Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v4.djvu/400

384 nugatory. It is useless if the power vests in the President; because, when the question comes before him, he will decide upon the provision made in the Constitution, and not on what is contained in this clause. If the power vests in the President and Senate, the Senate will not consent to pass the bill with this clause in it; therefore the attempt is nugatory: but if the Senate will assent to the exercise of the power of removal by the President alone, whenever he thinks proper to use it so, then, in that case, the clause is, as I said before, both useless and nugatory.

The second question which I proposed to examine is, to whom the power of removal is committed. The gentlemen in favor of this clause have not shown that, if the construction that the power vests in the President and Senate is admitted, it will be an improper construction. I call on gentlemen to point out the impropriety, if they discover any. To me it appears to preserve the unity of the several clauses of the Constitution; while their construction produces a clashing of powers, and renders of none effect some powers the Senate by express grants possess. What becomes of their power of appointing, when the President can remove at discretion? Their power of judging is rendered vain by the President's dismission; for the power of judging implies the power of dismissing, which will be totally insignificant in its operation, if the President can immediately dismiss an officer whom they have judged and declared innocent.

It is said that the President will be subject to an impeachment for dismissing a good man. This, in my mind, involves an absurdity. How can the house impeach the President for doing an act which the legislature has submitted to his discretion?

But what consequence may result from giving the President the absolute control over all officers? Among the rest, I presume he is to have an unlimited control over the officers of the treasury. I think, if this is the case, you may as well give him at once the appropriation of the revenue; for of what use is it to make laws on this head, when the President, by looking at the officer, can make it his interest to break them? We may expect to see institutions arising under the control of the revenue, and not of the law.

Little, then, will it answer to say that we can impeach the President, when he can cover all his crimes by an application of the revenue to those who are to try him. This application would certainly be made in case of a corrupt President. And it is against corruption in him that we must endeavor to guard. Not that we fear any thing from the virtuous character who now fills the executive chair; he is perhaps to be safer trusted with such a power than any man on earth; but it is to secure us against those who may hereafter obtrude themselves into power.

But if we give the President the power to remove, (though I contend, if the Constitution has not given it him, there is no power on earth that can,—except the people, by an alteration of the Constitution,—though I will suppose it for argument's sake,) you virtually give him a considerable power over the appointment, independent of the Senate; for if the Senate should reject his first nomination, which will probably be his favorite, he must continue to nominate till the Senate concur: then, immediately after the recess of the Senate, he may remove the officer, and introduce his own creature, as he has this power expressly by the Constitution. The influence created by this circumstance would prevent his removal from an office which he held by a temporary appointment from his patron.

This has been supposed by some gentlemen to be an omitted case, and