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The Senate belongs to the legislative branch of the Government. When the
Constitution by express provision superadded to its legislative duties
the right to advise and consent to appointments to office and to sit as
a court of impeachment, it conferred upon that body all the control and
regulation of Executive action supposed to be necessary for the safety
of the people; and this express and special grant of such extraordinary
powers, not in any way related to or growing out of general Senatorial
duty, and in itself a departure from the general plan of our Government,
should be held, under a familiar maxim of construction, to exclude every
other right of interference with Executive functions.
In the first Congress which assembled after the adoption of the
Constitution, comprising many who aided in its preparation, a
legislative construction was given to that instrument in which the
independence of the Executive in the matter of removals from office was
fully sustained.
I think it will be found that in the subsequent discussions of this
question there was generally, if not at all times, a proposition pending
to in some way curtail this power of the President by legislation, which
furnishes evidence that to limit such power it was supposed to be
necessary to supplement the Constitution by such legislation.
The first enactment of this description was passed under a stress of
partisanship and political bitterness which culminated in the
President's impeachment.
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