hold the office of Secretary for the Department of War without hazard of the public interest; that the relations between the said Stanton and the President no longer permitted the President to resort to him for advice or to be, in the judgment of the President, safely responsible for his conduct of the affairs of the Department of War, as by law required, in accordance with the orders and instructions of the President; and thereupon, by force of the Constitution and laws of the United States, which devolve on the President the power and the duty to control the conduct of the business of that Executive Department of the Government, and by reason of the constitutional duty of the President to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, this respondent did necessarily consider and did determine that the said Stanton ought no longer to hold the said office of Secretary for the Department of War.  And this respondent, by virtue of the power and authority vested in him as President of the United States by the Constitution and laws of the United States, to give effect to such his decision and determination, did, on the 5th day of August, A.D. 1867, address to the said Stanton a note of which the following is a true copy: 

  SIR:  Public considerations of a high character constrain me to say that
  your resignation as Secretary of War will be accepted.

To which note the said Stanton made the following reply: 

  WAR DEPARTMENT,

  Washington, August 5, 1867.

  SIR:  Your note of this day has been received, stating that “public
  considerations of a high character constrain” you “to say that” my
  “resignation as Secretary of War will be accepted.”

In reply I have the honor to say that public considerations of a high character, which alone have induced me to continue at the head of this Department, constrain me not to resign the office of Secretary of War before the next meeting of Congress.

  Very respectfully, yours,

  EDWIN M. STANTON.

This respondent, as President of the United States, was thereon of opinion that, having regard to the necessary official relations and duties of the Secretary for the Department of War to the President of the United States, according to the Constitution and laws of the United States, and having regard to the responsibility of the President for the conduct of the said Secretary, and having regard to the permanent executive authority of the office which the respondent holds under the Constitution and laws of the United States, it was impossible, consistently with the public interests, to allow the said Stanton to continue to hold the said office of Secretary for the Department of War; and it then became the official duty of the respondent, as President of the United States, to consider and decide what act or acts should and might lawfully be done by him, as President of the United States, to cause the said Stanton to surrender the said office.