The Constitution requires that the President of the United States “shall, from time to time, give to the Congress information of the state of the Union, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.” This information is intended not only for the use of Congress, but of the people. They are the source of all power, and from their impulse all legitimate legislation must proceed. Both Congress and the people must be informed of the state of our foreign relations by the executive. If the President cannot speak freely to them upon this subject; if he cannot give them all the information which may be necessary to enable them to act, except under the penalty of offending a foreign government, the Constitution of the United States, to this extent, becomes a dead letter. The maintenance of this principle is an indispensable condition of our existence, under the present form of Government. If we are engaged in any controversy with a foreign nation, it is not only the right, but it is the imperative duty, of the President to communicate the facts to Congress, however much they may operate against that nation. Can we then, for a single moment, permit a foreign government to demand an apology from the President for performing one of his highest duties to the people of the United States? Let us put an extreme case. Suppose the President, after giving a history of our wrongs to Congress, recommends not merely a resort to reprisals, but to war, against another nation. Shall this nation, which has inflicted upon us injury, be permitted to change her position, to cancel all our claims for justice, and to insist that we have become the aggressors, because a resort to arms has been recommended? I feel the most perfect confidence that not a single Senator will ever consent to yield this position to France or to any other nation. I need not labor this question. The subject has been placed in the clearest and strongest light by Mr. Livingston, in his letter to the Duke de Broglie of the 25th of April. If any possible exemption to the rule could be tolerated, surely this would not present the case. The Duke de Broglie himself, in his letter to Mr. Pageot, is constrained to admit that there is not a single offensive sentence respecting France in the message; but yet he complains of the general effect of the whole.