Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v4.djvu/418

402 proper place to insert such a clause. Now, let me ask them, also, if theirs is the natural construction, why the Convention, after declaring that officers should be appointed by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, did not add, to be removed in like manner. It must have as naturally occurred to insert the one as the other. It is very possible that such a clause might have been moved and contended for; but it is hardly probable it would meet with success from those who opposed giving the Senate any check or control whatsoever over the powers of the President; much less was it probable that those gentlemen who opposed it there should wish to enlarge it by construction: for my part, I hope never to see it increased in this way. What of this nature is brought in by the letter of the Constitution, let it be there; but let us never increase evils of which we have some right to complain. A gentleman asks, "Where is the danger of mixing these powers, if the Constitution has already done it?" That gentleman knows that it has always been viewed as an evil, and an association of the legislative and executive powers in one body has been found to produce tyranny. It is a maxim among the wisest legislators not to blend the branches of government further than is necessary to carry their separate powers into more complete operation. It was found necessary to blend the powers to a certain degree; so far we must acquiesce. The Senate must concur with the President in making appointments; but with respect to the removal, they are not associated; no such clause is in the Constitution; and, therefore, I should conclude that the Convention did not choose they should have the power. But what need was there that such a clause should be there? What is the evil it was intended to guard against? Why, we are afraid the President will unnecessarily remove a worthy man from office; and we say it is a pity the poor man should be turned out of service without a hearing; it is injurious to his reputation; it is his life, says the gentleman from New Hampshire, (Mr. Livermore;) it is cruelty in the extreme. But why are we to suppose this? I do not see any well-grounded apprehension for such an abuse of power. Let us attend to the operation of this business. The Constitution provides for what? That no bad man should come into office: this is the first evil. Hence we have nothing to dread from a system of favoritism; the public are well secured against that great evil; therefore the President cannot be influenced by a desire to get his own creatures into office; for it is fairly presumable that they will be rejected by the Senate. But suppose that one such could be got in; he can be got out again, in spite of the President: we can impeach him, and drag him from his place; and then there will be some other person appointed.

Some gentlemen seem to think there should be another clause in the Constitution, providing that the President should not turn out a good officer, and then they would not apprehend so much danger from that quarter. There are other evils which might have been provided against, and other things which might have been regulated; but if the Convention had undertaken to have done them, the Constitution, instead of being contained in a sheet of paper, would have swelled to the size of a folio volume. But what is the evil of the President's being at liberty to exercise this power of removal? Why, we fear that he will displace, not one good officer only, but, in a fit of passion, all the good officers of the government, by which, to be sure, the public would suffer; but I venture to say he would suffer himself more than any other man. But I trust there is no dearth of good men. I believe he could not turn out so many, but that the