I have received your letter requesting a postponement of any appointment to the vacancy in the post office at Albany for a specific term. As this case is connected with others of the post office department, I have on that account, as well as my respect for you and the other gentlemen who have united in making the request, bestowed on it all the consideration which is justly merited.

By the law establishing the post office Department, the appointments of all the officers employed in it, under the postmaster General is exclusively vested in him, without reference to the President. Had it been intended, that the president should controul the appointments in detail or take any agency in them, the provisions of the law & the powers granted by it would have been different. Such also according to my experience and information on the Subject have been the uniform practice of the Executive. For these reasons I deem it improper to interfere