CONGRESS. (SUSPENSIONS FEOM OFFICE.) 



247 



State which he is bound to render in obedi- 

 ence to the Constitution or the law. 



" The motives of the President in the sus- 

 pension of Duskin was the actual subject of 

 the inquiry, however ingeniously the purpose 

 is masked by special pleading. The Committee 

 on the Judiciary based its right to make the 

 inquiry, not upon the right of the Senate to 

 legislate for the benefit of the country or to 

 gather evidence on which Duskin could be 

 impeached or censured, but upon the ground 

 that the Senate is empowered by the Constitu- 

 tion and the law to prohibit the President from 

 removing certain classes of officers, and that 

 therefore they have the right to be informed 

 of every fact that operated on the mind of the 

 President in suspending Duskin from office. 



" If the Senate has no such power> their in- 

 terference in this matter can not be justified, 

 unless they are seeking to show that the Presi- 

 dent is guilty of some misdenieaner in office 

 in the removal of Duskin for which he ought 

 to be impeached. If that is the purpose, and 

 if the Senate believes, as the committee be- 

 lieve if they believe anything and have de- 

 clared in these resolutions, let the Senate order 

 an investigation upon charges preferred by 

 them against the Attorney-General or against 

 the President, accusing them of a high crime 

 or misdemeanor in office. Let them direct the 

 committee to send for persons and papers and 

 ascertain the facts which will show the guilt of 

 these high officers, or else will show the grave 

 wrong, which I hope is a mistake, of those who 

 bring an unjust accusation in regard to a mat- 

 ter over which they have no jurisdiction and 

 condemn a high officer as a criminal for deny- 

 ing to the Senate a power which they are eager 

 to usurp. If the Senate must impeach and 

 condemn an officer in an ex-parte proceeding, 

 let it at least have the courage to say that the 

 offense is or is not impeachable. 



" "When the Senate is considering a nomina- 

 tion to office, and, as collateral to that question, 

 chooses to consider the reasons that induced 

 the President to remove somebody else from 

 the same office, will it deny to the act of the 

 President full faith and credit, and assume to 

 itself the power to assail his act by a direct pro- 

 ceeding and to set it aside and annul it? It 

 must do this if it would open to examination 

 the question whether he acted honestly in mak- 

 ing the removal. 



"The Senate has the power to consider a 

 nomination sent to it by the President. In 

 doing this it acts directly and conclusively on 

 the subject. It settles the question, and sends 

 the result to the President as being conclusive 

 on him. He is bound to give it full faith and 

 credit, without any inquiry as to whether the 

 Senate had good motives or sufficient evidence 

 to warrant its action. The Senate has no power 

 to consider a removal from office made by the 

 President, except in a collateral and inconclu- 

 sive way ; and it rests with him to say whether 

 he will or will not inform the Senate of the 



reasons for his action, or as to the facts upon 

 which he based his action. To my judgment 

 it is a clear proposition that the President has 

 a definite grant of power in the Constitution to 

 remove persons from office ; while the Senate 

 has no more authority over participating in 

 that act or to reverse it than the House of 

 Representatives or the Supreme Court have." 



Mr. Ingalls, of Kansas, who made the live- 

 liest speech of the debate, argued that the ne- 

 cessity for investigation in regard to suspensions 

 on the part of the Senate arose out of the pro- 

 fessions of the President to the effect that he 

 would not make removals except for cause. He 

 said : " If when the President was inaugurated 

 he had determined that the functions of Gov- 

 ernment should be exercised by officers selected 

 from his own party, the nation would have 

 been content ; but he did not so determine, and 

 herein and hereon is founded the justification 

 that the majority of the Senate can satisfac- 

 torily use and employ in demanding that no 

 action shall be had in connection with these 

 suspensions from office until there has been 

 satisfactory assurance that injustice has not 

 been done. If it were understood that these 

 suspensions and removals were made for polit- 

 ical reasons, the country would be content, the 

 Republican majority in the Senate would be 

 content. But what is the attitude ? Ever since 

 his inauguration and for many months before, 

 by many utterances, official and private, in re- 

 peated declarations never challenged, Mr. Cleve- 

 land announced that he would not so adminis- 

 ter this Government. At the very outset, in his 

 letter of acceptance, he denounced the doctrine 

 of partisan changes in the patronage, and 

 through all of his political manifestoes down 

 to the present time he has repeated these as- 

 surances with emphatic and unchanging mo- 

 notony. 



"He has declared that there shall be no 

 changes in office, where the incumbents were 

 competent and qualified, for political reasons, 

 but that they should be permitted to serve 

 their terms. Like those who were grinding at 

 the mill, one has been taken and another has 

 been left. Some Republicans have been sus- 



E ended and others have been retained. What 

 i the irresistible inference ? "What is the logic 

 of the events, except that, in view of what the 

 President has declared, every man who is sus- 

 pended is suspended for cause, and not for po- 

 litical reasons? It is not possible to suspect 

 the President of duplicity and treacherous de- 

 ception." 



March 26, the resolutions submitted in the 

 majority report of the Committee on the Judi- 

 ciary were adopted. The vote on the first reso- 

 lution was as follows : 



YEAS Aldrich, Allison, Blair, Cameron, Chace, 

 Conger, Cullom, Dawes, Edmunds, Evarts, Frye, 

 Hale, Harrison, Hawley, Hoar, Logan, McMillan, Ma- 

 hone, Manderson, Miller, Mitchell of Oregon, Mor- 

 rill, Platt, Plumb, Sabin, Sawyer, Sherman, Spooner, 

 Stanford, Teller, Van Wyck, Wilson of Iowa 32. 



NAYS Beck, Berry, Blackburn, Brown, Butler, 



