Mr. FESSENDEN. I wish to add also that Senators, I think, misapprehend the question, from a want of familiarity with the business which is transacted at the Depts. Take, for instance, the Treasury. A question comes up for the Secretary to decide under the stat ute. He must decide it under the statute. That is a matter of business occurring every day. There are more or less of them. Then some question comes up and he is not exactly familiar with the application of the law to the facts; there is some doubt about it; it is not clear; and yet it is before him for decision. Now, what used to be the way of doin that? He had some clerk in the Dept who had some legal knowledge. He would at once pass it over to that clerk to examine the case, and state what the law was and the sections of the law. It is the business in his own Dept; he cannot send out the paperto be examined by another Dept, to get a formal opinion on the subject. There is no time for it, and no necessity for it. In view of that, and of the inconvenience arising there, it was found necessary to have an 051 eer of a higher grade than amere clerk, whose opinions would be better than you were likely to get from a man receiving a small salary serving there, although he might be a credit able lawyer. For that reason the office of Solicitor was established. Now, it comes to the same thing in the Dept of State. Strike this section out, and what would the SecyState be obliged to do? He must pick out some clerk in his Dept to do this work, and to report on t ie cases to him. That will be the amount of it. But on account of the war there is a great variety of these questions that require something better than the opinion he could get from a clerk upon the subject. He wants an Officer of a higher grade, to be continually at his hand, to state the facts and the questions of law arising out of each case. The idea that I might go through, also, with other nations, and show you the constant recurring, all these papers, this infinite variety of claims and subjects in each Dept, must be sent out of that Dept to another every day business to he examined, would create infinite confusion. It could not be done, and would not be done.