Search -
History of the Appointing Power of the President
History of the Appointing Power of the President Author:Lucy Maynard Salmon Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: journal of all proceedings, and the State Legislatures will keep a strict watch over them, while the electors of the President are disbanded and they are not res... more »ponsible for his misconduct. The Senate can be reached by those electing them, the President can not. The impeachment theory was sustained by Mr. Smith, of South Carolina, with a doubtful following of one or two others. But it is unnecessary to give his arguments in detail, as they have never been of weight in subsequent discussions. The same is also to be said of the fourth interpretation. At the close of the debate, four important conclusions had been reached : 1.—That the appointing power includes the removing power. 2.—That both belong to the President, the Senate having simply a negative on appointments. 3.—Where the tenure of office has not been provided for by the Constitution, the office is held at the pleasure of the appointing power. 4.—Heads of departments are not " inferior officers." The significance of this result is plain. It indicates a still higher development of the idea that the Executive must be in reality as well as in name the head of the nation, though at all times responsible to it. j When the convention met in 1787, the Executive was considered a necessity, to be hedged in in every possible way lest he should abuse the little power granted him. A long stride in advance of this idea was taken before the convention closed, but the result was only partially secured. If the leaders had hoped ultimately to gain more than this, they did not venture to express such a desire. The people must be educated up to the standard already gained before a higher one could be set up. The Federalist' had sought to quiet the fears of those who thought that the Constitution gave the President too...« less