The course I followed, of regarding the executive as subject only to the people, and, under the Constitution, bound to serve the people affirmatively in cases where the Constitution does not explicitly forbid him to render the service, was substantially the course followed by both Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln.

Other honorable and well-meaning Presidents, such as James Buchanan, took the opposite and, as it seems to me, narrowly legalistic view that the President is the servant of Congress rather than of the people, and can do nothing, no matter how necessary it be to act, unless the Constitution explicitly commands the action.

Most able lawyers who are past middle age take this view, and so do large numbers of well-meaning, respectable citizens.

My successor in office took this, the Buchanan, view of the President's powers and duties.
For example, under my Administration we found that one of the favorite methods adopted by the men desirous of stealing the public domain was to carry the decision of the Secretary of the Interior into court.

By vigorously opposing such action, and only by so doing, we were able to carry out the policy of properly protecting the public domain.