The Correspondence connected with the resignation of Hon. James A. Seddon.
Confederate States of America,
War Department,
Richmond, Va., January 18, 1865.
I have been surprised to learn that, on a recent conference of the members of Congress from Virginia, they resolved, as a delegation, to advise you to re-organize your Cabinet by relieving all the present heads of departments.--While this action operates with different influences on me than on the other members of this Cabinet, you will understand my feeling that it ought to be, as it is, controlling with me. After such an expression of opinion on the part of the delegation from my own State, I could no longer fill my present position with its full measure of usefulness to you or the Confederacy.
As a sense of duty has alone induced me to undertake and endure the incessant labors and anxieties of my office, I can have no hesitation in relinquishing it when a similar motive impels.
I, therefore, respectfully tender my resignation of the office with which you have honored me; ask to be relieved as soon as it may comport with your convenience to appoint my successor.
In him, I earnestly trust you may find greater ability and a more satisfactory discharge of the duties of the department, but I venture to think he cannot be animated by a more sincere desire than has stimulated me to devote my full powers to sustain your administration and promote the vindication of our liberties and independence. In retirement, I shall cherish a grateful sense of the confidence you have reposed in me, and a just appreciation of your character and eminent public services, and, in the more limited sphere of private life, shall not cease to render to you, as the trusted Chief Magistrate of the Confederacy, and to our great cause, whatever assistance I may be able to give.
You are too well acquainted with the reasons which have delayed my answer to your letter of the 18th ultimo to need any explanation on the subject, and must be too well assured of my warm personal regard and official confidence to render necessary any expression of the regret I feel at being deprived of your aid and counsel at this critical juncture in our affairs.
I had hoped that further reflection would induce a change in your views, but as this has not been the case, I am not at liberty to question the reasons for your decision. It is a matter exclusively for your private judgment whether you should be controlled by an expression of opinion on the part of the Virginia delegation in Congress that it would be advisable "to re-organize my Cabinet by relieving all the present heads of departments." I have no choice but to acquiesce in your conclusion, that you cannot longer fill your present position without impaired usefulness, nor without doing violence to your feelings.
I cannot, however, recognize the propriety of your decision, because I cannot admit the existence of a power or right in the legislative department of the Government, or in any part or branch of it, to control the continuance in office of those "principal officers in each of the executive departments," whose choice the Constitution has vested in the Chief Magistrate; whose advice in writing he is empowered "to require," and whose tenure of office is exceptional, being made to depend expressly on "the pleasure of the President." The relations between the President and the heads of the executive departments are from their nature of the closest and most intimate character; they imply mutual confidence and esteem, and a general concurrence of opinion on administrative policy; and it is not a constitutional function of the legislative department to interfere with these relations, nor can it be assumed that a change of the heads of departments would alter the administrative policy of the Government, without also assuming as true the injurious supposition that the President has permitted them to pursue a policy at variance with his own, and has thus failed to do his own duty as chief of the executive department.
The notion that, under our form of government, an expression by the legislative of want of confidence in the executive department is an appropriate exercise of constitutional power, and should cause a change in the Cabinet, is quite unfounded; and it is not difficult to see that it arises from a false analogy, that most fertile source of error. In Great Britain, a vote of the House of Commons expressing a want of confidence in the ministry has a controlling influence, because the Parliament governs. With us it is the reverse. The two cases are so distinct as to be opposite, rather than parallel, to each other.
In Great Britain, the ministry are the executive government. The sovereign rules, but does not govern. In the Confederacy the heads of departments neither rule nor govern.
In Great Britain, the sovereign is irresponsible, and "can do no wrong," and the ministry alone are responsible. In the Confederacy, the President may do wrong, and is responsible for so doing. The remedy for his wrong-doing is impeachment by the House of Representatives.
The Senate is without power even to impeach, and can only act as judges when the House impeaches.
In Great Britain, the crown being hereditary as well as irresponsible, the control of the people over the policy of the Government consists in refusing, by their Commons, the grant to the sovereign of supplies necessary for carrying on the government.
In the Confederacy, the people choose the President as well as the Congress, and by giving him a term of six years, and making the tenure of office of the Cabinet "his pleasure," have debarred themselves from the power of enforcing any change of administrative policy during that term. It is known that this lengthened term of six years, without re-eligibility, was conferred by our Constitution on the Executive for the express purpose of imparting stability to government and of withdrawing all motive for courting popular favor at the expense of duty.
In Great Britain, the ministry are members of the legislative department, originate laws, guide administration, exercise the appointing power to all offices (the sovereign's power being to practice purely nominal), are apprised in advance of the grounds of a proposed vote of want of confidence, and have the power and means of defending themselves.
In the Confederacy, the exact reverse of all this is the case, and the heads of departments are not even admitted to the right of debate on the subjects appertaining to their departments, as contemplated by the Constitution.
In Great Britain, even after a vote of censure, the ministry may dissolve Parliament, and appeal to the country, which has not unfrequently reversed the vote.
The Commons are thus restrained from factious or unfounded charges by the responsibility of making them at the peril of being discountenanced by the people, and thus losing their own seats.
In the Confederacy, the exact reverse of all this is again the case, and a vote of want of confidence would be free from all salutary restraint or responsibility.
It is needless to continue this exposition. It is too clear for doubt that the legislative and executive departments, deriving equally their existence from the votes of the people, it would be quite as proper for the executive department to express want of confidence in the legislative department as for the latter to express distrust of the former.
In stating these views, nothing is further from my intention than to deny to enlightened public opinion, when deliberately formed after knowledge of facts, its just and legitimate influence.--Such public opinion is almost invariably correct, and can rarely be disregarded without injury to the public weal.
My purpose is simply to deny that the declaration of a State delegation, or even a vote of one or both Houses, is entitled to be considered as the authentic expression of such opinion, or as requiring concession from a co-ordinate department of the Government.
I have been led into this digression by the peculiar circumstances which have given rise to your resignation. They are without precedent. I cannot, however, refuse to relieve you from duties which the action of your State delegation has rendered distasteful to you. That you have devoted yourself with entire singleness of purpose to the public welfare; that your labors have been incessant, your services important, and your counsels very valuable to myself and to your colleagues, would be as readily attested by them as by myself. The regret that our official relations now end is relieved by the reflection that you will be near me, and by the assurance that I can ever call on you with confidence for any aid that you can render in private life. Our personal relations, so pleasant during our official intercourse, will not, I trust, be interrupted; and you carry with you in your retirement my warmest wishes for your health and prosperity.
Confederate States of America,.
War Department,
Richmond, Va., February 4, 1865.
I have the honor to acknowledge your letter of the 1st instant, accepting my resignation of the office of Secretary of War.
I appreciate gratefully the confidence and approval you so kindly avow in reference to myself and my official course, and cannot too strongly express the gratification they afford me. Nor is that gratification alloyed by any contrariety of opinion on my part in the general views you have felt it appropriate to express in reference to the relations and obligations subsisting, under our constitutional system, between the Executive and his ministers on the one side, and the Legislature, or any part of it, on the other.
Your exposition of those relations, and the duties resulting, is too lucid and just not to command the full concurrence of my judgment.
I should regret if my action gave countenance to any opposing opinions, and I owe it to myself, no less than to you, and to the maintenance of sound constitutional principles, to disavow such construction.
I have never recognized, nor do I, in retiring, admit of any claim of right on the part of the Legislature, or any portion or delegation in it, to dictate to the Executive the selection or change of any of his officers, and, least of all, those holding the responsible and confidential relations of the Cabinet ministers, nor the power to impose an obligation on such ministers, or any of them, to retire at their wish, or on their expression of a want of confidence.
On the contrary, circumstances might exist which would exact from the Executive and his ministers, as a high duty, resistance to such action of the Legislature, or its members. Special considerations, involving both sentiments and convictions of duty, yet in entire consistency with the constitutional views so ably presented by you, governed my course. While reluctant, as I still am, to believe that the advice of the delegation in Congress from Virginia embodied the "enlightened public opinion" of the State, yet it necessarily had an imposing appearance of expressing the present feeling of the State, at least in relation to the member of your Cabinet who was her citizen. A Virginian, I have ever cherished peculiar pride in my State, and have felt the obligations to honor and heed her lightest voice. I deemed myself, therefore, bound to defer to what had the plausible semblance of her will. Besides, as I have in my letter of resignation intimated, the expression of opinion from so influential a body as the delegation of my State, even though mistaken, could not fail to impair the confidence and capacity for usefulness which, in the present exigencies, the Secretary of War should possess in the fullest possible measure. In this point of view my retirement was due to the Confederacy and its cause. To yourself I conceived it no less due. It was professed, and I had no reason to doubt, that the action of the Virginia delegation was taken in no factious or hostile spirit towards you, but, on the contrary, was induced by friendly, not less than patriotic feelings, and the desire to impart additional strength and confidence to your administration. Whatever little influence might be attached to the opinions of the delegation as to the members of the Cabinet from other States, it might naturally be expected not to be without weight as a manifestation of public opinion in reference to the member from their own State. It was therefore incumbent on me to disembarrass you from all feelings of delicacy or personal regard towards myself which might hinder the freest exercise of your judgment in the selection of another Secretary who could command more fully the confidence of the country and bring to its service greater influence and power of usefulness.
I owed it to my colleagues of the Cabinet that if, as might be supposed, they had been involved in an adverse opinion by the delegation from my own State from reluctance to move against the member from her alone, such cause should be promptly removed, and that, in any event, whatever propriety existed for their separate action as a delegation, in the fact that there was a member in the Cabinet from their State, should no longer be allowed to continue, to the prejudice of the entire Cabinet. It is, perhaps, but justice to myself, in this connection, to say that assurances were given to me that the action of the delegation had not been directed against me, specially or separately, but still I could not be insensible that, being confined to one delegation, it might be construed otherwise, and in that view be felt to operate, because of my relation to them, injuriously on others. My resignation at once swept away all such implications, and left their opinions against others without such accessory justification or influence.
From these blended motives of sentiment and duty my course was unhesitatingly taken, and though the privilege of serving the country in times like these is to be valued, and the honoring associations I have enjoyed are not parted with without pain, my subsequent reflections have only confirmed me in the correctness of my decision.
I have only to add renewed assurances of the honor and pleasure I feel in returning your personal as well as official esteem, and to say I shall be happy, by all the means in my power, by such modes as you suggest or otherwise, to further the accomplishment of your exalted duties, or to have the opportunity at any time of contributing to your personal prosperity and happiness.
