it. Why, then, should we interfere in the business? Are we afraid the President and Senate are not sufficiently informed to know their respective duties? Our interposition argues that they want judgment, and are not able to adjust their powers without the wisdom of this house to assist them. To say the least on this point, it must be deemed indelicate for us to intermeddle with them. If the fact is, as we seem to suspect, that they do not understand the Constitution, let it go before the proper tribunal; the judges are the constitutional umpires on such questions. Why, let me ask, gentlemen, shall we commit an infraction of the Constitution, for fear the Senate or President should not comply with its directions?
It has been said, by my colleague, that these officers are the creatures of the law; but it seems as if we were not content with that,—we are making them the mere creatures of the President. They dare not exercise the privilege of their creation, if the President shall order them to forbear. Because he holds their thread of life, his power will be sovereign over them, and will soon swallow up the small security we have in the Senate's concurrence to the appointment, and we shall shortly need no other than the authority of the supreme executive officer to nominate, appoint, continue, or remove.
Mr. AMES. When this question was agitated at a former period, I took no part in the debate. I believe it was then proposed without any idea or intention of drawing on a lengthy discussion, and to me it appeared to be well understood and settled by the house; but since it has been reiterated and contested again, I feel it my bounden duty to deliver the reasons for voting in the manner I then did and shall do now. Mr. Chairman, I look upon every question which touches the Constitution as serious and important, and therefore worthy of the fullest discussion and the most solemn decision. I believe, on the present occasion, we may come to something near certainty, by attending to the leading principles of the Constitution. In order that the good purposes of a federal government should be answered, it was necessary to delegate considerable powers; and the principle upon which the grant was made intended to give sufficient power to do all possible good, but to restrain the rulers from doing mischief.
The Constitution places all executive power in the hands of the President; and could he personally execute all the laws, there would be no occasion for establishing auxiliaries; but the circumscribed powers of human nature in one man demand the aid of others. When the objects are widely stretched out, or greatly diversified, meandering through such an extent of territory as what the United States possess, a minister cannot see with his own eyes every transaction, or feel with his hands the minutiæ that pass through his department: he must therefore have assistants. But in order that he may be responsible to his country, he must have a choice in selecting his assistants, a control over them, with power to remove them when he finds the qualifications which induced their appointment cease to exist. There are officers under the Constitution who hold their office by a different tenure: your judges are appointed during good behavior; and from the delicacy and peculiar nature of their trust, it is right it should be so, in order that they may be independent and impartial in administering justice between the government and its citizens. But the removability of the one class, or immovability of the other, is founded on the same principle—the security of the people against the abuse of power. Does any gentleman imagine that an officer is entitled to his
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