6115. OFFICES, Nominations.—[continued].
My nominations are
sometimes made on my own knowledge of
the persons; sometimes on the information
of others given either voluntarily, or at my
request and in personal confidence. This I
could not communicate without a breach of
confidence, not I am sure, under the contemplation
of the committee. [370]
They are sensible
the Constitution has made it my duty to
nominate; and has not made it my duty to
lay before them the evidences or reasons
whereon my nominations are founded; and
of the correctness of this opinion the established
usage in the intercourse between the
Senate and President is a proof. During
nearly the whole of the time this Constitution
has been in operation, I have been in
situations of intimacy with this part of it,
and may observe, from my knowledge, that
it has not been the usage of the President to
lay before the Senate, or a committee, the
information on which he makes his nominations.
In a single instance lately, I did
make a communication of papers, but there
were circumstances so peculiar in that case
as to distinguish it from all others.—
To Uriah Tracy.
Ford ed., viii, 412.
(1806)
