That the whole executive power is in the President, and that therefore the duty of defending the integrity of the Constitution results to him from the very nature of his office; and that the founders of our republic have attested their sense of the importance of this duty, and, by expressing it in his official oath, have given to it peculiar solemnity and force;

That, as he is to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, he is thereby made responsible for the entire action of the executive departinent, with the power of appointing, overseeing, and controlling those who execute the laws;

act under no other responsibility than | keepers as are appointed by him, resuch as I have already described, then I sponsible to him, and removable at his say, Sir, that the government (I will not will; say the people) has already a master. I deny the sentiment, therefore, and I protest against the language; neither the sentiment nor the language is to be found in the Constitution of the country; and whoever is not satisfied to describe the powers of the President in the language of the Constitution may be justly suspected of being as little satisfied with the powers themselves. The President is President. His office and his name of office are known, and both are fixed and described by law. Being commander of the army and navy, holding the power of nominating to office and removing from office, and being by these powers the fountain of all patronage and all favor, what does he not become if he be allowed to superadd to all this the character of single representative of the American people? Sir, he becomes what America has not been accustomed to see, what this Constitution has never created, and what I cannot contemplate but with profound alarm. He who may call himself the single representative of a nation may speak in the name of the nation, may undertake to wield the power of the nation; and who shall gainsay him in whatsoever he chooses to pronounce to be the nation's will?

That neither branch of the legislature can take up, or consider, for the purpose of censure, any official act of the President, without some view to legislation or impeachment;

That not only the passage, but the discussion, of the resolution of the Senate of the 28th of March, was unauthorized by the Constitution, and repugnant to its provisions;

That the custody of the public treasury always must be intrusted to the executive; that Congress cannot take it out of his hands, nor place it anywhere except under such superintendents and

That the power of removal from office, like that of appointment, is an original executive power, and is left in his hands unchecked by the Constitution, except in the case of judges; that, being responsible for the exercise of the whole executive power, he has a right to employ agents of his own choice to assist him in the performance of his duties, and to discharge them when he is no longer willing to be responsible for their acts;

That the Secretaries are his Secretaries, and all persons appointed to of fices created by law, except the judges, his agents, responsible to him, and removable at his pleasure;

And, finally, that he is the direct representative of the American people.

These, Sir, are some of the leading propositions contained in the Protest; and if they be true, then the government under which we live is an elective monarchy. It is not yet absolute; there are yet some checks and limitations in the Constitution and laws; but, in its essential and prevailing character, it is an elective monarchy.

Mr. President, I have spoken freely of this Protest, and of the doctrines which it advances; but I have spoken deliberately. On these high questions of constitutional law, respect for my own character, as well as a solemn and profound sense of duty, restrains me from giving utterance to a single senti

ment which does not flow from entire | pass off without leaving strong impresconviction. I feel that I am not wrong. sions on the character of public men. I feel that an inborn and inbred love of A collision has taken place which I constitutional liberty, and some study could have most anxiously wished to of our political institutions, have not on avoid; but it was not to be shunned. this occasion misled me. But I have We have not sought this controversy; it desired to say nothing that should give has met us, and been forced upon us. pain to the chief magistrate personally. In my judgment, the law has been disI have not sought to fix arrows in his regarded, and the Constitution transbreast; but I believe him mistaken, al- gressed; the fortress of liberty has been together mistaken, in the sentiments assaulted, and circumstances have placed which he has expressed; and I must the Senate in the breach; and, although concur with others in placing on the we may perish in it, I know we shall records of the Senate my disapprobation not fly from it. But I am fearless of of those sentiments. On a vote which consequences. We shall hold on, Sir, is to remain so long as any proceeding of and hold out, till the people themselves the Senate shall last, and on a question come to its defence. We shall raise the which can never cease to be important alarm, and maintain the post, till they while the Constitution of the country whose right it is shall decide whether endures, I have desired to make public the Senate be a faction, wantonly remy reasons. They will now be known, sisting lawful power, or whether it be and I submit them to the judgment of opposing, with firmness and patriotism, the present and of after times. Sir, the violations of liberty and inroads upon occasion is full of interest. It cannot the Constitution.

THE APPOINTING AND REMOVING POWER.

DELIVERED IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, ON THE 16TH OF FEBRUARY, 1835, ON THE PASSAGE OF THE BILL, ENTITLED "AN ACT TO REPEAL THE FIRST AND SECOND SECTIONS OF THE ACT TO LIMIT THE TERM OF SERVICE OF CERTAIN OFFICERS THEREIN NAMED."

ing men or measures, there will be a general prevalence of honest, intelligent judgment and manly independence. These presumptions lie at the foundation of all hope of maintaining gov

MR. PRESIDENT, - The professed object of this bill is the reduction of executive influence and patronage. I concur in the propriety of that object. Having no wish to diminish or to control, in the slightest degree, the constitutional andernments entirely popular. Whenever legal authority of the presidential office, I yet think that the indirect and rapidly increasing influence which it possesses, and which arises from the power of bestowing office and of taking it away again at pleasure, and from the manner in which that power seems now to be systematically exercised, is productive of serious evils.

The extent of the patronage springing from this power of appointment and removal is so great, that it brings a dangerous mass of private and personal interest into operation in all great public elections and public questions. This is a mischief which has reached, already, an alarming height. The principle of republican governments, we are taught, is public virtue; and whatever tends either to corrupt this principle, to debase it, or to weaken its force, tends, in the same degree, to the final overthrow of such governments. Our representative systems suppose, that, in exercising the high right of suffrage, the greatest of all political rights, and in forming opinions on great public measures, men will act conscientiously, under the influence of public principle and patriotic duty; and that, in supporting or oppos

personal, individual, or selfish motives influence the conduct of individuals on public questions, they affect the safety of the whole system. When these motives run deep and wide, and come in serious conflict with higher, purer, and more patriotic purposes, they greatly endanger that system; and all will admit that, if they become general and overwhelming, so that all public principle is lost sight of, and every election becomes a mere scramble for office, the system inevitably must fall. Every wise man, in and out of government, will endeavor, therefore, to promote the ascendency of public virtue and public principle, and to restrain as far as practicable, in the actual operation of our institutions, the influence of selfish and private interests.

I concur with those who think, that, looking to the present, and looking also to the future, and regarding all the probabilities that await us in reference to the character and qualities of those who may fill the executive chair, it is important to the stability of government and the welfare of the people that there should be a check to the progress of official influence and patronage. The

Let it not be said, Sir, that the danger from executive patronage cannot be great, since the persons who hold office, or can hold office, constitute so small a portion of the whole people.

unlimited power to grant office, and to | for "the spoils of victory." And if the take it away, gives a command over the party chieftain becomes the national hopes and fears of a vast multitude of chieftain, he is still but too apt to conmen. It is generally true, that he who sider all who have opposed him as enecontrols another man's means of living mies to be punished, and all who have controls his will. Where there are fa- supported him as friends to be rewarded. vors to be granted, there are usually Blind devotion to party, and to the head enough to solicit for them; and when of a party, thus takes place of the sentifavors once granted may be withdrawn ment of generous patriotism and a high at pleasure, there is ordinarily little and exalted sense of public duty. security for personal independence of character. The power of giving office thus affects the fears of all who are in, and the hopes of all who are out. Those who are out endeavor to distin- | guish themselves by active political friendship, by warm personal devotion, by clamorous support of men in whose hands is the power of reward; while those who are in ordinarily take care that others shall not surpass them in such qualities or such conduct as are most likely to secure favor. They resolve not to be outdone in any of the works of partisanship. The consequence of all this is obvious. A competition ensues, not of patriotic labors; not of rough and severe toils for the public good; not of manliness, independence, and public spirit; but of complaisance, of indiscriminate support of executive measures, of pliant subserviency and gross adulation. All throng and rush together to the altar of man-worship; and there they offer sacrifices, and pour out libations, till the thick fumes of their incense turn their own heads, and turn, also, the head of him who is the object of their idolatry.

The existence of parties in popular governments is not to be avoided; and if they are formed on constitutional questions, or in regard to great measures of public policy, and do not run to excessive length, it may be admitted that, on the whole, they do no great harm. But the patronage of office, the power of bestowing place and emoluments, creates parties, not upon any principle or any measure, but upon the single ground of personal interest. Under the direct influence of this motive, they form round a leader, and they go

In the first place, it is to be remembered that patronage acts, not only on those who actually possess office, but on those also who expect it, or hope for it; and in the next place, office-holders, by their very situation, their public station, their connection with the business of individuals, their activity, their ability to help or to hurt according to their pleasure, their acquaintance with public affairs, and their zeal and devotion, exercise a degree of influence out of all proportion to their numbers.

Sir, we cannot disregard our own experience. We cannot shut our eyes to what is around us and upon us. No candid man can deny that a great, a very great change has taken place, within a few years, in the practice of the executive government, which has produced a corresponding change in our political condition. No one can deny that office, of every kind, is now sought with extraordinary avidity, and that the condition, well understood to be attached to every officer, high or low, is indiscriminate support of executive measures and implicit obedience to executive will. For these reasons, Sir, I am for arresting the further progress of this executive patronage, if we can arrest it; I am for staying the further contagion of this plague.

The bill proposes two measures. One is to alter the duration of certain offices, now limited absolutely to four years; so that the limitation shall be qualified or conditional. If the officer is in default, if his accounts are not settled, if he re