In executing this very delicate and important trust I acted with the utmost precaution.  Sensible of what I owed to my country, I felt strongly the obligation of observing the utmost impartiality in selecting those officers who were to be retained.  In executing this law I had no personal object to accomplish or feeling to gratify—­no one to retain, no one to remove.  Having on great consideration fixed the principles on which the reduction should be made, I availed myself of the example of my predecessor by appointing through the proper department a board of general officers to make the selection, and whose report I adopted.

In transferring the officers from the old to the new corps the utmost care was taken to place them in the latter in the grades and corps to which they had respectively belonged in the former, so far as it might be practicable.  This, though not enjoined by the law, appearing to be just and proper, was never departed from except in peculiar cases and under imperious circumstances.

In filling the original vacancies in the artillery and in the newly created office of Adjutant-General I considered myself at liberty to place in them any officer belonging to any part of the whole military establishment, whether of the staff or line.  In filling original vacancies—­that is, offices newly created—­it is my opinion, as a general principle, that Congress have no right under the Constitution to impose any restraint by law on the power granted to the President so as to prevent his making a free selection of proper persons for these offices from the whole body of his fellow-citizens.  Without, however, entering here into that question, I have no hesitation in declaring it as my opinion that the law fully authorized a selection from any branch of the whole military establishment of 1815.  Justified, therefore, as I thought myself in taking that range by the very highest sanction, the sole object to which I had to direct my attention was the merit of the officers to be selected for these stations.  Three generals of great merit were either to be dismissed or otherwise provided for.  The very gallant and patriotic defender of New Orleans had intimated his intention to retire, but at my suggestion expressed his willingness to accept the office of commissioner to receive the cession of the Floridas and of governor for a short time of that Territory.  As to one, therefore, there was no difficulty.  For the other two provision could only be made in the mode which was adopted.  General Macomb, who had signalized himself in the defense of Plattsburg, was placed at the head of the Corps of Engineers, to which he had originally belonged, and in which he had acquired great experience, Colonel Armistead, then at the head of that corps, having voluntarily accepted one of the new regiments of artillery, for which he possessed very suitable qualifications.  General Atkinson, likewise an officer of great merit, was appointed to