Page:Life of Henry Clay (Schurz; v. 2).djvu/71

Rh startling picture, and recommended the passage of a bill repealing the act of 1820 limiting to four years the tenure of certain offices, and providing further “that, in all nominations made by the President to the Senate to fill vacancies occasioned by removal from office, the facts of the removal shall be stated to the Senate, with a statement of the reasons for such removal.”

The debate, one of the most instructive on that subject in the history of Congress, was mainly carried on by Calhoun, Clay, Webster, and Ewing on the side of the report. They were all united in the opinion that the Constitution did not give to the President the absolute power of removal. The contrary construction put upon the Constitution by the first Congress was by no means overlooked by them. But they thought that the strength of argument had been then, as it was now, altogether on the other side; that it was impossible to read the debate in the first Congress “without being impressed with the conviction that the just confidence reposed in the Father of his Country, then at the head of the government, had great, if not decisive, influence in establishing” that construction of the Constitution. They held “that the power of appointment naturally and necessarily included the power of removal,” both to be exercised by the President by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. They admitted, however, that the construction given to the Constitution in 1789 had become established by prac-