IMPEACHMENT. 



359 



received any appointment or commission save as 

 above detailed. 



And this respondent, further answering, says that 

 on and prior to the 5th day of August, A. D. 1867, 

 this respondent, the President of the United States 

 responsible for the conduct of the Secretary for the 

 Department of War, and having the constitutional 

 right to resort to and rely upon the person holding 

 that office for advice concerning the great and diffi- 

 cult public duties enjoined on the President by the 

 Constitution and laws of the United States became 

 satisfied that he could not allow the said Stanton to 

 continue to hold the office of Secretary for the De- 

 partment of War, without hazard of the public inter- 

 est ; that the relations between the said Stanton and 

 the President no longer permitted the President to 

 resort to him for advice, or to be, in the judgment erf 1 

 the President, safely responsible for his conduct of 

 the affairs of the Department of War, as by law re- 

 quired, in accordance with the orders and instructions 

 of the President : and thereupon, by force of the 

 Constitution and laws of the United States, which 

 devolve on the President the power and the duty to 

 control the conduct of the business of that executive 

 department of the Government, and by reason of the 

 constitutional dutv of the President to take care that 

 the laws be faithfully executed, this respondent did 

 necessarily consider, and did determine, that the said 

 Stanton ought no longer to hold the said office of 

 Secretary for the Department of War. And this re- 

 spondent', by virtue of the power and authority vest- 

 ed in him as President of the United States, by the 

 Constitution and laws of the United States, to give 

 effect to such his decision and determination, did, 

 on the 5th day of August, A. D. 1867, address to the 

 said Stanton a note, of which the following is a true 

 copy: 



" SIR : Public considerations of a high character con- 

 strain me to say that your resignation as Secretary of 

 War will be accepted." 



To which note the said Stanton made the following 

 reply: 



WAR DEPARTMENT, ) 

 WASHINGTON, August 5, 1867. f 



SIB : Your note of this day has been received, stating 

 that "public considerations of a high character con- 

 strain you " to say " that my resignation as Secretary of 

 War will be accepted. 



In reply I have the honor to say, that public considera- 

 tions of a high character, which alone have induced me 

 to continue at the head of this Department, constrain me 

 not to resign the office of Secretary of War, before the 

 next meeting of Congress. 



Very respectfully, yours, 



D'WIN M. STANTON. 



This respondent, as President of the United 

 States, was thereon of opinion that, having regard 

 to the necessary official relations and duties' of P the 

 Secretary for the Department of War to the Presi- 

 dent of the United States, according" to the Constitu- 

 tion and laws of the United States, and having re- 

 gard to the responsibility of the President for the 

 conduct of the said Secretary, and having regard to 

 the paramount executive authority of the office 

 which the respondent holds under the Constitution 

 and laws of the United States, it was impossible, 

 consistently with the public interests, to allow the 

 said Stanton to continue to hold the said office of 

 Secretary for the Department of War ; and it then 

 became the official duty of the respondent, as Presi- 

 dent of the United S'tates, to consider and decide 

 what act or acts should and might lawfully be done 

 by him as President of the United States, to cause 

 the said Stanton to surrender the said office. 



This respondent was informed and verily believed 

 that it was practically settled by the First Congress 

 ot the United States, and had been so considered 

 and, uniformly and in great numbers of instances, 

 acted on by each Congress and President of the Uni- 

 ted States, in succession, from President Washing- 

 ton to and including President Lincoln, and from 



the First Congress to the Thirty-ninth Congress, 

 that the Constitution of the United States conferred 

 on the President, as part of the executive power, 

 and as one of the necessary means and instruments 

 of performing the executive duty expressly imposed 

 on him by the Constitution, of taking care that the 

 laws be faithfully executed, the power at any and all 

 times of removing from office all executive officers, 

 for cause, to be judged of by the President alone. 

 This respondent had, in pursuance of the Constitu- 

 tion, required the opinion of each principal officer of 

 the Executive Departments, upon this question of 

 constitutional executive power and duty, and had 

 been advised by each of them, including the said 

 Stanton, Secretary for the Department of War, that 

 under the Constitution of the United States this 

 power was lodged by the Constitution in the Presi- 

 dent of the United States, and that, consequently, 

 it could be lawfully exercised by him, and the Con- 

 gress could not deprive him thereof; and this re- 

 spondent, in his capacity of President of the United 

 States, and because in that capacity he was both 

 enabled and bound to use his best judgment upon, 

 this question 2 did, in good faith, and with an earnest 

 desire to arrive at the truth, come to the conclusion 

 and opinion, and did make the same known to the 

 honorable the Senate of the United States by a 

 message dated on the 2d day of March, 1867 (a true 

 copy whereof is hereunto annexed and marked A), 

 that the power last mentioned was conferred and the 

 duty of exercising it, in fit cases, was imposed on the 

 President by the Constitution of the United States, 

 and that the President could not be deprived of this 

 power or relieved of this duty, nor could the same 

 be vested by law in the President and the Senate 

 jointly, either in part or whole ; and this has ever 

 since remained, and was the opinion of this respon- 

 dent at^ the time when he was forced, as aforesaid, 

 to consider and decide what act or acts should and 

 might lawfully be done by this respondent, as Presi- 

 dent of the United States, to cause the said Stanton 

 to surrender the said office. 



This respondent was also then aware that by the 

 first section of " an act regulating the tenure of cer- 

 tain civil offices," passed March 2, 1867, by a con- 

 stitutional majority of both Houses of Congress, it 

 was enacted as follows : 



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 he 

 appointed to any such office, and shall become duly quali- 

 fied to act therein, is and shall be entitled to hold such 

 office until a successor shall have been in like manner ap- 

 pointed and duly qualified, except as herein otherwise 

 provided: Provided, That the Secretaries of State, of the 

 Treasury, of War, of the Navy, and of 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 hsrve been appointed, and 

 one mouth thereafter, subject to removal by and with the 

 advice and consent of the Senate. 



This respondent was also aware that this act was 

 understood and intended to be an expression of the 

 opinion of the Congress by which that act was passed, 

 that the power to remove executive officers for 

 cause might, by law, be taken from the President 

 and vested in him and the Senate jointly : and al- 

 though this respondent had arrived at and still re- 

 tained the opinion above expressed and verily be- 

 lieved, as he still believes, that the said first section 

 of the last-mentioned act was and is wholly inoper- 

 ative and void by reason of its conflict with tho 

 Constitution of the United States, yet, inasmuch as 

 the same had been enacted by the constitutional ma- 

 jority in each of the two Houses of that Congress, 

 this respondent considered it to be proper to examine 

 and decide whether the particular case of the said 

 Stanton, on which it was this respondent's duty to 

 act,' was within or without the terms of that first sec- 

 tion of the act ; or, if within it, whether the Presi- 

 dent had not the power, according to the terms of the 



