Although the debate covered the whole
ground, embracing the Treasury as well as all the other Executive
Departments, it arose on a motion to strike out of the bill to establish
a Department of Foreign Affairs, since called the Department of State,
a clause declaring the Secretary "to be removable from office by the
President of the United States." After that motion had been decided in
the negative it was perceived that these words did not convey the sense
of the House of Representatives in relation to the true source of
the power of removal. With the avowed object of preventing any future
inference that this power was exercised by the President in virtue of
a grant from Congress, when in fact that body considered it as derived
from the Constitution, the words which had been the subject of debate
were struck out, and in lieu thereof a clause was inserted in a
provision concerning the chief clerk of the Department, which declared
that "whenever the said principal officer shall be removed from office
by the President of the United States, or in any other case of vacancy,"
the chief clerk should during such vacancy have charge of the papers
of the office.
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