The presses in the necessary employment of the
Government should never be used "to clear the guilty or to varnish
crime." A decent and manly examination of the acts of the
Government should be not only tolerated, but encouraged.
Upon another occasion I have given my opinion at some length upon
the impropriety of Executive interference in the legislation of
Congress--that the article in the Constitution making it the duty
of the President to communicate information and authorizing him to
recommend measures was not intended to make him the source in
legislation, and, in particular, that he should never be looked to
for schemes of finance. It would be very strange, indeed, that the
Constitution should have strictly forbidden one branch of the
Legislature from interfering in the origination of such bills and
that it should be considered proper that an altogether different
department of the Government should be permitted to do so. Some of
our best political maxims and opinions have been drawn from our
parent isle. There are others, however, which can not be
introduced in our system without singular incongruity and the
production of much mischief, and this I conceive to be one. No
matter in which of the houses of Parliament a bill may originate
nor by whom introduced--a minister or a member of the opposition--
by the fiction of law, or rather of constitutional principle, the
sovereign is supposed to have prepared it agreeably to his will
and then submitted it to Parliament for their advice and consent.
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