The matter is presented for the consideration and action of Congress.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, February 16, 1886.

To the Senate of the United States: 

I transmit herewith, in response to a resolution of the Senate of the 9th instant, a statement showing the payments of awards of the commissioners appointed under the conventions between the United States and France concluded April 30, 1803, and July 4, 1831, and between the United States and Spain concluded February 22, 1819, prepared from the books in the Department of the Treasury, under the direction of the Secretary of the Treasury, at the request of the Secretary of State.

Also, for the further information of the Senate, a report prepared by direction of the Secretary of State, from the original records in his custody, of the awards made by the said commissioners in claims allowed by them.

GROVER CLEVELAND.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, Washington, D.C., March 1, 1886.

To the Senate of the United States: 

Ever since the beginning of the present session of the Senate the different heads of the Departments attached to the executive branch of the Government have been plied with various requests and demands from committees of the Senate, from members of such committees, and at last from the Senate itself, requiring the transmission of reasons for the suspension of certain officials during the recess of that body, or for the papers touching the conduct of such officials, or for all papers and documents relating to such suspensions, or for all documents and papers filed in such Departments in relation to the management and conduct of the offices held by such suspended officials.

The different terms from time to time adopted in making these requests and demands, the order in which they succeeded each other, and the fact that when made by the Senate the resolution for that purpose was passed in executive session have led to the presumption, the correctness of which will, I suppose, be candidly admitted, that from first to last the information thus sought and the papers thus demanded were desired for use by the Senate and its committees in considering the propriety of the suspensions referred to.

Though these suspensions are my executive acts, based upon considerations addressed to me alone and for which I am wholly responsible, I have had no invitation from the Senate to state the position which I have felt constrained to assume in relation to the same or to interpret for myself my acts and motives in the premises.

In this condition of affairs I have forborne addressing the Senate upon the subject, lest I might be accused of thrusting myself unbidden upon the attention of that body.

But the report of the Committee on the Judiciary of the Senate lately presented and published, which censures the Attorney-General of the United States for his refusal to transmit certain papers relating to a suspension from office, and which also, if I correctly interpret it, evinces a misapprehension of the position of the Executive upon the question of such suspensions, will, I hope, justify this communication.