Andrew Johnson: “Public considerations of a high character constrain me to say that your resignation as Secretary of War will be…”

I transmit the accompanying communications from the Secretary of the Interior, together with the papers to which they have reference.

With these brief suggestions the bill is respectfully returned, and the consideration of Congress invited to the accompanying preamble and resolutions.

No power exists in the Constitution authorizing the joint resolution or the supposed law--the only difference being that one would be more palpably unconstitutional and revolutionary than the other.

My object in this communication is to suggest certain defects in the Constitution which seem to me to require correction.