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Investigating committees.

The first investigating committee appointed by Congress was in the case of the defeat of Gen. Arthur St. Clair (q. v.). It was a special committee, empowered to send for persons and papers. Their call upon the War Department for all papers relating to the affair first raised the question of the extent of the authority of the House in such matters. The cabinet unanimously agreed that the House had no power to call on the head of any department for any public paper except through the President, in whose discretion it rested to furnish such papers as the public good might seem to require and admit, and that all such calls must be made by a special resolution of the House, the power to make them being an authority which could not be delegated to any committee. This decision of the cabinet established the method ever since practised of calling upon the President for public papers.

Harper and Brothers Publishers. . New York. 1902.

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Arthur Saint Clair (1)
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