Being aware of the inconveniences to which a protracted session at this season would be liable, I limit the present communication to objects of primary importance.  In special messages which may ensue regard will be had to the same consideration.

JAMES MADISON.

SPECIAL MESSAGES.

MAY 29, 1813.

To the Senate of the United States: 

The Swedish Government having repeatedly manifested a desire to interchange a public minister with the United States, and having lately appointed one with that view, and other considerations concurring to render it advisable at this period to make a correspondent appointment, I nominate Jonathan Russell, of Rhode Island, to be minister plenipotentiary of the United States to Sweden.

JAMES MADISON.

WASHINGTON, July 6, 1813.

To the Senate of the United States: 

I have received from the committee appointed by the resolution of the Senate of the 14th day of June a copy of that resolution, which authorizes the committee to confer with the President on the subject of the nomination made by him of a minister plenipotentiary to Sweden.

Conceiving it to be my duty to decline the proposed conference with the committee, and it being uncertain when it may be convenient to explain to the committee, and through them to the Senate, the grounds of my so doing, I think it proper to address the explanation directly to the Senate.  Without entering into a general review of the relations in which the Constitution has placed the several departments of the Government to each other, it will suffice to remark that the Executive and Senate, in the cases of appointments to office and of treaties, are to be considered as independent of and coordinate with each other.  If they agree, the appointments or treaties are made; if the Senate disagree, they fail.  If the Senate wish information previous to their final decision, the practice, keeping in view the constitutional relations of the Senate and the Executive, has been either to request the Executive to furnish it or to refer the subject to a committee of their body to communicate, either formally or informally, with the head of the proper department.  The appointment of a committee of the Senate to confer immediately with the Executive himself appears to lose sight of the coordinate relation between the Executive and the Senate which the Constitution has established, and which ought therefore to be maintained.

The relation between the Senate and House of Representatives, in whom legislative power is concurrently vested, is sufficiently analogous to illustrate that between the Executive and Senate in making appointments and treaties.  The two Houses are in like manner independent of and coordinate with each other, and the invariable practice of each in appointing committees of conference and consultation is to commission them to confer not