Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v4.djvu/378

362 office as lo an estate? Or does the legislature establish them for the convenience of an individual? For my part, I conceive it intended to carry into effect the purposes for which the Constitution was intended.

The executive powers are delegated to the President, with a view to have a responsible officer to superintend, control, inspect, and check, the officers necessarily employed in administering the laws. The only bond between him and those he employs is the confidence he has in their integrity and talents. When that confidence ceases, the principal ought to have the power to remove those whom he can no longer trust with safety, if an officer shall be guilty of neglect or infidelity, there can be no doubt but he ought to be removed; yet there may be numerous causes for removal which do not amount to a crime. He may propose to do a mischief, but I believe the mere intention would not be cause of impeachment: he may lose the confidence of the people upon suspicion, in which case it would be improper to retain him in service; he ought to be removed at any time, when, instead of doing the greatest possible good, he is likely to do an injury, to the public interest, by being combined in the administration.

I presume gentlemen will generally admit that officers ought to be removed when they become obnoxious; but the question is. How shall this power be exercised? It will not, I apprehend, be contended that all officers hold their offices during good behavior. If this is the case, it is a most singular government. I believe there is not another in the universe that bears the least semblance to it in this particular: such a principle, I take it, is contrary to the nature of things.

But the manner how to remove is the question. If the officer misbehaves, he can be removed by impeachment. But, in this case, is impeachment the only mode of removal? It would be found very inconvenient to have a man continued in office after being impeached, and when all confidence in him was suspended or lost. Would not the end of impeachment be defeated by this means? If Mr. Hastings, who was mentioned by the gentleman from Virginia, (Mr. Vining,) preserved his command in India, could he not defeat the impeachment now pending in Great Britain? If that doctrine obtains in America, we shall find impeachments come too late; while we are preparing the process, the mischief will be perpetrated, and the offender escape. I apprehend it will be as frequently necessary to prevent crimes as to punish them; and it may often happen that the only prevention is by removal. The superintending power possessed by the President will perhaps enable him to discover a base intention before it is ripe for execution. It may happen that the treasurer may be disposed to betray the public chest to the enemy, and so injure the government beyond the possibility of reparation. Should the President be restrained from removing so dangerous an officer until the slow formality of an impeachment was complied with, when the nature of the case rendered the application of a sudden and decisive remedy indispensable?

But it will, I say, be admitted that an officer may be removed: the question then is, by whom? Some gentlemen say, by the President alone; and others, by the President, by and with the advice of the Senate. By the advocates of the latter mode it is alleged that the Constitution is in the way of the power of removal being by the President alone. If this is absolutely the case, there is an end to all further inquiry. But before we suffer this to be considered an insuperable impediment, we ought to be clear that the Constitution prohibits him the exercise of what, on a first view, appears to be a power incident to the executive branch of the