Things having gone so far, you may think that you cannot make any communication of the kind to the Senate, not even as an act of courtesy and with an explicit reservation of the rights of the Executive. You may also think that the heroic remedies I proposed in my last letter were too heroic—although I fear you will, before you leave the Presidential chair, wish you had adopted them.
But is not there a middle course still open to you? If you will not now open yourself to the Senate, can you not take the people into your confidence? Can you not make a declaration in some shape, which may go before the public in an authoritative form, stating that you did make such and such a pledge; that—assuming it to be the case—in the confusion of the beginning of the Administration some removals have been made, much against your intention, which were not in accord with that pledge; that you refused laying your reasons for removals before the Senate because of Constitutional considerations; but that you do not mean to conceal anything, and are resolved to deal frankly with the people? And then, can you not, in addition, issue an Executive order, that henceforth in every case of removal the reasons therefor shall be put upon public record?
By such a voluntary declaration you will not only do what is in best accord with your character, but also avoid that greatest of your present dangers that things incompatible with your pledge be proven after an apparent attempt on your part to conceal the evidence, for you will then have forestalled whatever may come out. And, secondly, by the Executive order you will give an additional proof of your good faith, relieve yourself and your Secretaries of much importunity and introduce a very important and wholesome reform. Possibly your Cabinet ministers may at first not favor this. But I know from my experience that it is entirely practicable, and, more-
