Mr. FESSENDEN. The Constitution imposes upon the POTUS the duty of executing the laws; it does not impose that duty upon the Secretaries. They are creatures of the law and not of the Constitution directly. Some, and perhaps the greater part, of their functions are as advisers of the President and to aid him in executing the laws in their several Depts. There are some duties that are specifically conferred upon them by Congress. Their relation to the President, as has been well said by gentlemen, is that mostly of confidential advisers. With the exception of the particular duties imposed upon them by law, and on the SecyTreas. ury more than on the others, they do nothing of their own notion, but act by order of the President in discharging the particular duties of their office. Standing in that relation to him, as his aids, his confidential advisers, the men upon whom he relies for advice in the 1st place and for aid in carrying out what is determined to be best in the 2nd, their connection with him is a very peculiar one. It is very important as a general principle unquestionably, as all gentlemen here will admit, that that relation should be a har. monious relation throughout; and, if we may trust to what we have heard, it is not many years since it was considered by the great ma. iority of the Senate a sufficient reason for wishing that the Cabinet should be changed in some degree, because there was the want of that har mony among themselves, and consequently, per ha ps, with the President, that was desirable. being the peculiar condition of affairs, it has always been considered since the foundation of the Government, as a matter of course, as a general rule there may have been one or 2 exceptions, and I think there have been, but I am not very positive on that point that the President might select such persons as he pleased to be members of his Cabinet. Of course the confirmation of the Senate is necessary; but the general idea of the Senate has been, whether they liked the men or not, to confirm them without any difficulty, because in executing the great and varied interests of this great country it is exceedingly important that there should be the utmost harmony between those who are charged with that execution. Now, if we reflect a moment we shall see that the matters upon which Congress and the President differ are not apt to be, even in a case of difference of political views, very extensive. There are some matters that are important, some that are peculiar, those relating to the views of a particular party organization and the principles upon which that party wish to conduct the affairs of Government; but after all, the great business of Government in its innumerable details goes far beyond any question of that kind, and is not such as parties would differ upon. They would differ as to the men to hold office, perhaps, and the particular principles upon which particular things should be done; but the ordinary execution of the laws involving the transaction of the great business of the country is a matter upon which all parties agree, wishing only that the laws should be honestly executed and that there should be no corruption. It seems to me very obvious that with reference to the transaction of business which is peculiarly executive, the confidential advisers that we put about the President should always be men who for the greater part are satisfac.tory to him. You cannot find a President and a Cabinet who would agree upon all matters of opinion even in important questions. You cannot find 8 men probably who agree on everything, even on important matters involv.ing the performance of the duties of the government; and if you find a man in the Cabinet of the POTUS, if it be possible that there is one there, who agrees with the President always and thinks just as he does and makes it a point to echo his sentiments, he is probably a man who is not fit to be there and who got there by a mere misapprehension, and stays because he is precisely of that character.