| U. S. Internal Revenue Deputy Collector's Office, | |
| Richmond, Sept. 5, 1885. |
H. S. Nichols,
Norfolk, Va.
Dear Sir: It affords me pleasure to say that your duties
as stamp collector at Norfolk for the period from 15th of
June to 31st August, 1885, were entirely satisfactory. Your
removal from office was not from any delinquency of duty or
inefficiency but entirely upon the principle that “to the victor
belong the spoils”—you being an appointee of the Mahone
Republican party. I wish you health and prosperity in the
future, which I think you deserve.
Very truly yours,
That collector's name is now before the Senate. If the Administration chose to put up with so defiant a demonstration of offensive partisanship and of contempt for its reform principles, I should, were I a member of the Senate, certainly vote for his rejection, from respect for the President.
I have of late had occasion carefully to study the debates in Congress on the power of appointment and removal, from the first Congress to the present time, and I have come to the conclusion that a law making it the duty of the Executive to communicate the reasons for removals made to the Senate and to put them on record accessible to the public would not only be Constitutional, but a very great help to a reform Administration. What a blessing it would have been to you and to your Cabinet officers had you and they, whenever a removal was urged by politicians, been able to say that no removal could be made except for reasons publicly to be avowed and answered for upon the responsibility of the Executive! It is indeed said that sometimes removals have to be made, the reasons for which cannot be disclosed. I answer that
