256 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS aries of the commissioners, and the passage of a law to determine the order of presidential succes sion in the event of a vacancy. The senate, sitting in secret session for the consideration of the presi dent s appointments, called for the papers on file in the departments relating to the causes for which certain officers had been removed. Upon the re fusal of the president to submit the documents to their inspection, a dispute ensued, and threats were uttered by republican senators that no appoint ments should be confirmed unless their right to in spect papers on the official files was conceded. On March 1, 1886, he sent a long message to the sen ate, in which he took the ground that under the con stitution the right of removal or suspension from office lay entirely within the power and discretion of the president; that sections of the tenure-of- office act requiring him to report to the senate rea sons for suspending officers had been repealed ; and that the papers that the senate demanded to see were not official, but were of a personal and private nature. Eventually most of the appointments of the president were ratified. During the first fiscal year of his administration the proportion of post masters throughout the country removed or sus pended was but little larger than had often fol lowed a change of administration in the same politi cal party. In his second annual message he called the atten-
