412 WRIGHT— POWER TO ESTABLISH 



tingencies. Of the first kind are judicial, revenue, and similar offices. 

 Of the second are Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls. . . . 

 They depend for their original existence upon the law, but are the offspring 

 of the state of our relations with foreign nations, and must necessarily 

 be governed by distinct rules. ... I say, then, that whether the office of a 

 Minister exists or does not — how and when it exists are questions not par- 

 ticularly and precisely settled by the Constitution ; but that the Executive 

 authority to nominate to the Senate foreign Ministers and Consuls, and to 

 fill vacancies happening during the recess, necessarily includes the power of 

 determining those questions." 



The Senate ultimately ratified all of these appointments and those 

 of tv^o additional commissioners, Clay and Russel, though it in- 

 sisted that Gallatin should first resign the office of Secretary of 

 the Treasury. 



On December 25, 1825, President J. Q. Adams sent to the Sen- 

 ate the names of three men " to be envoys extraordinary and min- 

 isters plenipotentiary tO' the assembly of American Nations at Pan- 

 ama." Senator Benton, of Missouri, contended that these persons 

 were in reality " Deputies and Representatives to a Congress " and 

 were not Ambassadors and Public Ministers in the meaning of the 

 Constitution at all. However, his view did not prevail and the ap- 

 pointments were eventually ratified though the appointees arrived 

 at Panama too late to take part in the Congress.^® 



In result, these two cases seem to demonstrate the power of the 

 President to decide when occasion for appointment to an ofiEice in 

 the foreign service exists and this has been since sustained in the 

 opinions of many Attorneys-General.^'' In spite of this admission 

 of his power, on subsequent occasions, the President has usually 

 sent special missions without reference to the Senate at all, perhaps 

 because recollection of the Senate opposition in these two instances 

 lurked in his mind. In this way, peace missions following the Mex- 

 ican, Spanish and World Wars and the American representation 

 at the Hague, Algeciras and other international conferences were 

 constituted. The President alone has decided that the occasion 

 existed, sent the mission and compensated it out of the contingent 



58 Ibid., 8 : 463-464. 



59 I Op. 631; 2 Op. 535; 3 Op. 673; 4 Op. 532; 7 Op. 190, 223; 10 Op. 

 357; II Op. 179; 12 Op. 32; 19 Op. 261; Corwin, o/>. cU., p. 55. 



