Mr. HOWE. Mr. President, the Senfrom Vermont is entirely correct in what he has said of the attitude of Mr. Madison in the course of that debate and the course of Mr. Madison in his correspondence. I said nothing to the contrary. I simply said that this question came under discussion upon the propriety of putting that authority by statute in the hands of the President, and that Mr. Madison advocated it, and I thought was animated by the confidence that he had in General Washington. I know that in the course of that debate he did declare that he believed such was the intention of the Constitution; but he did also declare in the course of that debate what I have already said, that the President who should exert this power for the purpose of proscribing political enemies or proscribing political opinions would be liable to impeachment. The Senfrom Maine repeats what the Senfrom Vermont, has urged, that these ministers are the confidential advisers of the President. That in practice they may not be so, of course I cannot say, for I have never been a President or a Cabinet officer; but that the Constitution ever intended they should be his confidential advisers I am prepared to deny. I think the whole practice. ”. President's consulting his ministers has grown out of this clause in the Constitution. Referring to the President, it says: “He may require the opinion in writing of the principal officers in each of the Executive Depts upon any subject relating to the duties of their respective offices.” From which I understand, not that the president may convene all his Cabinet officers in secret conclave and hold a whispered consultation upon any measure of the Administration or of the Government, from which the world is excluded; but that on any measure touching the financial interests of the country he may ask, not the private, but the written opinion of the SecyTreasury; and on any measure touching the military administration of the country he may require the written opinion of the SecyWar, and so of the head of each of the other Depts.