Look now at these questions in their order.
1. Is a Senator an “officer”? Here please to consult the dictionary. I turn to Webster.
“Office.—Offices are civil, judicial, ministerial, executive, legislative, political, municipal, diplomatic, military, ecclesiastical, &c.”
Thus, plainly, offices are legislative. But why summon the dictionary? And yet the zeal of the other side leaves no alternative.
Not content with the dictionary, I call attention to the use of the word in other authoritative places,—and pardon me, if I begin with the Constitution of Massachusetts, written originally by John Adams.
In the Bill of Rights of this Constitution it is declared:—
“All power residing originally in the people, and being derived from them, the several magistrates and officers of government, vested with authority, whether legislative, executive, or judicial, are their substitutes and agents, and are at all times accountable to them.”[292]
Members of the Legislature are classed among officers, and thus this word received its interpretation.