Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 February 1886 — MR. EDMUNDS’PRECEDENTS. [ARTICLE]

MR. EDMUNDS’PRECEDENTS.

.'4 I The Judiciary Committee's Report on the Relations of the Exeeatire to the Senate. _.j [Washington special.] Senator E dmnnds has completed his report on the reply of the Attorney General to the Senate Judiciary Committee ! application for information regarding a removed official. He has had the records overhauled for precedents, and is greatly pleased at what he has found. The following is in substance the historical portion of the Senator’s report: Three Senate committees have considered the whole subject 'of the relations at the Executive ' to the Senate and Congress, and hava taken substantially the same position, that the Senate has a right to participate with the President hr removals, as it has a right to participate with him in appointments, and that Congress has a right to enact almost any kind cf a law regulating the exercise of the appointing power t»y the President. The first of these committees reported in 1896, and had Thomas H. Benton at Its head. In 1835 John C. Calhoun had a committee created to consider the growth and the peeper means of curtailing Executive patronage, and made a very able report, not mneh of which, however, was devoted to the matter of removals. In 1844 a third Senate oommittee was raised on this subject, and was headed by Senator MoTehead, who made his report Jane 15, 1844. The Benton and Calhoun- reports and the debates on the latter are attached to the Marehead report, which devotes more space than its predecessors to the alleged right of arbitrary removal possessed by the President. Senator Morehead said that the power of removal without cauße and without the consent of the Senate was not only not conferred on the President by the Constitution, but was expressly withheld from him. He admitted that that power had been exercised without impeachment and without the acquiescence of the constituted authorities ever since the organization of the Government, bnt he pointed out that for the first thirty veers removals were scarcely ever made except for cause, and with that practice he contrasted the practice of removals lor political reasons, which began sixteen years before, and had been general for twelve years. It -was not, he said, tHI 1828 that the Senate’s attention was called to the President's assumption of power no! belonging to him, and its attention vn then called to it by the exercise of the appointing and removing power by a President who was elected by the House of Representatives after a heated and-excited campaign. The committee then created (the Bentpn committee) reported in favor of Congressional regulation of tho appointing power, and reported six tills to curtail the President’s patronage, and also to repeal tho four years act cf 1820. One of these bills was to prevent the arbitrary removal of army and navy officers. None of these bills was acted on. The Calhoun committee reported two bills. One of these repealed the four years law, and mode it the duty of the President to report to the Senate the reasons for overy removal made during the recess; the other bill regulated the management of publio deposits. The former kill passed the Senate after a most interesting debate by a vote of 31 to’l6. Mr. Morehead describes this as the reclamation by the Senate of the power which, by the casting vote of the Vice President, was in 1789 yielded to the President, but which Congress has the right to reolaim at any time, Mr. Morehead argues the invalidity of the precedent of 1780 on ocoount of the peculiar circumstances, George Washington then being President and the Senate being entirely new to its duties. Besides, he says, all that was then conceded was the President’s power to remove for good cause. Ho admits that Madison argued for the Presidents power of removal, but be also points out that Hamilton, who was always on the side of a streng executive, said in No. 87 of the Federalist that tne President could only remove with the consent of the Senate. Hamilton need this to allay the fear of those who thought the President might make a clean sweep on coming into office. Fisher Ames construed the Constitution as Hamilton did. “Down to 1898,“ says Mr. Morehead, “the power was not construed as authorizing the removal of honest, qualified men. The motive for its exercise was public policy—not party resentment.* The report vigorously condemns allowing the President to divide the offices “as a victorious General distributes the rpoils of conquest. A citizen of the United States,' says the report in small capitals, “who accepts a publio trust, however obscure his birth or humble big employment. has an inviolable right to be protected '.a the faithful discharge of his duties from ths Violence or the menaces of arbitrary power.* Speaking of the newly introduced spoils system, the report says: “Honest, capable, and faithful publio servants have been removed from offiees which they had filled with credit to themselves and ad vim tags to the country to make room for incompetent parasites, whose meager qualifications for snch offices were to be acquired at the expense of the Government, and whose experience was to be matured at a cost not to be estimated, consisting of losses to the nation perhaps never to be recovered. Diplomatic functionaries who had filled those stations with honor to themselves and their country have been recalled to make way for and to afford the means of corrupting the memb< n of the National Legislature. ’ The resolutions attached to this report affirm the right of Congress to make laws regulating the appointing and removing power, denying the power of arbitrary removal to the President and the heads of the depaitments and declaring in favor of a law regulating qualifications es appointees and excluding improper- interferences in Btate or Federal elections by officials. In the debate oil repealing the fouryear law, Mr. Calbouq attributed the needless Increase of the public service to the President's power of removals, and/be claimed that his party had pledged itself to repeal the fonr-year law and to restore to Congress the power of dismissing officials. Webster and Clay strongly supported Calhonn in denying the power of absolute removal to the President. Webster affirmed the power of Congress to reverse the action of 1789, and Clay offered an amendment to Calhoun's bill, provthing that If {tbs President's reasons were not satisfactory to the Senate, the removed official should resume his office. Webster affirmed the constitutional right of the Senate to demand of the President the reasons tor his removal. Two years before this, in March, 1842, the House of Representatives by resolution called on the President and the heads of the departments for the names of all members of the Twenty-sixth and Twenty-seventh Congresses who were applicants for office, whether they apSlied in person or by friends, and what places iey wanted. President Tyler refused to give the Information, saying, in the first place, that applications fbr office were confidential communications to him, bnt he added: "The appointing power, as far as it is bestowed on the President by the Constitution, is conferred without reserve or qualification. The reason for the appointment and- the responsibility for the appointment rest with him alone. I cannot perceive anywhere in the Constitution of the United States any right conferred on the House of Representatives to hear the reasons which an applicant may nrge for an appointment to office under the Executive Departments, or any duty resting upon the House of Representatives by which it may become responsible for any soon appointment. ’’ In the summer of the same year—July, 1842 the removal of a pension clerk named Sylvester by Secretary of War Spencer, created snch a breeze that Hie House rai ed a select committee to investigate the matter. Garrett Davis was Chairman. This removal was not political. Webster demanded Sylvester’s removal on the ground that he bad spoken libelonely of him. Garrett D&vis reported three resolutions of which the second is as follows: “Resolved. That both houses of Congress, and especially the Horse of Representatives, as the grand inquest of the nation, have a constitutional right at all times to free access to the executive deportments of of the Government for the examination of all papers therein, whether regarded by the head of the department as public or as private and confidential, and also to copies of snch papers from the officer or officers having their custody, as either house may require.* < " ' The valne of fine cloth exported from Berlin iD 1885 shows a decrease of 10,000,.000 marks as compared with 1884, doe to English and American competition. The Arizona Legislature,- at its last session, appropriated $3,070.80 for newspaper* for the m»mbers. They wanted to keep 1 abreast of the times. 1 * General Longstkeet is writing his military memoirs. He resides in Gainsville, Ga. s ,i A female brass band has been organized in Cnthbert. Ga. .