CONGRESS. (TnE PKESIDENTIAL SUCCESSION.) 



229 



proceedings of the body, and making it a dis- 

 grace. That thing does not exist to-day ; and 

 I say to the Senator from Missouri that he is 

 doing grave injustice to Senators on this floor, 

 associated with him, by the remarks which he 

 has made, sending out the impression to the 

 country that so many Senators of the United 

 States Senate were drunk in the ordinary 

 business of the Senate that the Senate was 

 obliged to suspend its business." 



The Senate adopted the rule, after striking 

 out the clause in regard to the punishment of 

 offenders against its provisions. 



The Presidential Succession. In the first session 

 of the Forty-seventh Congress a bill regulating 

 the presidential succession was brought for- 

 ward by Mr. Hoar, of Massachusetts, but it was 

 not acted upon ; in the first session of the For- 

 ty-eighth Congress the same bill substantially 

 was brought forward again and passed by the 

 Senate, but it was not taken up by the House of 

 Representatives. On Dec. 15, 1885, the same 

 measure was brought forward in the Senate. 

 It is follows : 



Be it enacted, etc.. That in case of removal, death, 

 resignation, or inabilitv of both the President and 

 Vice-President of the United States, the Secretary of 

 State, or if there be none, or in case of his removal, 

 death, resignation, or inability, then the Secretary of 

 the Treasury, or if there be none, or in case of his re- 

 moval, death, resignation, or inability, then the Secre- 

 tary of War, or if there be none, or in case of his re- 

 moval, death, resignation, or inability, then the At- 

 torney-General, or if there be rone, or in case of his 

 removal, death, resignation, or inability, then the 

 Postmaster-General, or if there be none, or in case of 

 his removal, death, resignation, or inability, then the 

 Secretary of the Navy, or if there be none', or in case 

 of his removal, death, resignation, or inability, then 

 the Secretary of the Interior, shall act as President 

 until the disability of the President or Vice-President 

 is removed or a President shall be elected : Provided, 

 That whenever the powers and duties of the office of 

 President of the United States shall devolve upon any 

 of the persons named herein, if Congress be not then 

 in session, or if it would not meet in accordance with 

 law within twenty days thereafter, it shall be the duty 

 of the person upon whom said powers and duties shall 

 devolve to issue a proclamation convening Congress 

 in extraordinary session, giving twenty days' notice of 

 the time of meeting. 



SEO. 2. That the preceding section shall only be 

 held to describe and apply to such officers as shall 

 have been appointed by the advice and consent of the 

 Senate to the offices therein named, and such as are 

 eligible to the office of President under the Consti- 

 tution, and not under impeachment by the House of 

 Eepresentatives of the United States at the time the 

 powers and duties of the office shall devolve upon 

 them respectively. 



SEC. 3. That sections 146, 147, 148, 149, and 150 of 

 the Ee vised Statutes are hereby repealed. 



The provisions of the Revised Statutes to 

 be repealed under the last section are those 

 settling the order of succession upon the Presi- 

 dent pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker 

 of the House of Representatives in case of the 

 removal, death, resignation, or inability of the 

 President and Vice-President, and providing 

 for a new election. The idea of the bill, Mr. 

 Hoar said, was taken from his brother, for- 

 merly Attorney-General in Grant's Cabinet. In 



support of the measure, among other things, 

 the Senator from Massachusetts said : " As it 

 has been said, the immediate occasion for 

 this bill, which has given it its prominence 

 in public estimation, although it has passed 

 the Senate once or twice when there was no 

 such contingency the immediate occasion of 

 this bill is the impression upon the public 

 mind of the grave and serious necessity for 

 casting new safeguards about the life of the 

 President of the United States ; it is clear, as 

 I said just now in another connection, that the 

 security against the attempts on the life of the 

 President by any political criminal in a time 

 of great public excitement, when persons are 

 maddened and crazed as the feeble mind of 

 Guiteau was by a political quarrel, or a person 

 who persuades himself that he is performing 

 the part of a Brutus, by ridding the country of 

 a tyrant, who is sane will be much greater 

 under this bill than under^ existing law. The 

 motive which affects their minds, and which 

 has affected at least two such minds in our 

 country, will continue to affect them if a new 

 election of President is to be the result of the 

 removal of the President and Vice-President. 

 But if the principal -adviser, the principal leader 

 and exponent of the policies and principles of 

 the party that elected the existing President, 

 is to succeed to the office, and so in turn his 

 other Cabinet advisers, that motive is entirely 

 gone. And it is not a man, it is under the 

 theory of our Constitution a principle of politi- 

 cal conduct for which the people of the United 

 States declare when they elect a President and 

 Vice-President ; and that is continued by the 

 provisions of this bill." 



Mr. Maxey, of Texas, in advocacy of the 

 measure, argued : " It has been said that the 

 President of the Senate and the Speaker of the 

 House should be selected because they come 

 from the people ; that the Secretary of State 

 and the Secretary of the Treasury, and so on, 

 should not be because they do not. The Presi- 

 dent of the Senate does not come by election 

 from the people of the United States. I have 

 shown that he is not an officer of the United 

 States. He comes from his State and holds 

 his commission from his State, and the influ- 

 ences, whatever they may be, brought to bear 

 upon the action of a Senator in this body are 

 brought by the people of his State. The 

 Speaker of the House is not an officer of the 

 United States, does not come from the United 

 States by election of the people of the United 

 States, but from the election of one of the dis- 

 tricts in his State. The Secretary of State is 

 an officer of the United States beyond all pos- 

 sible question. He is appointed by authority 

 of the Constitution of the United States ; he 

 holds his commission by and with the advice 

 and consent of the Senate of the United States, 

 and he is selected by the President, whatever 

 may be the policy of the President, because he 

 is in accord with the policy which the Presi- 

 dent proposes to pursue in his Administration. 



