moval. Suppose it had been decided
in 1789, when the question was debated, that the President does not
possess the power of removal; will it be contended, that, in that case,
his right of interference with the acts and duties of executive officers
would be less than it now is? The reason of the thing would seem to be
the other way. If the President may remove an incumbent when he becomes
satisfied of his unfaithfulness and incapacity, there would appear to be
less necessity to give him also a right of control, than there would be
if he could not remove him.

We may try this question by supposing it to arise in a judicial
proceeding. If the Secretary of the Treasury were impeached for removing
the deposits, could he justify himself by saying that he did it by the
President's direction? If he could, then no executive officer could ever
be impeached who obeys the President; and the whole notion of making
such officers impeachable at all would be farcical. If he could not so
justify himself, (and all will allow he could not,) the reason can only
be that the act of removal is his own act; the power, a power confided
to him, for the just exercise of which the law looks to his discretion,
his honesty, and his direct responsibility.

Now, Sir, the President wishes the world to understand that he himself
decided on the question of the removal of the deposits; that he took the
whole responsibility of the measure upon himself; that he wished it to
be considered _his own act_; that he not only himself decided that the
thing should be done, but regulated its details also, and named the day
for carrying it into effect.

I have always entertained a very erroneous view of the partition of
powers, and of the true nature of official responsibility under our
Constitution, if this be not a plain case of the assumption of power.

The legislature had fixed a place, by law, for the keeping of the public
money. They had, at the same time and by the same law, created and
conferred a power of removal, to be exercised contingently. This power
they had vested in the Secretary, by express words. The law did not say
that the deposits should be made in the bank, unless the President
should order otherwise; but it did say that they should be made there,
unless the Secretary of the Treasury should order otherwise. I put it to
the plain sense and common candor of all men, whether the discretion
thus to be exercised over the subject was not the Secret