If these four votes had
been given in accordance with the sentiments of the legislatures, as
above expressed, there would have been but twenty-two votes out of
forty-six for censuring the President, and the unprecedented record
of his conviction could not have been placed upon the Journal of the
Senate.
In thus referring to the resolutions and instructions of the State
legislatures I disclaim and repudiate all authority or design to
interfere with the responsibility due from members of the Senate to
their own consciences, their constituents, and their country. The facts
now stated belong to the history of these proceedings, and are important
to the just development of the principles and interests involved in them
as well as to the proper vindication of the executive department, and
with that view, and that view only, are they here made the topic of
remark.
The dangerous tendency of the doctrine which denies to the President
the power of supervising, directing, and controlling the Secretary of
the Treasury in like manner with the other executive officers would
soon be manifest in practice were the doctrine to be established.
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