"
Senator Evarts argued that the existing law was incompatible with
executive responsibility, for "it placed the Executive power in a
strait-jacket." He then pointed out that the President had not
the legal right to remove a member of his own Cabinet and asked,
"Is not the President imprisoned if his Cabinet are to be his
masters by the will of the Senate?" The debate was almost wholly
confined to the Republican side of the Senate, for only one
Democrat took any part in it. Senator Edmunds was the sole
spokesman on his side, but he fought hard against defeat and
delivered several elaborate arguments of the "check and balance"
type. When the final vote took place, only three Republicans
actually voted for the repealing bill, but there were absentees
whose votes would have been cast the same way had they been
needed to pass the bill.*
* The bill was passed by thirty yeas and twenty-two nays, and
among the nays were several Senators who while members of the
House had voted for repeal. The repeal bill passed the House by a
vote of 172 to 67, and became law on March 3, 1887
President Cleveland had achieved a brilliant victory. In the
joust between him and Edmunds, in lists of his adversary's own
contriving, he had held victoriously to his course while his
opponent had been unhorsed. The granite composure of Senator
Edmunds' habitual mien did not permit any sign of disturbance to
break through, but his position in the Senate was never again
what it had been, and eventually he resigned his seat before the
expiration of his term.
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