The interpretation placed
by the Republicans on
the President's Message.
Just nine days later the President sent his special Message to the Senate in regard to his suspension of Mr. Stanton. The gist of it was
The President's special
Message concerning the
suspension of Stanton.
This contention of Mr. Stanton that the President could not suspend him under the Constitution and laws of the United States gave the President the opportunity of saying that Mr. Stanton must be claiming the protection of the Tenure-of-Office Act of March 2d, 1867, and of revealing to the Senate Mr. Stanton's most decided condemnation of that Act when it was a bill before the President. The President asserted that Mr. Stanton, as every other member of his Cabinet, advised him that the bill was unconstitutional, in that it was a dangerous encroachment upon the President's constitutional prerogatives, and urged him to veto it. He also said that all the members of his Cabinet who had been appointed by Mr. Lincoln—and Stanton was one of these—appeared to be of the opinion that their tenures were not fixed or affected by the provisions of the bill. The conclusion arrived at by the President evidently was that the Tenure-of-Office Act did not cover Mr. Stanton's case, but left it under the law and practice existing before the passage of that measure, and that if it did cover it, the Act was unconstitutional, and was so considered by Mr. Stanton himself, and every other member of the Cabinet.
It is hardly credible that the President intended to recognize the validity of the Act by sending this Message to the Senate. It is true that the second section of the Act provided that the President might suspend an officer during a recess of the Senate, and designate an ad interim successor, and must, within the first twenty days of the next meeting of the Senate, report the suspension to the Senate, and it does appear, from a casual view, that the President was acting under the authority of this provision, or rather under the duty imposed by it, in suspending instead of removing Mr. Stanton and in making this report of Mr. Stanton's suspension to the Senate. But the President could claim that he was proceeding under his general constitutional power and duty of suspending from office, as a power included in the power of removal, and of sending such communications as he saw fit to Congress or to either House thereof. And the fact that he disputed the constitutionality of the Act in the Message itself is good internal evidence that he did not consider that he was in any way acting under the authority granted to him by it, or in any way estopping himself, so to speak, from making future declarations against the constitutionality of the Act, or even from disobeying its requirements.
The Senate, however, conceived at once that the President was acting under the Tenure-of-Office Act, and after considerable discussion,
The Senate resolution
in regard to the
suspension of Stanton.