Andrew Johnson: “It is not the theory of this Government that public offices are the property of those who hold them.”

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

I would therefore recommend such an amendment of the Constitution as may remove all intermediate agency in the election of the President and Vice-President.

Strongly impressed with the truth of these views, I feel called upon by an imperative sense of duty to revive substantially the recommendation so often and so earnestly made by President Jackson.

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