American Watchman And Delaware Advertiser

EXTRACT TO THE EDITOR, DATED

Washington, Dec. 9.

" I send you the message and documents, by which you will observe that the President has adopted a course somewhat new in communicating with the message a mass of important documentary intelligence which is not only extremely useful to be known at an early stage of the session, but will avoid the necessity of many calls upon the departments which sometimes cannot be satisfactorily answered until the time has gone by when the information could be of any use in the business of the session.

There was a time when every call upon the executive department of the government from our opposition members was severely scrutinized with a suspicious eye and not unfrequently resisted, but that period has gone by; it terminated upon the establishment of the doctrine that "error of opinion may be tolerated when reason is left free to combat it." Such has been the progressive improvement in the practice of the government, as resulting from a fundamental change in the doctrines maintained by them in authority, and it must be highly gratifying to observe the further progress of the same system, in the course which the president has adopted at the present session. Now, instead of finding partizans of the administration resisting the calls upon the departments for information, as if afraid that some fearful facts might be developed, we find the chief magistrate availing himself of the leisure period of the recess, to require the heads of department to lay before him exposes of their principal transactions most affecting the interest of the country, and the whole information thus obtained is transmitted to congress, at the commencement of this session, to which reference can be had at any moment, as the various subjects to which it relates arise in the course of legislation.

There is perhaps no means more effectual for preserving the purity and perfect responsibility of public officers, than that of letting them know before hand, that they cannot hope for any concealment of any transaction whatever. The rapid progress which has been made in the settlement of public accounts, and in securing the responsibility of officers, who have the disbursement of public money, is a proof of the high state of perfection, which our government has attained in these most essential objects, and of its increasing claim to our confidence and affection."