured public order.

Were there no treaty in existence referring to the rights of Chinese subjects; did they come hither as all other strangers who voluntarily resort to this land of freedom, of self-government, and of laws, here peaceably to win their bread and to live their lives, there can be no question that they would be entitled still to the same measure of protection from violence and the same free forum for the redress of their grievances as any other aliens.

So far as the treaties between the United States and China stipulate for the treatment of the Chinese subjects actually in the United States as the citizens or subjects of "the most favored nation" are treated, they create no new status for them; they simply recognize and confirm a general and existing rule, applicable to all aliens alike, for none are favored above others by domestic law, and none by foreign treaties unless it be the Chinese themselves in some respects. For by the third article of the treaty of November 17, 1880, between the United States and China it is provided that--

ART. III. If Chinese laborers, or Chinese of any other class, now either
permanently or temporarily residing in the territory of the United
States, meet with ill treatment at the hands of any other persons, the
Government of the United States will exert all its power to devise
measures for their protection and to secure to them the same rights,
privileges, immunities, and exemptions as may be enjoyed by the citizens
or subjects of the most favored nation, and to which they are entitled
by treaty.

This article may be held to constitute a special privilege for Chinese subjects in the United States, as compared with other aliens; not that it creates any peculiar rights which others do not share, but because, in case, of ill treatment of the Chinese in the United States, this Government is bound to "exert all its power to devise measures for their protection," by securing to them the rights to which equally with any and all other foreigners they are entitled.

Whether it is now incumbent upon the United States to amend their general laws or devise new measures in this regard I do not consider in the present communication, but confine myself to the particular point raised by the outrage and massacre at Rock Springs.

The note of the Chinese minister and the documents which accompany it give, as I believe, an unexaggerated statement of the lamentable incident, and present impressively the regrettable circumstance that the proceedings, in the name of justice, for the ascertainment of the crime and fixing the responsibility therefor were a ghastly mockery of justice. So long as the Chinese minister, under his instructions, makes this the basis of an appeal to the principles and convictions of mankind, no exception can be taken; but when he goes further, and, taking as his precedent the action of the Chinese Government in past instances where the lives of American citizens and their property in China have been endangered, argues a reciprocal obligation on the part of the United States to indemnify the Chinese subjects who suffered at Rock Springs, it became necessary to meet his argument and to deny most emphatically the conclusions he seeks to draw as to the existence of such a liability and the right of the Chinese Government to insist upon it.

I draw the attention of the Congress to the latter part of the note of the Secretary of State of February 18, 1886, in reply to the Chinese minister's representations, and invite especial consideration of the cogent reasons by which he reaches the conclusion that whilst the United States Government is under no obligation, whether by the express terms of its treaties with China or the principles of international law, to indemnify these Chinese subjects for losses caused by such means and under the admitted circumstances, yet that in view of the palpable and discreditable failure of the authorities of Wyoming Territory to bring to justice the guilty parties or to assure to the sufferers an impartial forum in which to seek and obtain compensation for the losses which those subjects have incurred by lack of police protection, and considering further the entire absence of provocation or contribution on the part of the victims, the Executive may be induced to bring the matter to the benevolent consideration of the Congress, in order that that body, in its high discretion, may direct the bounty of the Government in aid of innocent and peaceful strangers whose maltreatment has brought discredit upon the country, with the distinct understanding that such action is in no wise to be held as a precedent, is wholly gratuitous, and is resorted to in a spirit of pure generosity toward those who are otherwise helpless.

The correspondence exchanged is herewith submitted for the information of the Congress, and accompanies a like message to the House of Representatives.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, _March 2, 1886_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:

I transmit herewith a communication of the 27th ultimo from the Secretary of the Interior, submitting, with accompanying papers, a draft of a bill, prepared in the Office of Indian Affairs, for the purpose of securing to the Cherokees and others, citizens of the Cherokee Nation by adoption and incorporation, a sum equal to their proportion of the $300,000, proceeds of lands west of 96° in the Indian Territory, appropriated by the act of March 3, 1883.

The matter is presented for the consideration of Congress.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, _March 2, 1886_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:

I transmit herewith a communication of 25th ultimo from the Secretary of the Interior, submitting, with accompanying papers, a draft of a bill recommended by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, for the payment of money claimed under alleged existing treaty stipulations and laws by such Eastern Cherokee Indians as have removed or shall hereafter remove themselves to the Indian Territory.

The matter is presented for the consideration of Congress.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, _March 2, 1886_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:

I transmit herewith a communication of 26th ultimo from the Secretary of the Interior, with inclosures, requesting legislation to provide for the reappraisement and sale of a small tract of land in the State of Nebraska belonging to the Sac and Fox Indian Reservation.

The matter is presented for the action of Congress.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, _March 3, 1886_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:

I transmit herewith, for the information of Congress, the seventeenth annual report of the Board of Indian Commissioners, for the year 1885, submitted to the Secretary of the Interior in pursuance of the act of May 17, 1882.

The report accompanies the message to the House of Representatives.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, _March 10, 1886_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:

I transmit herewith a communication of the 5th instant from the Secretary of the Interior, submitting, with accompanying papers, a draft of a bill, prepared in the Office of Indian Affairs, "for the relief of the Omaha tribe of Indians in the State of Nebraska."

The matter is presented for the consideration of Congress.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, _March 10, 1886_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:

I transmit herewith, for the consideration of Congress, the report of the National Board of Health for the year 1885.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, _March 17, 1886_.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

I transmit herewith a communication from the Secretary of State, being a revised list of papers on file in the Department of State touching the unpaid claims of citizens of the United States against France for spoliation prior to July 31, 1801.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, _March 17, 1886_.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

In response to the resolution of the Senate of the 17th of February, requesting to be furnished with a copy of the report made by the consul-general of the United States at Berlin upon the shipping interest of Germany, I transmit a report of the Secretary of State upon the subject.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, _Washington, March 17, 1886_.

_To the Senate of the United States_:

In compliance with the resolution of the Senate in executive session of the 27th of January, I transmit herewith the report of the Secretary of State and the papers accompanying it, relating to the emigration of Chinese to the United States.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, _March 18, 1886_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:

I transmit herewith a communication of 16th instant from the Secretary of the Interior, submitting, with accompanying papers, a draft of a bill, prepared by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, providing for the use of certain funds, proceeds of Indian reservations, covered into the Treasury under the provisions of the act of March 3, 1883, for the benefit of the Indians on whose account the same is covered in.

The subject is recommended to the favorable consideration and action of Congress.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, _March 18, 1886_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:

I transmit herewith a communication of the 16th instant from the Secretary of the Interior, submitting, with accompanying papers, a draft of a bill, prepared by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, "to authorize the purchase of a tract of land near Salem, Oreg., for the use of the Indian training school."

The subject is presented for the consideration and action of Congress.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, _March 18, 1886_.

_To the Senate_:

In compliance with a resolution of the Senate of February 9, 1886, I herewith transmit a report from the Secretary of State, with its accompanying documents, relative to the commerce between the United States and certain foreign countries in cereals, and the cotton product during the years 1884 and 1885.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, _March 22, 1886_.

_To the House of Representatives_:

In answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 15th of February last, calling upon the Secretary of State for copies of all the correspondence relating to the claims of certain governments to be accorded the reductions and exemptions of tonnage dues accorded to vessels entering ports of the United States from certain ports named in the shipping act of June 26, 1884, I transmit the report of that officer, together with the correspondence.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, _March 25, 1886_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:

I transmit herewith the report of the Civil Service Commission for the year ended on the 16th day of January last.

The exhibit thus made of the operations of the Commission and the account thus presented of the results following the execution of the civil-service law can not fail to demonstrate its usefulness and strengthen the conviction that this scheme for a reform in the methods of administering the Government is no longer an experiment.

Wherever this reform has gained a foothold it has steadily advanced in the esteem of those charged with public administrative duties, while the people who desire good government have constantly been confirmed in their high estimate of its value and efficiency.

With the benefits it has already secured to the public service plainly apparent, and with its promise of increased usefulness easily appreciated, this cause is commended to the liberal care and jealous protection of the Congress.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, _March 30, 1886_.

_To the House of Representatives_:

In further answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 15th of February last, calling upon the Secretary of State for copies of all correspondence relating to the claims of governments to be accorded the reductions and exemptions of tonnage dues accorded to vessels entering the ports of the United States from certain ports named in the shipping act of June 26, 1884, I transmit herewith a copy of the reply of the Attorney-General to the letter of the Secretary of State of December 15, 1885, as found on pages 35 and 36 of Executive Document No. 132, House of Representatives, Forty-ninth Congress, first session, communicated on the 22d instant.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, _April 1, 1886_.

_To the House of Representatives_:

In response to a resolution of the House of Representatives of the 24th of March, relative to the employment of substitutes in the Department of State, I transmit herewith a report of the Secretary of State on the subject.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, _April 1, 1886_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:

I transmit herewith a letter from the Secretary of the Interior and the accompanying report, submitted by the governor of Alaska in compliance with section 5 of the act of May 17, 1884, entitled "An act providing a civil government for Alaska."

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, _April 1, 1886_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:

I transmit herewith a report of the Secretary of State, in relation to the claim of the representatives of the late Hon. James Crooks, a British subject, against this Government for the seizure of the schooner _Lord Nelson_ in 1812.

The matter is commended to the favorable consideration of Congress.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, _April 6, 1886_.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:

I transmit herewith, for the consideration of Congress with a view to appropriate legislation in the premises, a report of the Secretary of State, with certain correspondence touching the treaty right of Chinese subjects other than laborers "to go and come of their own free will and accord,"

In my annual message of the 8th of December last I said:

In the application of the acts lately passed to execute the treaty of
1880, restrictive of the immigration of Chinese laborers into the United
States, individual cases of hardship have occurred beyond the power of
the Executive to remedy, and calling for judicial determination.

These cases of individual hardship are due to the ambiguous and defective provisions of the acts of Congress approved respectively on the 6th May, 1882, and 5th July, 1884. The hardship has in some cases been remedied by the action of the courts. In other cases, however, where the phraseology of the statutes has appeared to be conclusive against any discretion on the part of the officers charged with the execution of the law, Chinese persons expressly entitled to free admission under the treaty have been refused a landing and sent back to the country whence they came without being afforded any opportunity to show in the courts or otherwise their right to the privilege of free ingress and egress which it was the purpose of the treaty to secure.

In the language of one of the judicial determinations of the Supreme Court of the United States to which I have referred--

The supposition should not be indulged that Congress, while professing
to faithfully execute the treaty stipulations and recognizing the fact
that they secure to a certain class the right to go from and come to
the United States, intended to make its protection depend upon the
performance of conditions which it was physically impossible to perform.
(112 U.S. Reports, p. 554, Chew Heong _vs._ United States.)

The act of July 5, 1884, imposes such an impossible condition in not providing for the admission, under proper certificate, of Chinese travelers of the exempted classes in the cases most likely to arise in ordinary commercial intercourse.

The treaty provisions governing the case are as follows:

ART. I. * * * The limitation or suspension shall be reasonable, and
shall apply only to Chinese who may go to the United States as laborers,
other classes not being included in the limitations. * * *

ART. II. Chinese subjects, whether proceeding to the United States as
teachers, students, merchants, or from curiosity, together with their
body and household servants, * * * shall be allowed to go and come of
their own free will and accord, and shall be accorded all the rights,
privileges, immunities, and exemptions which are accorded to the
citizens and subjects of the most favored nation.