On the 10th of January, 1867, on motion of Mr. Edmunds, the bill was taken up for consideration. As the first section of the bill was the only portion over which there was any serious controversy, or pertinent to this recital, only that section is produced here. It is as follows:
That every person (excepting the Secretaries of State, of the Treasury, of War, of the Navy, and of the Interior, the Postmaster General, and the Attorney General), holding any civil office to which he has been appointed by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, and every person who shall hereafter be appointed to any such office, and shall become duly qualified to act therein, is, and shall be, entitled to hold such office until a successor shall have been in like manner appointed and duly qualified, except as herein otherwise provided.
Mr. Howe objected to the exception of the Cabinet officers from the operation of the bill, and Mr. Edmunds responded that:
It did seem to the Committee, after a great deal of consultation and reflection, that it was right and just that the Chief Executive of the Nation, in selecting these named Secretaries, who, by law, and by the practice of the country, and officers analogous to whom by the practice of all other countries, are the confidential advisers of the Executive respecting the administration of all his Departments, should be persons who were personally agreeable to him, in whom he could place entire confidence and reliance, and that whenever it should seem to him that the state of relations, between him and any of them had become such as to render this relation of confidence and trust and personal esteem inharmonious, HE SHOULD IN SUCH CASE BE ALLOWED TO DISPENSE WITH THE SERVICES OF THAT OFFICER IN VACATION AND HAVE SOME OTHER PERSON ACT IN HIS STEAD. We thought that so much discretion, so much confidence, so much respect ought to be properly attributed to the Chief Magistrate of the Nation. It may happen that at some particular time—some people may suppose that it has happened now—the Chief Magistrate for the time being ought not to be invested with such powers; but the Committee have recommended the adoption of this rule respecting the tenure-of-office as a permanent and systematic, and as they believe, an appropriate regulation of the Government for all administrations and for all time; and it did appear to them (whether the reason may command itself to the Senate or not), that it was just to the Executive, and on the whole best for the interest of the Nation, that he should be allowed during a recess of the Senate to change his confidential advisers if it should appear to him to be fit, subject to that general responsibility which every officer must be held to the public and to the Senate when they meet again.
Mr. Williams said:
I prepared the original bill in this case, which contains in different words the exception contained in the amendment reported by the Committee. I do not regard the exception as of any real practical consequence, because I suppose if the President and any head of a Department should disagree so as to make their relations unpleasant, and the President should signify a desire that the head of a Department retire from the Cabinet, THAT WOULD FOLLOW WITHOUT ANY POSITIVE ACT OF REMOVAL ON THE PART OF THE PRESIDENT.
Mr. Fessenden said:
The Constitution imposes upon the President of the United States the duty of executing the laws; it does not impose that duty upon the Secretaries. They are creatures of the law and not of the Constitution directly. Some, and perhaps the greater part, of their functions are as advisers of the President and to aid him in executing the laws in their several Departments. There are some duties that are specifically conferred upon them by Congress. Their relation to the President, as has been well said by gentlemen, is that mostly of confidential advisers. With the exception of the particular duties imposed upon them by law, and on the Secretary of the Treasury more than on the others, they do nothing of their own motion, but act by order of the President in discharging the particular duties of their office. * * * That being the peculiar condition of affairs it has always been considered since the foundation of the Government, as a matter of course, as a general rule—there may have been one or two exceptions, and I think there have been, but I am not very positive on that point—that the President might select such persons as he pleased to be members of his Cabinet. Of course the confirmation of the Senate is necessary; but the general idea of the Senate has been, whether they liked the men or not, to confirm them without any difficulty, because in executing the great and varied interests of this great country it is exceedingly important that there should be the utmost harmony between those who are charged with that execution.
The bill passed as reported and went to the House. That body amended it by making Cabinet officers non-removable by the President without the consent of the Senate, and sent the bill back to the Senate, when Mr. Sherman said:
It (the Tenure-of-Office bill) ought to have been passed, and probably would have been passed, long ago, if a different condition of affairs had existed before. But when you propose to extend that principle to Cabinet officers, a very different state of affairs arises, and different circumstances apply to this subject. Now I say, that if a Cabinet officer should attempt to hold his office for a moment beyond the time when he retained the entire confidence of the President, I would not vote to retain him, NOR WOULD I COMPEL THE PRESIDENT TO LEAVE ABOUT HIM IN THESE HIGH POSITIONS A MAN IN WHOM HE DID NOT ENTIRELY TRUST, both personally and politically. It would be unwise to require him to administer the Government without agents of his own choosing. It seems to me, therefore, that it would be unwise for the Senate to engraft in this bill a provision that would enable a Cabinet officer to hold on to his office in violation of the will of his Chief. * * * Suppose the personal relations between a Cabinet officer and the President became so unpleasant that they could have no personal intercourse. The Senator from Wisconsin (Mr. Howe), says in such a case the Cabinet officer would resign. Suppose he should hold on to his power and position—what then? There is no power to remove him, and the President can have no intercourse with him. Would you compel such a state of affairs? It seems to me that it would be unwise to do so. That the Senate had no such purpose is shown by its vote twice to make this exception. That this provision does not apply to the present case, is shown by the fact that its language is so framed as NOT TO APPLY TO THE PRESENT PRESIDENT. * * * It would not prevent the present President from removing the present Secretary of War, the Secretary of the Navy, or the Secretary of State.