ponsible, while it is taken from him in relation to judicial
officers, for whose acts he is not responsible. In the Government from
which many of the fundamental principles of our system are derived the
head of the executive department originally had power to appoint and
remove at will all officers, executive and judicial. It was to take
the judges out of this general power of removal, and thus make them
independent of the Executive, that the tenure of their offices was
changed to good behavior. Nor is it conceivable why they are placed in
our Constitution upon a tenure different from that of all other officers
appointed by the Executive unless it be for the same purpose.

But if there were any just ground for doubt on the face of the
Constitution whether all executive officers are removable at the will of
the President, it is obviated by the cotemporaneous construction of the
instrument and the uniform practice under it.

The power of removal was a topic of solemn debate in the Congress of
1789 while organizing the administrative departments of the Government,
and it was finally decided that the President derived from the
Constitution the power of removal so far as it regards that department
for whose acts he is responsible. Although the debate covered the whole
ground, embracing the Treasury as well as all the other Executive
Departments, it arose on a motion to strike out of the bill to establish
a Department of Foreign Affairs, since called the Department of State,
a clause declaring the Secretary "to be removable from office by the
President of the United States." After that motion had been decided in
the negative it was perceived that these words did not convey the sense
of the House of Representatives in relation to the true source of
the power of removal. With the avowed object of preventing any future
inference that this power was exercised by the President in virtue of
a grant from Congress, when in fact that body considered it as derived
from the Constitution, the words which had been the subject of debate
were struck out, and in lieu thereof a clause was inserted in a
provision concerning the chief clerk of the Department, which declared
that "whenever the said principal officer shall be removed from office
by the President of the United States, or in any other case of vacancy,"
the chief clerk should during such vacancy have charge of the papers
of the office. This change having been made for the express pu