Mr. KASSON, I will answer the gentleman with 2 reasons. In the 1st instance, the 1st asst in the absenee of his chief and I call the gentleman's attention to that is himself invited to a seat in the Cabinet. He is therefore, in that place, one of the confidential advisers of the President touching his Dept. The other reason is, that the 1st asst in all the Depts, so far as I know, is a confidential officer, and the other assts are not; that there is a division in the classes of business in all the Executive Depts I know there is in the postoffice Dept which renders the 1st asst a confidential officer and does not render the others confidential to the chief of the Dept. The 1st asst is the one whom the chief consults intimately if he wants confidential information. If the House will pardon me I will illustrate this point by my own experience. At the time the mails were suspended between the North and the South at the beginning of the war, when I was 1st Asst PostMGenl, although I was not at all in charge of the dead letter office of that Dept, it was deemed expedient that the reports upon the information that was derived from those dead letters, which, under the ordinary operation of the law, were opened, should be made to me, and that the requisite action taken upon them should come through me. There were important acts of the Government depending on the disposition made of the information thus obtained. Imention this to illustrate the point that there are confidential relations existing betweenthe head of a Dept and his 1st asst which would justify him in demanding of Congress, and justify Congress in granting him one officer upon whom he can rely implicitly as his confidential friend. Knowing the necessity of this confidential relation between the Secretary and his 1st officer under the law, just as between the President and his Secretaries, I ask that we shall except these 2 classes of officers from the operation of this law. This bill would deprive the Presi.dent of any choiee of his confidential advisers without the approval of another branch of the Government, That is all I have to say upon the subject, and I shall of course very cheerfully abide by the action of the House.