CONGRESS, U. S. 



229 



vi Jes for the impeachment of officers ? and the 

 Senate, by a vote of 14 to 11, after an argument 

 of great power, pro and con, by the managers 

 upon the part of the House of Representa- 

 tives, Messrs. Bayard and Harper, and by the 

 counsel for the accused, decided that he was 

 not; and from that day to this there has not 

 only been expressed no opinion to the contrary 

 entitled to be considered as authority, but, as 

 far as any opinion has been expressed, it has 

 been in accordance with that precedent. 



" But further, to proceed with the question, 

 let us consider it as now for the first time before 

 the Senate. Is a Senator a civil officer? The 

 language of the statute in that respect is pre- 

 cisely the same as is the language of the clause 

 providing for impeachments in the Constitution 

 itself. What ' civil officer ' means in the one, 

 the same term means in the other. Let me call 

 the attention of Senators, not at length, but 

 very briefly, to such clauses as I suppose bear 

 upon the particular question. The question for 

 us to decide is, is a Senator or a Representative 

 in the other House the occupant of a civil office, 

 or a civil officer within the meaning of the Con- 

 stitution ? I say he is hot. The Senator from 

 Vermont (Mr. Collamer) says, but did not at- 

 tempt to prove it as far as 1 heard, that he is. 

 The sixth section of the first article of the Con- 

 stitution contains this provision : 



No Senator or Representative shall during the time 

 for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil 

 office under the authority of the United States. 



"Xow, stopping there, as we see, the words 

 ' Senator or Representative,' or the Senator or 

 the Representative, is spoken of in contradis- 

 tinction to every other office. If it had been 

 in the view of the Convention to place, with 

 reference to this clause, Senators and Repre- 

 sentatives upon the same footing with all others, 

 and according to their view they were civil offi- 

 cers, then all that would have been neces.-ary 

 would be to say that no one during the time 

 for which he hold his office shall be appointed 

 to any other office. Such is not the language. 

 The prohibition is upon the Senator or Repre- 

 sentative in that character, not as an officer, not 

 as holding a civil office, but in his character of 

 Senator or Representative as contradistinguish- 

 ed from a civil office, according to the terms of 

 the Constitution ; and it therefore provides, as 

 they were obliged to provide, if their meaning 

 was, as I suppose it to have been, that he should 

 not be appointed to any civil office. 



" But the conclusion of the paragraph makes 

 it. as I think, still more obvious : 



And no person holding any office under the United 

 States shall be a member of'either House during his 

 continuance in office. 



"Xow, what is the meaning of the term 

 4 holding any office ' as here usedT Is it that the 

 word ' office ' was used for the purpose of in- 

 cluding a Senator or Representative? Then 

 the provision would have been absurd, because 

 as Senator ?r Representative he is then holding 



an office. "Was it the purpose to say that he 

 should not hold any other office. If it had 

 been, and they considered a Senator or Rep- 

 resentative as the incumbent of an office, then 

 the provision would have been that he should 

 not hold any other office under the United 

 States. But the provision being that he shall 

 not hold any office under the United States, 

 as I think conclusively demonstrates that, in the 

 view of the Convention, the term ' office ' was 

 not designed to include a Senator or Represent- 

 ative ; and for the same reason the term ' Sen- 

 ator or Representative ' was not intended to in- 

 clude the same thing as the term ' office ; ' in 

 other words, that in the judgment of the Con- 

 vention the two were entirely separate. 



" But that is not the only clause. The eighth 

 clause of the ninth section of the first article 

 provides : 



And no person holding any office of profit or trust 

 under them, shall, without the consent of the Con- 

 gress, accept of any present, &c. 



"Drawing a distinction, as I think, evidently 

 between the Congress of the United States, the 

 Senators and Representatives who constitute 

 the Congress of the United States, and those 

 who hold offices under the appointing power 

 which the Government contains. 



" But again, sir, the second paragraph in the 

 first section of the second article contains a 

 clause which is pregnant with instruction upon 

 this question : 



Each State shall appoint, in such manner as the 

 Legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors 

 equal to the whole number of Senators and Repre- 

 sentatives to which the State may be entitled in the 

 Congress; but no Senator or Representative, or per- 

 son holding an office of trust or profit under the 

 United States, shall be appointed an elector. 



" Here, as in the former instance, the distinc- 

 tion is kept up, and the term ' Senator or Rep- 

 resentative' is used not as equivalent to, or 

 identical with, the term ' person holding an 

 office.' but as standing in a different relation to 

 the Government, and Senators and Represent- 

 atives are included in the disqualification no 

 ingenuity can suggest a different reason be- 

 cause, in the opinion of the Convention, if they 

 had not been specially mentioned they might 

 have been electors. 



" So, again, in the second section of the same 

 article, it contains provisions for the appoint- 

 ment of officers under the United States. It 

 says that the President shall have power, by 

 and with the advice and consent of the Senate", 

 to appoint ' ambassadors, other public ministers 

 and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and 

 all other officers of the United States.' 



The third section provides that all officers 

 of the United States are to be commissioned bv 

 him. The language of the concluding part of 

 that section being 



He (the President) shall take care that the laws 

 be faithfully executed, and shall commission all the 

 officers of the United States. 



"Xow, Mr. President, when we come to the 



