It is certainly no new doctrine in the halls of judicature or of legislation that certain communications and papers are privileged, and that the general authority to compel testimony must give way in certain cases to the paramount rights of individuals or of the Government.  Thus no man can be compelled to accuse himself, to answer any question that tends to render him infamous, or to produce his own private papers on any occasion.  The communications of a client to his counsel and the admissions made at the confessional in the course of religious discipline are privileged communications.  In the courts of that country from which we derive our great principles of individual liberty and the rules of evidence it is well settled—­and the doctrine has been fully recognized in this country—­that a minister of the Crown or the head of a department can not be compelled to produce any papers or disclose any transactions relating to the executive functions of the Government which he declares are confidential or such as the public interest requires should not be divulged; and the persons who have been the channels of communication to officers of the State are in like manner protected from the disclosure of their names.  Other instances of privileged communications might be enumerated if it were deemed necessary.  These principles are as applicable to evidence sought by a legislature as to that required by a court.

The practice of the Government since its foundation has sanctioned the principle that there must necessarily be a discretionary authority in reference to the nature of the information called for by either House of Congress.

The authority was claimed and exercised by General Washington in 1796.  In 1825 President Monroe declined compliance with a resolution of the House of Representatives calling for the correspondence between the Executive Departments of this Government and the officers of the United States Navy and others at or near the ports of South America on the Pacific Ocean.  In a communication made by the Secretary of War in 1832 to the Committee of the House on the Public Lands, by direction of President Jackson, he denies the obligation of the Executive to furnish the information called for and maintains the authority of the President to exercise a sound discretion in complying with calls of that description by the House of Representatives or its committees.  Without multiplying other instances, it is not deemed improper to refer to the refusal of the President at the last session of the present Congress to comply with a resolution of the House of Representatives calling for the names of the members of Congress who had applied for offices.  As no further notice was taken in any form of this refusal, it would seem to be a fair inference that the House itself admitted that there were cases in which the President had a discretionary authority in respect to the transmission of information in the possession of any of the Executive Departments.