650 



PUBLIC DOCUMENTS. 



State of Nebraska shall be, and is hereby declared 

 to be, entitled to all the rights, privileges, grants, 

 and immunities, and to be subject to all the condi- 

 tions and restrictions of an act entitled "An act to 

 enable the people of Nebraska to form a constitution 

 and State government, and for the admission of 

 such State into the Union on an equal footing with 

 the original States." 



SEC. 3. And be it further enacted, That this act shall 

 not take effect except upon the fundamental condi- 

 tion that within the State of Nebraska there shall be 

 no denial of the elective franchise, or of any other 

 right, to any person by reason of race or color 

 (except Indians not taxed), and upon the further 

 fundamental condition that the Legislature of said 

 State, by a solemn public act, shall declare the 

 assent of said State to the said fundamental con- 

 dition, and shall transmit to the President of the 

 United States an authentic copy of said act. Upon 

 receipt whereof the President, by proclamation, 

 shall forthwith announce the fact, whereupon said 

 fundamental condition shall be held as a part of the 

 organic law of the State ; and thereupon, and with 

 out any further proceeding on the part of Congress, 

 the admission of said State into the Union shall be 

 considered as complete. Said State Legislature 

 shall be convened by the Territoral Governor with- 

 in thirty days after the passage of this act, to act 

 upon the conditions submitted herein. 



Veto of the Mil to regulate the tenure of cer- 

 tain civil offices ly President JOHNSON, March 

 2, 1867. 

 To the Senate of the United States : 



I have carefully examined the bill to regulate the 

 tenure of certain civil offices. The material portion 

 of the bill is contained in the first section, and is of 

 the effect following, namely: 



That every person holding any civil office to which he 

 has been appointed by and with the advice and consent of 

 the Senate, and every person who shall hereafter be appoint- 

 ed to any such office, and shall become duly qualified to act 

 therein, is and shall be entitled to hold such office until a 

 successor shall have been appointed by the President, with 

 the advice and consent of the Senate, and duly qualified : 

 and that the Secretaries of State, of the Treasury, of War, of 

 the Navy, and cf the Interior, the Postmaster-General, and 

 the Attorney-General, shall hold their offices respectively for 

 and during the term of the President by whom they may 

 have been appointed, and for one month thereafter, subject 

 to removal by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. 



These provisions are qualified by a reservation in 

 the fourth section, " that nothing contained in the 

 bill shall be construed to extend the term of any office 

 the duration of which is limited by law." In effect 

 the bill provides \hat the President shall not remove 

 from their places any of the civil officers whose 

 terms of service are not limited by law without the 

 advice and consent of the Senate of the United States. 

 The bill, in this respect, conflicts, in my judgment, 

 with the Constitution of the United States. The 

 question, as Congress is well aware, is by no means 

 a new one. That the power of removal is constitu- 

 tionally vested in the President of the United States 

 is a principle which has been not more distinctly 

 declared by judicial authority and judicial commen- 

 tators than it has been uniformly practised upon by 

 the Legislative and Executive Departments of the 

 Government. The question arose in the House of 

 Representatives so early as the 16th day of June, 

 1789, on the bill for establishing an Executive De- 

 partment, denominated "The Department of Foreign 

 Affairs." The first clause of the bill, after recapitu- 

 lating the functions of that officer and defining his 

 duties, had these words : " To be removable from 

 office by the President of the United States." It 

 was moved to strike out these words, and the mo- 

 tion was sustained with great ability and vigor. It 

 was insisted that the President could not constitu- 

 tionally exercise the power of removal exclusive of 



the Senate; that the Federalists so interpreted Ihe 

 Constitution when arguing for its adoption by the 

 several States ; that the Constitution had nowhere 

 given the President power of removal, either ex- 

 pressly or by strong implication ; but, on the con- 

 trary, had distinctly provided for removals from 

 office by impeachment only. A construction which 

 denied the power of removal by the President was 

 further maintained by arguments drawn from the 

 danger of the abuse of the power; from the supposed 

 tendency of an exposure of public officers to capricious 

 removal, to impair the efficiency of the civil service ; 

 from the alleged injustice and hardship of displacing 

 incumbents, dependent upon their official stations, 

 without sufficient consideration ; from a supposed 

 want of responsibility on the part of the President, 

 and from an imagined defect of guarantees against a 

 vicious President, who might incline to abuse the 

 power. 



On the other hand, an exclusive power of removal 

 by the President was defended as a true exposition 

 of the text of the Constitution. It was maintained that 

 there are certain causes for which persons ought to be 

 removed from office without being guilty of treason, 

 bribery, or malfeasance, and that the nature of 

 things demands that it should be so. "Suppose," 

 it was said, "a man becomes insane by the visita- 

 tion of God, and is likely to ruin our affairs : are the 

 hands of Government to be confined from warding 

 off the evil? Suppose a person in office not possess- 

 ing the talents he was judged to have at the time of 

 the appointment, is the error not to be corrected ? 

 Suppose he acquire vicious habits and incurable in- 

 dolence, or totally neglect the duties of his office, 

 which shall work mischief to the public welfare, is 

 there no way to arrest the threatened danger? Sup- 

 pose he becomes odious and unpopular by reason of 

 the measures he pursues, and this he may do with- 

 out committing any positive offence against the law, 

 must he preserve his office in despite of the popular 

 will ? Suppose him grasping for his own aggran- 

 dizement and the elevation of his connections by 

 every means short of the treason defined by the Con- 

 stitution, hurrying your affairs to the precipice of 

 destruction, endangering your domestic tranquillity, 

 plundering you of the means of defence, alienating 

 the affections of your allies, and promoting the 

 spirit of discord, must the tardy, tedious, desultory 

 road, by way of impeachment, be travelled to over- 

 take the man who, barely confining himself within 

 the letter of the law, is employed in drawing off' the 

 vital principle of the Government?" The nature of 

 things, the great objects of society, the express ob- 

 jects of the Constitution itself require that this thing 

 should be otherwise. To unite the Senate with the 

 President "in the exercise of the power," it was 

 said, " would involve us " in the -most serious diffi- 

 culty. " Suppose a discovery of any of these events 

 should take place when the Senate is not in session, 

 how is the remedy to be applied? The evil could be 

 avoided in no other way than by the Senate sitting 

 always. In regard to the danger of the power being 

 abused if exercised by one man, it was said "that 

 the danger is as great with respect to the Senate, 

 who are assembled from various parts of the con- 

 tinent, with different impressions and opinions ; " 

 that such a body is more likely to misuse the power 

 of removal than the man whom the united voice of 

 America calls to the presidential chair. As the 

 nature of Government requires the power of re- 

 moval, it was maintained " that it should be exer- 

 cised in this way by the hand capable of exerting 

 itself with effect, and the power must be conferred 

 on the President by the Constitution as the execu- 

 tive officer of the Government." Mr. Madison, 

 whose adverse opinion in the Federalist had been 

 relied upon by those who denied the exclusive 

 power, now participated in the debate. He declared 

 that he had reviewed his former opinions, and he 

 summed up the whole case as follows : 



