ully 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.

This law provided that the Federal officers to which it applied could
only be suspended during the recess of the Senate when shown by evidence
satisfactory to the President to be guilty of misconduct in office, or
crime, or when incapable or disqualified to perform their duties, and
that within twenty days after the next meeting of the Senate it should
be the duty of the President "to report to the Senate such suspension,
with the evidence and reasons for his action in the case."

This statute, passed in 1867, when Congress was overwhelmingly and
bitterly opposed politically to the President, may be regarded as
an indication that even then it was thought necessary by a Congress
determined upon the subjugation of the Executive to legislative will to
furnish itself a law for that purpose, instead of attempting to reach
the object intended by an invocation of any pretended constitutional
right.

The law which thus found its way to our statute book was plain in its
terms, and its intent needed no avowal. If valid and now in operation,
it would justify the present course of the Senate and command the
obedience of the Executive to its demands. It may, however, be remarked
in passing that under this law the President had the privilege of
presenting to the body which assumed to review his executive acts his
reasons therefor, instead of being excluded from explanation or judged
by papers found in the Departments.

Two years after the law of 1867 was passed, and within less than
five weeks after the inauguration of a President in political accord
with both branches of Congress, the sections of the act regulating
suspensions from office during the recess of the Senate were entirely
repealed, and in their place were substituted provisions which, instead
of limiting the causes of suspension to misconduct, crime, disability,
or disqualification, expressly permitted such suspension by the
President "in his discretion," a