This will be shown by the evidence of Hon. Mr. Van Horn, a member of the House, who was present when the demand for possession of the War office was made by General Thomas, already made public.
By the testimony of the Hon. Mr. Burleigh, who, after that, in the evening of the twenty-first of February, was told by Thomas that he intended to take possession of the War Office by force the following morning, and invited him up to see the performance. Mr. Burleigh attended, but the act did not come off, for Thomas had been arrested and held to bail.
By Thomas boasting at Willard's hotel on the same evening that he should call on General Grant for military force to put him in possession of the office, and he did not see how Grant could refuse it. Article 8 charges that the appointment of Thomas was made for the purpose of getting control of the disbursement of the moneys appropriated for the military service and Department of War.
In addition to the proof already adduced, it will be shown that, after the appointment of Thomas, which must have been known to the members of his cabinet, the President caused a formal notice to be served on the Secretary of the Treasury, to the end that the Secretary might answer the requisitions for money of Thomas, and this was only prevented by the firmness with which Stanton retained possession of the books and papers of the War office. It will be seen that every fact charged in Article 1 is admitted by the answer of the respondent; the intent also admitted as charged; that is to say, to set aside the civil tenure-of-office act, and to remove Mr. Stanton from the office of the Secretary for the Department of War without the advice and consent of the Senate, and, if not justified, contrary to the provisions of the Constitution itself.
The only question remaining is, does the respondent justify himself by the Constitution and laws?
On this he avers, that by the Constitution, there is "conferred on the President as a part of the executive power, the power at any and all times of removing from office all executive officers for cause, to be judged of by the President alone, and that he verily believes that the executive power of removal from office, confided to him by the Constitution, as aforesaid, includes the power of suspension from office indefinitely."
Now, these offices, so vacated, must be filled, temporarily at least, by his appointment, because government must go on; there can be no interregnum in the execution of the laws in an organized government; he claims, therefore, of necessity, the right to fill their places with appointments of his choice, and that this power can not be restrained or limited in any degree by any law of Congress, because, he avers, "that the power was conferred, and the duty of exercising it in fit cases was imposed on the President by the Constitution of the United States, and that the President could not be deprived of this power, or relieved of this duty, nor could the same be vested by law in the President and the Senate jointly, either in part or whole."
This, then, is the plain and inevitable issue before the Senate and the American people:
Has the President, under the Constitution, the more than kingly prerogative at will to remove from office and suspend from office indefinitely, all executive officers of the United States, either civil, military or naval, at any and all times, and fill the vacancies with creatures of his own appointment, for his own purposes, without any restraint whatever, or possibility of restraint by the Senate or by Congress through laws duly enacted?
The House of Representatives, in behalf of the people join this issue by affirming that the exercise of such powers is a high misdemeanor in office.