To the Senate of the United States: I transmit to the Senate, in executive session, the report of the Secretary of State, with the accompanying documents, in reply to the resolution of the Senate adopted in open session on the 11th January last, relating to outrages committed on citizens of the United States on the Isthmus of Panama.
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I therefore appeal through you to the people of the country to declare in their might that the Union must and shall be preserved by all constitutional means.
If they could withdraw an officer from the command of the President and select him for the performance of an executive duty, they might upon the same principle annex to an appropriation to carry on a war a condition requiring it not to be used for the defense of the country unless a particular person of its own selection should command the Army.
The lawfulness of the practice rests upon the exigencies of the public service; which require that the movements of the Government shall not be arrested by an accidental vacancy in one of the Departments; upon an act of Congress expressly and plainly giving and regulating the power, and upon long and uninterrupted usage of the Executive, which has never been challenged as illegal by Congress.
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