Followed to its
consequences, this principle will be found effectually to destroy one
coordinate department of the Government, to concentrate in the hands
of the Senate the whole executive power, and to leave the President
as powerless as he would be useless--the shadow of authority after
the substance had departed.
The time and the occasion which have called forth the resolution of the
Senate seem to impose upon me an additional obligation not to pass it
over in silence. Nearly forty-five years had the President exercised,
without a question as to his rightful authority, those powers for the
recent assumption of which he is now denounced. The vicissitudes of
peace and war had attended our Government; violent parties, watchful to
take advantage of any seeming usurpation on the part of the Executive,
had distracted our councils; frequent removals, or forced resignations
in every sense tantamount to removals, had been made of the Secretary
and other officers of the Treasury, and yet in no one instance is it
known that any man, whether patriot or partisan, had raised his voice
against it as a violation of the Constitution.
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