WAR DEPARTMENT,

  Washington City, August 12, 1867.

  The PRESIDENT.

SIR:  Your note of this date has been received, informing me that by virtue of the powers vested in you as President by the Constitution and laws of the United States I am suspended from office as Secretary of War, and will cease to exercise any and all functions pertaining to the same; and also directing me at once to transfer to General Ulysses S. Grant, who has this day been authorized and empowered to act as Secretary of War ad interim, all records, books, papers, and other public property now in my custody and charge.

Under a sense of public duty, I am compelled to deny your right under the Constitution and laws of the United States, without the advice and consent of the Senate and without legal cause, to suspend me from office as Secretary of War, or the exercise of any or all functions pertaining to the same, or without such advice and consent to compel me to transfer to any person the records, books, papers, and public property in my custody as Secretary.

But inasmuch as the General Commanding the armies of the United States has been appointed ad interim, and has notified me that he has accepted the appointment, I have no alternative but to submit, under protest, to superior force.

And this respondent, further answering, says that it is provided in and by the second section of “An act regulating the tenure of certain civil offices” that the President may suspend an officer from the performance of the duties of the office held by him, for certain causes therein designated, until the next meeting of the Senate and until the case shall be acted on by the Senate; that this respondent, as President of the United States, was advised, and he verily believed, and still believes, that the executive power of removal from office confided to him by the Constitution as aforesaid includes the power of suspension from office at the pleasure of the President; and this respondent, by the order aforesaid, did suspend the said Stanton from office, not until the next meeting of the Senate or until the Senate should have acted upon the case, but, by force of the power and authority vested in him by the Constitution and laws of the United States, indefinitely and at the pleasure of the President; and the order, in form aforesaid, was made known to the Senate of the United States on the 12th day of December, A.D. 1867, as will be more fully hereinafter stated.

And this respondent, further answering, says that in and by the act of February 13, 1795, it was, among other things, provided and enacted that in case of vacancy in the office of Secretary for the Department of War it shall be lawful for the President, in case he shall think it necessary, to authorize any person to perform the duties of that office until a successor be appointed or such vacancy filled, but not exceeding