CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



177 



for the suspension, that the Senate may readily- 

 pass upon the suspension, whether it is justifia- 

 ble or not ; but, under this amendment, he is 

 required to give no reason at all, and the Senate 

 is, therefore, left in the dark as to the ground 

 of the suspension, and whether it is justifiable 

 or not. Then, Mr. President, if it shall turn 

 out that the Senate refuse to concur in the sus- 

 pension, the officer who has been suspended, 

 and has been disgraced, and, as the Senate may 

 think, wrongfully, is restored to his place, but 

 with the loss of the emoluments of the office 

 in the mean time. It may turn out, in the 

 opinion of the Senate, that the suspension was 

 entirely wrong, that he is a worthy officer, but 

 he is thus, perhaps for months, suspended be- 

 tween heaven and earth, not knowing what 

 his fate shall be ; not, perhaps, at liberty to 

 engage in other kinds of business ; and when 

 it shall turn out that he is innocent, and that 

 he has been wrongly suspended, he is to be 

 restored, but with a loss of the salary or emolu- 

 ments of the office in the mean time. I cannot 

 think of any thing more inequitable or unjust 

 than this, and I know of no reason for such an 

 amendment. 



"I believe experience has shown that the 

 tenure-of-office law has done the country no 

 good. I believe it can only be the means of 

 doing harm. I am, therefore, in favor of its 

 total repeal." 



Mr. Conkling, of New York, said : " Mr. 

 President, in human action any thing is de- 

 fended and justified by proving it the best 

 alternative of which the case admits. If this 

 be true of the Tenure-of-office Act, those who 

 supported and voted for it ought perhaps to 

 be spared the summary denunciation with 

 which it has sometimes been visited. The 

 other day a Senator characterized it, being, as 

 it is, the twice-recorded judgment of two- 

 thirds of both Houses of Congress, as ' absurd.' 

 "Whether it be absurd or not may be gathered 

 from a single page of history. "We need only 

 recur to a brief passage now nearly closed, a 

 passage which crimsons the record because it 

 recounts an attempt, in the interest of slavery 

 and treason, to make bribes of the country's 

 power and places and honors, and to make 

 merchandise of the integrity of the country's 

 citizens an attempt to employ the purse of 

 the nation to advance and enrich the nation's 

 foes. The case in few words was this : an 

 edict went out to remove men from office be- 

 cause they were Republicans, unless they 

 would deny and betray their political faith. 

 This shameless and oppressive proceeding was 

 adopted by one who had been trusted by Re- 

 publicans so near the presidency that assassina- 

 tion made him President. He was surrounded 

 by a Cabinet every member of which was 

 pledged to the faith, the measures, and the 

 men of the Republican party, and every mem- 

 ber of which, should he- assert his manhood or 

 even remonstrate, might be dismissed by the 

 waive of a perfidious hand. That all might, 

 VOL. ix. 12. A 



as some did, assert their manhood, was possi- 

 ble, at least if it were made safe to be manly. 



" Had this been the whole case, the imper- 

 fect revelations of human judgment would 

 have sanctioned the arrest of such abuse by 

 any means authorized by the Constitution and 

 consistent with the general good. In the old 

 republics such a pollution of power to under- 

 mine the virtue of the citizen and seduce or 

 coerce him was held a crime punishable with 

 death. 



"But this was not the whole case. The 

 wrong went further it was double-headed. 

 First, those who would forswear their convic- 

 tions and prostitute their opinions were re- 

 tained in place, and those who would not were 

 driven out; second, those notoriously unfit, 

 even those notoriously depraved, were put and 

 kept in places of honor and trust. So far had 

 this evil gone before Congress interposed that 

 the Commissioner of Internal Revenue testified 

 before a committee of the House that the in- 

 jury thus inflicted upon the revenues could be 

 measured only by millions. I heard, the other 

 day, a Senator affirm, and he is one whose 

 duties here turn his studies toward such knowl- 

 edge, that $100,000,000 would not reimburse 

 the loss to the Treasury arising from the wan- 

 ton exercise of the appointing power by the 

 present Administration. 



" It was to curb this licentiousness that Con- 

 gress devised the Tenure-of-office Act. I voted 

 for it, believing it an assertion of a half-disused 

 but not doubtful design of the Constitution, 

 and, like the Senator from Wisconsin, I in- 

 sisted that its shield should cover Cabinet offi- 

 cers as well as lesser placemen. Was it a good 

 law ? It could not execute itself. Has man 

 ever made a law which could execute itself? 

 It could only forbid it could not prevent its 

 own violation or evasion. Can any law do 

 more? It could not operate well when its 

 execution was intrusted to those determined 

 to nullify and frustrate it. Does this condemn 

 it ? If it does, all laws before and since the 

 Decalogue deserve to be condemned. "We are 

 told that Andrew Johnson has refused to sus- 

 pend bad men, and has kept them in place, 

 and that, though this is not owing to the law, it 

 is made to appear so, and thus the people hold 

 Congress responsible for that masquerade of 

 fraud and theft and shame nicknamed 'the 

 whiskey ring.' This suggestion would trouble 

 me if I knew nothing of the American people, 

 but the pretence is too flimsy, the subterfuge 

 is too transparent. 



" Sir, the American people know as well as 

 you know that not the Tenure-of-office Act, but 

 the malignant spirit, the evil disposition, which 

 has neutralized and paralyzed other acts, and 

 inflicted upon the nation other and irreparable 

 injury, is also at the bottom of the thefts and 

 the frauds which have wasted the public rev- 

 enue, the thefts and the frauds- which have 

 stalked high-headed in the public way, till Jus- 

 tice stands- humbled and baffled, if not abashed, 



