Should the proceedings of the Covode committee become a precedent, both the letter and spirit of the Constitution will be violated.  One of the three massive columns on which the whole superstructure rests will be broken down.  Instead of the Executive being a coordinate it will become a subordinate branch of the Government.  The Presidential office will be dragged into the dust.  The House of Representatives will then have rendered the Executive almost necessarily subservient to its wishes, instead of being independent.  How is it possible that two powers in the State can be coordinate and independent of each other if the one claims and exercises the power to reprove and to censure all the official acts and all the private conversations of the other, and this upon ex parte testimony before a secret inquisitorial committee in short, to assume a general censorship over the other?  The idea is as absurd in public as it would be in private life.  Should the President attempt to assert and maintain his own independence, future Covode committees may dragoon him into submission by collecting the hosts of disappointed office hunters, removed officers, and those who desire to live upon the public Treasury, which must follow in the wake of every Administration, and they in secret conclave will swear away his reputation.  Under such circumstances he must be a very bold man should he not surrender at discretion and consent to exercise his authority according to the will of those invested with this terrific power.  The sovereign people of the several States have elected him to the highest and most honorable office in the world.  He is their only direct representative in the Government.  By their Constitution they have made him Commander in Chief of their Army and Navy.  He represents them in their intercourse with foreign nations.  Clothed with their dignity and authority, he occupies a proud position before all nations, civilized and savage.  With the consent of the Senate, he appoints all the important officers of the Government.  He exercises the veto power, and to that extent controls the legislation of Congress.  For the performance of these high duties he is responsible to the people of the several States, and not in any degree to the House of Representatives.

Shall he surrender these high powers, conferred upon him as the representative of the American people for their benefit, to the House to be exercised under their overshadowing influence and control?  Shall he alone of all the citizens of the United States be denied a fair trial?  Shall he alone not be “informed of the nature and cause of the accusation” against him?  Shall he alone not “be confronted with the witnesses” against him?  Shall the House of Representatives, usurping the powers of the Senate, proceed to try the President through the agency of a secret committee of the body, where it is impossible he can make any defense, and then, without affording him an opportunity of being heard, pronounce a judgment