dent of the United States." After that motion had been decided in the negative, it was perceived that these words did not convey the sense of the House of Representatives in relation to the true source of the power of removal. With the avowed object of preventing any future inference, that this power was exercised by the President in virtue of a grant from Congress, when in fact that body considered it as derived from the Constitution, the words which had been the subject of debate, were struck out, and in lieu thereof a clause was inserted in a provision concerning the chief clerk of the department, which declared that "whenever the said principal officer shall be removed from office by the President of the United States, or in any other case of vacancy," the chief clerk should during such vacancy have charge of the papers of the office. This change having been made for the express purpose of declaring the sense of Congress, that the President derived the power of removal from the Constitution, the act, as it passed, has always been considered as a full expression of the sense of the legislature on this important part of the American Constitution.

Here, then, we have the concurrent authority of President Washington, of the Senate, and House of Representatives, numbers of whom had taken an active part in the Convention which framed the Constitution, and in the state Convention which adopted it, that the President derived an unqualified power of removal from that instrument itself, which is "beyond the reach of legislative authority." Upon this principle the government has now been steadily administered for about forty-five years, during which there have been numerous removals made by the President, or by his direction, embracing every grade of executive officers, from the heads of departments to the messengers of bureaus.

The treasury department, in the discussions of 1789, was considered on the same footing as the other executive departments, and in the act establishing it, the precise words were incorporated indicative of the sense of Congress, that the President derives his power to remove the secretary from the Constitution, which appear in the act

establishing the department of foreign affairs. An assistant secretary of the treasury was created, and it was provided that he should take charge of the books and papers of the department, "whenever the secretary shall be removed from office by the President of the United States." The secretary of the treasury being appointed by the President, and being considered as constitutionally removable by him, it appears never to have occurred to any one in the Congress of 1789, or since, until very recently, that he was other than an executive officer, the mere instrument of the Chief Magistrate in the execution of the laws, subject, like all other heads of departments, to his supervision and control. No such idea, as an officer of the Congress, can be found in the Constitution, or appears to have suggested itself to those who organized the go

vernment.

CONCLUSION.

The honest differences of opinion which occasionally exist between the Senate and the President, in regard to matters in which both are obliged to participate, are sufficiently embarrassing. But if the course recently adopted by the Senate shall hereafter be frequently pursued, it is not only obvious that the harmony of the relations between the President and the Senate will be destroyed, but that other and graver effects will ultimately ensue. If the censures of the Senate be submitted to by the President, the confidence of the people in his ability and virtue, and the character and usefulness of his administration, will soon be at an end, and the real power of the government will fall into the hands of a body, holding their offices for long terms, not elected by the people, and not to them directly responsible. If, on the other hand, the illegal censures of the Senate should be resisted by the President, collisions and angry controversies might ensue, discreditable in their progress, and in the end compelling the people to adopt the conclusion, either that their Chief Magistrate was unworthy of their respect, or that the Senate was chargeable with calumny and injustice. Either of these results would impair public confidence in the per

fection of the system, and lead to serious alterations of its framework, or to the practical abandonment of some of its provisions.

The influence of such proceedings on the other departments of the government, and more especially on the states, could not fail to be extensively pernicious. When the judges, in the last resort, of official misconduct, themselves overleaped the bounds of their authority, as prescribed by the Constitution, what general disregard of its provisions might not their example be expected to produce? And who does not perceive that such contempt of the federal Constitution, by one of its most important departments, would hold out the strongest temptations to resistance on the part of the state sovereignties, whenever they shall suppose their just rights to have been invaded? Thus all the independent departinents of the government, and the states which compose our confederated union, instead of attending to their appropriate duties, and leaving those who may offend to be reclaimed or punished in the manner pointed out in the Constitution, would fall to mutual crimination and recrimination, and give to the people confusion and anarchy, instead of order and law; until at length some form of aristocratic power would be established on the ruins of the Constitution, or the states be broken into separate communities.

Far be it from me to charge, or to insinuate, that the present Senate of the United States intended, in the most distant way, to encourage such a result. It is not of their motives or designs, but only of the tendency of their acts, that it is my duty to speak. It is, if possible, to make senators themselves sensible of the danger which lurks under the precedent set in their resolution; and at any rate to perform my duty, as the responsible head of one of the co-equal departments of the government, that I have been compelled to point out the consequences to which the discussion and passage of the resolution may lead, if the tendency of the measure be not checked in its inception. It is due to the high trust with which I have been charged; to those who may be called to succeed me in

it; to the representatives of the people, whose constitutional prerogative has been unlawfully assumed; to the people of the states; and to the Constitution they have established; that I shall not permit its provisions to be broken down, by such an attack on the executive department, without at least some effort "to preserve, protect, and defend them." With this view, and for the reasons which have been stated, I do hereby SOLEMNLY PROTEST against the aforementioned proceedings of the Senate, as unauthorized by the Constitution; contrary to its spirit and to several of its express provisions; subversive of that distribution of the powers of government which it has ordained and established; destructive of the checks and safeguards by which those powers were intended, on the one hand to be controlled, and on the other to be protected; and calculated by their immediate and collateral effects, by their character and tendency, to concentrate in the hands of a body not directly amenable to the people, a degree of influence and power dangerous to their liberties, and fatal to the Constitution of their choice.

The resolution of the Senate contains an imputation upon my private as well as upon my public character; and as it must stand for ever on their journals, I cannot close this substitute for that defence which I have not been allowed to present in the ordinary form, without remarking, that I have lived in vain, if it be necessary to enter into a formal vindication of my character and motives from such an imputation. In vain do I bear upon my person, enduring memorials of that contest in which American liberty was purchased-in vain have I since perilled property, fame, and life, in defence of the rights and privileges so dearly bought-in vain am I now, without a personal aspiration, or the hope of individual advantage, encountering responsibilities and dangers, from which, by mere inactivity in relation to a single point, I might have been exempt-if any serious doubts can be entertained as to the purity of my purposes and motives. If I had been ambitious, I should have sought an alliance with that powerful institution, which even now aspires to no di

vided empire. If I had been venal, I should have sold myself to its designs. Had I preferred personal comfort and official ease to the performance of my arduous duty, I should have ceased to molest it. In the history of conquerors and usurpers, never, in the fire of youth, nor in the vigor of manhood, could I find an attraction to lure me from the path of duty; and now, I shall scarcely find an inducement to commence their career of ambition, when gray hairs and a decaying frame, instead of inviting to toil and battle, call me to the contemplation of other worlds, where conquerors cease to be honored, and usurpers expiate their crimes.

The only ambition I can feel is, to acquit myself to Him to whom I must soon render an account of my stewardship, to serve my fellow-men, and live respected and honored in the history of my country. No! the ambition which leads me on, is an anxious desire and a fixed determination, to return to the people, unimpaired, the sacred trust they have confided to my charge; to heal the wounds of the Constitution and preserve it from further violation; to persuade my countrymen, so far as I may, that it is not in a splendid government, supported by powerful monopolies and aristocratical establishments, that they will find happiness, or their liberties protection; but in a plain system, void of pomp-protecting all, and granting favors to none-dispensing its blessings like the dews of Heaven, unseen and unfelt, save in the freshness and beauty they contribute to produce. It is such a government that the genius of our people requires-such an one only under which our states may remain for ages to come, united, prosperous, and free. If the Almighty Being who has hitherto sustained and protected me, will but vouchsafe to make my feeble powers instrumental to such a result, I shall anticipate with pleasure the place to be assigned me in the history of my country, and die contented with the belief, that I have contributed, in some small degree, to increase the value and prolong the duration of American liberty.

To the end that the resolution of the Senate may not