Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v4.djvu/416

400 that inferior officers might be removed, because the Constitution had left it in the power of the legislature to establish them on what terms they pleased; consequently, to direct their appointment and removal.]

Mr. MADISON had understood the gentleman as he now explained himself. But still he contended that the consequences he had drawn would necessarily follow; because there was no express authority given to the legislature, in the Constitution, to enable the President, the courts of law, or heads of departments, to remove an inferior officer. All that was said on that head was confined solely to the power of appointing them. If the gentleman admits, says he, that the legislature may vest the power of removal, with respect to inferior officers, he must also admit that the Constitution vests the President with the power of removal in the case of superior officers, because both powers are implied in the same words; the President may appoint the one class, and the legislature may authorize the courts of law or heads of departments tp appoint in the other case. If, then, it is admitted that the power of removal vests in the President, or President and Senate, the arguments which I urged yesterday, and those which have been urged by honorable gentlemen on this side of the question for these three days past, will fully evince the truth of the construction which we give,—that the power is in the President alone. I will not repeat them, because they must have full possession of every gentleman's mind. I am willing, therefore, to rest the decision here, and hope that it will be made in such a manner as to perpetuate the blessings which this Constitution was intended to embrace.

Mr. BALDWIN. I have felt an unusual anxiety during the debate upon this question. I have attentively listened to the arguments which have been brought forward, and have weighed them in my mind with great deliberation; and as I consider a proper decision upon it of almost infinite importance to the government, I must beg the indulgence of the house while I submit a few observations.

The main ground on which the question is made to rest is, that if we adopt this clause, we violate the Constitution. Many of the gentlemen who advocate the present motion for striking out, would, if they could do it with consistency to the Constitution, be in favor of the clause. We have been reminded of our oaths, and warned not to violate the solemn obligation. This injunction has come from so many parts of the house, that it arrested my whole attention for a few minutes; and then they produced us the clause in the Constitution which directed that officers should be appointed by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. They then tell us that he should be removable in the same manner. We see the clause by which it is directed that they should be appointed in that manner, but we do not see the clause respecting their removal in the same way. Gentlemen have only drawn it as an inference from the former: they construe that to be the meaning of the Constitution, as we construe the reverse. I hope, therefore, gentlemen will change their expression, and say, we shall violate their construction of the Constitution, and not the Constitution itself. This will be a very different charge! unless the gentlemen pretend to support the doctrine of infallibility, as it respects their decisions; and that would perhaps be more than the house are willing to admit, and more than the people in this country are accustomed to believe.

I have said the gentlemen rest their principal opposition on this point—that the Constitution plainly means that the officers must be removed in the way they are appointed. Now, when gentlemen tell me that I was