you should prefer not to become a party to the controversy or should conclude that it would be your duty to surrender the Department to Mr. Stanton upon action in his favor by the Senate you were to return the office to me prior to a decision by the Senate, in order that if I desired to do so I might designate someone to succeed you.  It must have been apparent to you that had not this understanding been reached it was my purpose to relieve you from the further discharge of the duties of Secretary of War ad interim and to appoint some other person in that capacity.

Other conversations upon this subject ensued, all of them having on my part the same object and leading to the same conclusion as the first.  It is not necessary, however, to refer to any of them excepting that of Saturday, the 11th instant, mentioned in your communication.  As it was then known that the Senate had proceeded to consider the case of Mr. Stanton, I was anxious to learn your determination.  After a protracted interview, during which the provisions of the tenure-of-office bill were freely discussed, you said that, as had been agreed upon in our first conference, you would either return the office to my possession in time to enable me to appoint a successor before final action by the Senate upon Mr. Stanton’s suspension, or would remain as its head, awaiting a decision of the question by judicial proceedings.  It was then understood that there would be a further conference on Monday, by which time I supposed you would be prepared to inform me of your final decision.  You failed, however, to fulfill the engagement, and on Tuesday notified me in writing of the receipt by you of official notification of the action of the Senate in the case of Mr. Stanton, and at the same time informed me that according to the act regulating the tenure of certain civil offices your functions as Secretary of War ad interim ceased from the moment of the receipt of the notice.  You thus, in disregard of the understanding between us, vacated the office without having given me notice of your intention to do so.  It is but just, however, to say that in your communication you claim that you did inform me of your purpose, and thus “fulfilled the promise made in our last preceding conversation on this subject.”  The fact that such a promise existed is evidence of an arrangement of the kind I have mentioned.  You had found in our first conference “that the President was desirous of keeping Mr. Stanton out of office whether sustained in the suspension or not.”  You knew what reasons had induced the President to ask from you a promise; you also knew that in case your views of duty did not accord with his own convictions it was his purpose to fill your place by another appointment.  Even ignoring the existence of a positive understanding between us, these conclusions were plainly deducible from our various conversations.  It is certain, however, that even under these circumstances you did not offer to return the place to my possession, but, according to your own statement, placed yourself in a position where, could I have anticipated your action, I would have been compelled to ask of you, as I was compelled to ask of your predecessor in the War Department, a letter of resignation, or else to resort to the more disagreeable expedient of suspending you by a successor.