of the President's policy, comprehending the instant admission into Congress of loyal representatives from the States lately in rebellion.

"Secretary Harlan was rather reticent, and expressed no opinion.

Postmaster General Dennison was in favor of carrying out the restoration policy of the President, but expressed some doubts as to the precise time at which loyal representatives from the southern States should be admitted to seats in Congress.

"Attorney General Speed was not present at the meeting, being on a visit to his home in Kentucky. "The President was earnest in his opposition to the report of the committee, and declared himself against all conditions-precedent to the admission of loyal representatives from the southern States in the shape of amendments to the Constitution or the passage of laws. He insisted that under the Constitution no State could be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate, and that Senators and Representatives ought to be at once admitted into the respective Houses, as prescribed by law and the Constitution. He was for a rigid adherence to the Constitution as it is, and remarked that, having sustained ourselves under it during a terrible rebellion, he thought that the Government could be restored without a resort to amendments. He remarked in general terms that if the organic law is to be changed at all, it should be at a time when all the States and all the people can participate in the alteration."

Now, Mr. President, if I understand the force of language, that is not the position that the President of the United States has hitherto occupied. If I understand it-and perhaps the Senator from Connecticut can set me right if I am in error-the President of the United States now insists that these States shall be immediately represented; that they are entitled, under the Constitution of the United States, to immediate representation in the Senate and House of Representatives without any antecedent conditions, and the most of his Cabinet concur in that opinion. I suppose that this is the antagonist proposition that is put forth from the White House in opposition to the report of the committee of fifteen, commonly called the committee on reconstruction-the immediate unconditional admission, without any terms, without any conditions, of the representatives of those States and of the people of those States.

Mr. SUMNER obtained the floor.

Mr. DIXON. I ask the Senator to yield to me for a moment to reply to the Senator from Iowa.

Mr. SUMNER. Certainly.

Mr. DIXON. The Senator from Iowa intimated in his opening remarks that I had some peculiar knowledge or means of knowledge of the President's views. He spoke of the peculiar relations" in which I stand to the President. The Senator is entirely mistaken in regard to that. My relations to the President are precisely similar to those of the Senator himself. I have seen the President but once within the space of two months, and then for not over five minutes. I take his views from his written, published statements.

Mr. GRIMES. If the Senator will excuse me, the fact that the Senator's resolution was identical in spirit and almost in terms with the language attributed in the National Intelligencer of this morning to the President led me to infer

Mr. DIXON. If it is identical in spirit, then the Senator is mistaken in another point when he says that the President has now taken new views and new grounds. He says that the language attributed to the President in the

from which he has read, is identical in paper spirit with the resolution that I have offered. My resolution is taken from the President's veto message of the Freedmen's Bureau bill more than two months ago; so that the Senator will see that he is mistaken in supposing that there has been any change in the President's views, if mine are identical with his; and I do not suppose there has been any change. I do not suppose that the President has changed from the views contained in that resolution. I copied the resolution from the words of the Presidert contained in that veto message because I thought they were extremely well expressed and because they were my views.

Now, I desire to say with regard to this resolution of mine, that I have not offered it in consequence of any consultation with any human

being. I have not seen the President or any member of the Cabinet or any human being with regard to it. I read the article in the Evening Post, and it struck me as being true and as coming from a source entitling it to great weight and authority. I knew it would be respected by this body from the character of the writer. I thought it correct, and it was exactly in accordance with my sentiments.

I say this because it might possibly be supposed from what the Senator said that this resolution of mine has been offered in consequence of some consultation. Sir, I am in consultation with nobody. I attempt to act here as a Senator in accordance with my own views of right. I may be wrong; but I am under the lead of no master and no man. I care not what the President or anybody else thinks. If what he does and says is right, I support him; if they are wrong, I denounce him. That, I take it, is the position of every Senator. No man is worthy of being a Senator unless that is his position. I repeat that I have offered this resolution without consultation with anybody.

Now, a single word as to the President's views. I do not see that there is any very great contradiction. It cannot be supposed that the President will in every statement which he makes of his views express every single shade of idea that he may have heretofore expressed. He thinks that the southern States should be represented. How and by whom? Take all his language together, and it is by loyal men when they come here in an attitude of harmony and loyalty to the Government and are represented by loyal men. That is what my resolution says; that is what the President says, and I believe that is his view.

Mr. GRIMES. I did not intend to convey the idea that the Senator from Connecticut has a master; but I submit, after all he has said, that I was perfectly justified in saying that peculiar relations subsisted between him and the President, when he himself admits that he went, not only for the spirit, but for the identical language of his resolution, to the celebrated veto message of the President of the United States on the Freedmen's Bureau bill.

Mr. DIXON. It is no uncommon thing for a resolution to be offered in language taken from a message of the President of the United States. It is frequently done, and it is very proper, as it strikes me. In some remarks that I had the honor of making about two months ago in the Senate, I embodied that extract from the message of the President as the expression of my own views. I then said that I thought it was right, and I have now offered it in the form of a resolution.

Mr. SUMNER. When I rose a moment ago I intended to make a remark in reply to the Senator from Connecticut, but the question seems to have drifted out of sight. I will observe, however, that the question involved in his proposition is so important that I never regret

Mr. SHERMAN. I should like to know if the unfinished business does not come up at this time.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Chair was about to remark that the morning hour has expired, and it is the duty of the Chair to call up the unfinished business of yesterday.

Mr. SHERMAN. I have no objection to allowing the special order to pass over informally for a few moments to afford Senators an opportunity to make explanations on this subject.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The order of the day can only be laid aside by unanimous consent. No objection being made, it is laid aside informally.

Mr. SUMNER. I was about to say that the proposition involved in the resolution of the Senator from Connecticut is so important that it may be considered as perhaps always in order to discuss it. I do not know that we ought to pass a day without discussing it in some way. I certainly do not deprecate this discussion; but while I say that, I am very positive on another point: I should deprecate any effort now to precipitate a decision on that question;

and I most sincerely hope that the Senator from Maine, the chairman of the committee on reconstruction, who has this matter in charge, will bear that in mind. I do not believe that Congress at this moment is in a condition to give the country the best proposition on this important subject. I am afraid that that excellent committee has listened too much to voices from without, insisting that there must be an issue presented to the country. For myself, I have always thought that that call was premature. There is no occasion now for an issue to be presented to the country. There are no elections in any States. The election in Connecticut is over. The election in New Hampshire is over. There are to be no elections before next autumn. What is the occasion, then, for an issue to be presented to the country? I see none, unless Congress, after a most careful and mature discussion of the whole subject, is able to present an issue on which we can all honestly and as one phalanx go forward to battle.

I do not intend to be drawn into a premature discussion of the issue presented by the report of the committee on reconstruction. I merely speak now to the question of time. I am sure that that report could not have been made in the last week of March. I am equally sure that if the committee had postponed their report until the last week of May they would have made a better one than they have made in the last week of April. I hope, therefore, following out that idea, that all decision of this question will be postponed as long as possible, to the end that all just influences may come to Congress from the country, and that Congress itself may be inspired by the fullest and amplest consideration of the whole question.

Why, sir, there is the evidence which has been laid before this committee. We have not yet seen it together. That evidence ought to be together; it ought to be laid before the whole country; and we ought to have returning to us from the country the just influence which the circulation of that evidence is calculated to cause. I am sure that wherever that evidence is read the people will say Congress is justified in insisting upon security for the future. To that end, I take it, the evidence was taken, and I hope that Congress will not act until we get the natural and legitimate influences from that evidence.

But, sir, allow me to say, by way of comment on the proposition of the Senator from Connecticut, that it seems to me my excellent friend, when he brought forward his proposi tion, forgot two things.

Mr. DIXON. Probably more than that. Mr. SUMNER. He says probably more than that; but the two things he forgot were so great, so essential, that to forget them was to forget everything. In the first place, he forgot that we had been in a war; and in the seeond place, he forgot that four million human beings had been changed from a condition of slavery to freedom. Those two great ruling facts my excellent friend forgot, evidently, when he drew up his proposition. He forgot that we had been in a war, because he fails to make any provision for that security which common sense and common prudence, the law of nations, and every instinet of the human heart require should be made. He provides no guarantee. Sir, the essential thing, at this moment, is a guarantee. The Senator abandons that; but it is because he forgets that we have been in a war. If I, like the Senator from Connecticut, could forget this terrible war, with all the blood and treasure that it has cost us, I, too, could forget the guarantees; but as that war is always in my mind, the Senator will pardon me if I insist that we shall have guar

a vacancy exists, the Constitution makes it the bounden duty of the President to fill it or to see that it is filled. If the Senate be not in session he must fill it himself. If the Senate is in session, he must nominate and enable the Senate to fill it. If, therefore, it be the settled construction of the Constitution that the President may remove officers at his pleasure, then a vacancy legally, regularly occurs, and when that vacancy is filled it is the duty of the Legislature to appropriate the money necessary to pay the salary.

I hold, Mr. President, that this amendment is one of the most important, if not the most important, proposition that I have been called to vote upon since I have had the honor of a seat on this floor. It is nothing less than whether a hundred millions of money is to be placed in the hands of the President of the United States, and always kept there, to be used in propagating political opinions with the people of the United States. I never saw an opinion, I never heard of a political opinion that I would be willing to propagate at that expense. I think if we confine this missionary work to the proper organs, all political opinions which are proper to be inculcated upon the American people may be inculcated at a much less expense.

I will not vote for this amendment; I will not vote for any other proposition which is calculated either to restrict the powers which the Constitution confers upon the President or which are calculated to embarrass him in the exercise of those powers; and I say once more, if the Constitution does delegate to the President of the United States the right or the power to make these removals, it is our duty to acquiesce in that construction, to recognize the vacancies thus created, to cooperate cheerfully with the President in filling them, and appropriate regularly and annually the money necessary to pay the officers thus appointed; but I say that that power never was given to the President by the Constitution and never ought to be vested in him by the Constitution.

This question has been treated as if all the officers whose duty it is to collect the customs, whose duty it is to collect the internal revenue, whose duty it is to act as marshals and deputy marshals of the several districts, all these subordinate officers were the mere assistants, aids, waiters, personal attendants upon the President to help him discharge his duties, and as though he were individually and officially responsible for all their acts.

I controvert both those propositions. There is not one of these officers, from the collector of customs to the deputy marshals, but what || is a minister of the law. Almost every one of these offices has been created by law, by the enactment of Congress, to perform some duty which Congress thought ought to be discharged. There is no manner of truth or propriety in saying that they are the agents or the aids of the President of the United States. They are simply the agents or ministers of the people of the United States, called to do their work, commissioned to serve their interests. And I deny that the President of the United States is responsible for their conduct or misconduct. Nobody ever urged, nobody ever thought of intimating, no one ever thought of holding the head of one of your Executive Departments responsible for the conduct or misconduct of those employés working under his immediate

eye.

When there have been defalcations, peculations, or other acts of misconduct, who ever thought of holding the Secretary of War, the Secretary of the Treasury, or any one of the heads of the Executive Departments responsible for such misconduct or for any misconduct of subordinates? Each one of those officers has an official duty to discharge, and each one of them, whether he be the head of a Department or a clerk in it, has his duties prescribed by law, not always to be found in the statute, but the authority is found in the statute for directing him in the discharge of his duties. When he discharges them he receives the credit of fidelity. When he fails to discharge those

duties he ought to receive the punishment due to infidelity. I am not sure that he always does.

Mr. President, the light to be gathered from the language of the Constitution is in a small compass and it seems to me is conclusive. The Constitution says that the President

"Shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate shall appoint, embassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by law; but the Congress may by law vest the appointment of such inferior officers as they think proper in the President alone, in the courts of law, or in the heads of Departments."

What possible ideas could the makers of this Constitution have had in their heads when they used this language, if they did intend that after all the President should have the right to remove all these appointees when he pleased to do so? Why require the concurrence of the Senate in the appointment of a postmaster if the moment the Senate adjourns the President can create a vacancy in that office, which he fills himself, independent of the Senate? That interpretation of the Constitution would give us the services of postmasters and other officers for about twenty-four hours in the year. On the last day of the session of this body the President might send us the names of those officers whom he wanted confirmed. That complies with the clause of the Constitution which says he shall nominate. He has discharged that duty. Then we confirm or we reject as we see fit. Suppose we confirm under those circumstances? He would surely send us men unobjectionable to the Senate, however objectionable they might be to him, and why? Because we adjourn to-morrow, and as soon as we have adjourned he has nothing to do but quietly displace the officer and then there is a vacancy, and that vacancy the Constitution expressly tells him to fill himself by a commission emanating from himself. This provision, requiring the concurrence of the Senate to any of these appointments, you see, if that is the interpretation of the power of removal, is the idlest thing in the world.

not restricted by supreme law, he said, and I agree, is an incident to the power of appointment. The power of appointment being unlimited, the making of one appointment to-day is not of itself a reason why another should not be made to-morrow. It has not exhausted the power; that power still continues in the same tribunal; and if he make another to-morrow it is a vacation of the one made to-day, because two officers cannot occupy the same office any more than two bodies can occupy the same space. The right of the President and the Senate to remove does follow, in the estima tion of the Senator from Maryland, as in my own, as an incident to the power of appointment; but how does the President get it? Where does he get the power to remove officers whom he does not appoint, whom he cannot appoint, but who can only be appointed by the concurrent act of the President and the Senate? The Constitution is silent; it does not follow as an incident of the appointing power, because he has not the appointing power; it no more follows as an incident that the President can remove a man appointed by the President and Senate than it follows that he can remove an officer appointed by the Supreme Court here-its clerk, for instance. Where does it come from? Nay, the Constitution is not absolutely silent upon the power of removal, for the Constitution does declare that "the President, Vice President, and all civil officers of the United States shall be removed from office on impeachment for and conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors." These terms cover every officer in the civil service of the United States. There is a method by which they may be removed-the power of impeachment.

The idea that is urged here by the Senator from Maryland, and has been urged by others,

You must not tie up the hands of the Presi dent; if you mean to have an efficient and honest discharge of the public service, you must give him the right to remove faithless officers'-this idea was not out of the minds of those men who made this Constitution; but they never thought of saying that the President might remove at will, and upon his own judg ment, any man whom he deemed to be faithless or whom he deemed to be unsatisfactory. No; they said, "Here is a trial; they may be removed for these offenses, upon trial and conviction before the Senate of the United States," that being the only tribunal that can try an impeachment. I am not about to say that this right of removal through the process of impeachment, inasmuch as it is expressly given, is given to the exclusion of all other means; do not mean to say that the law-making power cannot vest in the President of the United States or elsewhere the right to make removals for causes which are not matters of impeachment; but I do say, just here, that in my judg ment, the men who made this Constitution understood an office to be something very dif ferent from what it has been treated in this debate, and very different from what it has been understood to be in the estimation of American politics for at least the last thirty years. An office was understood by them to be an estate, to be conferred upon men only because they were worthy and capable of serv

But if this power to remove officers is at all necessary, or was thought to be necessary to be vested in the President in order to secure the efficiency of the public service, why did the makers of the Constitution say to Congress in so many words, "You may take from the President the appointment of just as many of these subordinate officers as you please?" It does say "Congress may by law vest the appointment of such inferior officers as they think proper"-we are the judge of what are inferior officers where they are not prescribed in the Constitution "in the President alone, in the courts of law, or in the heads of Departments." Every one of these subordinate officers the President may by act of Congress be deprived of all control over, and the appointment may be vested in your courts or in the heads of the Departments. Why did the framers of the Constitution give this power to Congress if they deemed it essential that the President should have a continuing, supervising control over these officers? It is evident to my mind that such an idea never entered the head of any member of that Convention. Nota word is said of the President's power to remove anybody. The Sena-ing the public, and to be taken from men only tor from Maryland reminds us that not a word is said of the right of the President with the concurrence of the Senate to remove anybody. That is true; but I understood him to admit that the President with the concurrence of the Senate would have the right to remove any officer appointed by the President with the concurrence of the Senate.

Mr. JOHNSON. What I intended to say, and what I supposed I did say, was that the nomination by the President and confirmation by the Senate of an officer would necessarily act upon and remove the previous incumbent; as both cannot be in the same office, the incumbent must go out.

Mr. HOWE. I understood the Senator correctly, I think. The power of removal, when

because they ceased to be worthy and capable; and the question whether they had so ceased or not they never dreamed was to be deter mined by any mere political agency actuated by mere political feeling,

Let me say a few words now upon the matter of authority, for this question is not a new one-it has been debated over and over again. It came under debate, as we learn, in 1789 for the first time. The Senator from Maryland objected to this amendment because it covered all officers, including, as he says, members of the Cabinet as well as others, and because it never was, as I understood him to say, imagined by any statesman, in the early days of the Republic, that a member of the Cabinet could hold office a day or an hour against the

will of the President; that he was intended to be the confidential friend and adviser of the President, to be in his confidence; that he must have his confidence, and nobody imagined that one could hold that office who was not in every way entirely satisfactory to the President. In answer to that idea I have to remind the Senate that the very first debate which arose in the history of our Government upon this power of removal arose in 1789, on the passage of an act creating an Executive Department, to be known as the Department of Foreign Affairs.

Mr. JOHNSON. My friend will permit me to interrupt him for a moment. That is true; but the objection to the particular bill to which the honorable member refers was that in the preamble it assumed that the general power of removal was in the President, not that he would not have the right to change his Cabinet officers.

Mr. HOWE. I shall not reproduce the debate. There was a bill pending before the Congress of the United States to create the Department of Foreign Affairs, now the Department of State. That proposed to make the head of the Department removable at the pleasure of the President. That was supposed to raise the question of the President's power to remove officers, and it led to a lengthy debate in the Administration of General Washington, the first President of the United States. The decision was that the bill should pass, notwithstanding those terms. The argument which supported the bill did insist upon the right of the President to remove officers generally, and that the power of removal was in the President. But, sir, after all, I think any one who reads that debate, I think it has been the judgment of American statesmen generally since I am not about to sum up their opinions, but I think it is the judgment of American statesmen who have considered the subject since the date of that debate-that the weight of the argument, that the reason of the thing, was on the side of those who denied this right of removal; and we cannot fail to know that the mere circumstance that the executive office was then in the hands of General Washington must have influenced the result of that debate very materially. I do not know that the first President laid claim to any such power; but we all know that it was not the habit of the American people at that time to wait for him to lay claim to honors or to powers. They thrust honors upon him; and if he had laid claim to the shirt of every one of the men who voted to concede him this power of removal, I do not doubt that every one of them would have stamped Washington's name on their garinents in a moment. They were not in a mood to deny anything that he asked for himself, or that was asked in his behalf. That was the decision, though made at that time and upon that bill to create the Department of State. Since that the subject has been under debate. In 1820 an act was passed entitled "An act to limit the term of office of certain officers therein named, and for other purposes;" the first section of which is in these words:

"Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That from and after the passing of this act all district attorneys, collectors of the customs, naval officers, and surveyors of the customs, naval agents, receivers of public moneys for lands, registers of the land offices, paymasters in the Army, the apothecary general, the assistant apothecaries general, and the commissary general of purchases, to be appointed under the laws of the United States, shall be appointed for the term of four years, but shall be removable from office at pleasure.'

That is the first section of the act, and it is all I care to read. Why did the Congress of the United States attempt to fix the tenure of these officers? Clearly because they thought they had the power to do it. Why did they, in the same act, confer upon the President the right to remove these officers, any of them, during this term? Clearly because they thought the President ought to have the right and had it not. There can be no plainer declaration of the opinion of Congress that the Constitution 39TH CONG. 1ST SESS.-No. 147.

does not confer this right upon the President than this attempt of theirs to give it to him; and here it is, in so many words. This act passed, it seems, without attracting any debate, without any controversy; but it was not acquiesced in for a long time without controversy. In 1835 an attempt was made to repeal the first section of the act, and the second section, which I did not read; and a bill was introduced into the Senate of the United States for that purpose. It was subjected to a debate, and a pretty thorough debate, which I do not propose to read even an extract from; but I must call the attention of the Senate to the vote upon the passage of that bill. It was a bill to repeal this section of the act of 1820, which conferred upon the President of the United States the right to remove these officers during the continuance of their term; and upon the passage of that bill the yeas were-Messrs. Bell, Benton, Bibb, Black, Calhoun, Clay, Clayton, Ewing, Frelinghuysen, Goldsborough, Kent, King of Georgia, Leigh, McKean, Mangun, Moore, Naudain, Poindexter, Porter, Prentiss, Preston, Robbins, Silsbee, Smith, Southard, Swift, Tomlinson, Tyler, Wagerman, Webster, and White31, including, is it too much to say, not merely the ablest men of that time, but some who have been ranked among the ablest of any time, either in this country or elsewhere. In the negative are recorded the names of Messrs. Brown, Buchanan, Cuthbert, Hendricks, Hill, Kane, King of Alabama, Knight, Linn, Morris, Robinson, Ruggles, Shepley, Tallmadge, Tipton, and Wright-16. The vote is almost two to one in number, denying this right of removal to the President, and in weight of character, force of intellect, ability to comprehend-I was going to say something strong, but I am admonished by a look of my friend over the way, [Mr. MORRILL,] and I will simply say quite two to one.

Mr. President, in the face of such a vote as that so recent as 1835, had, with full review of the debate in 1789, which it is asserted here settled the whole question, I do not think it is fair or safe to say that this right in the President is a matter of fixed and established construction. Being firmly convinced myself that the Constitution does not confer any such power upon the President, that it was never meant to confer any such power upon the President, that it is a power which he does not need, which he ought not to have, and which no one man can be intrusted with with safety to the public service, I have watched this debate and I shall look for the vote upon the amendment with as much interest as I have attended upon any debate which has taken place and any vote which has been given in this Chamber. I concede the right of the Legislature to vest this power in the President if they see fit, but I want the Legislature to understand that if hereafter he exercises the power it is not his fault; it is the fault of the Legislature. He will exercise it if you permit him, beyond all question. I would if I were in his place. How he will employ it, to what end he will employ it, it is not for me to say, not for us to anticipate. If you want the President to be clothed with this power, and to have the disbursement of these millions, say so; take the consequences; be manly about it; but do not let us refuse to pay an officer that we authorize him to appoint.

But we are asked, what good will it do us to pass this amendment? What is the object? What is the inducement? I will tell you one good that will come of it, I think. I find in a recent paper a dispatch like this sent out from this city:

"Within a few days past a great change is noticeable in the matter of executive appointments. The President seems to have realized that longer forbearance with the enemies of his Administration and its measures was working rank injustice to his friends, and to have realized the potency of the old party maxim, that 'to the victors belong the spoils.' As a consequence, the radicals who mustered effrontery enough to call upon the President and solicit appointments for their friends, received little reward for their labors, and were treated to a plain exposition of his intentions for the future. They were told in language decisive and unmistakable, that his

friends should have the preference, and that no known enemy of the Administration policy should receive the quasi indorsement of a Federal appointment. In addition to this, the ax has actually been set to work, and decapitations are now of daily occurrence. Its effects are already visible in the altered and respectful deportment of more than one radical opponent in both branches of Congress."

Thank God, I am no radical! It does not. refer to me.

"Heretofore, when the President's Private Secretary was sent to the Capitol on official business, he was received with a haughty frigidity that was absolutely insulting. Within a few days all have become anxious to do him reverence. He is met with the blandest of smiles, and surrounded by crowds who protest against any rupture of the friendly relations that should exist between the President and Congress, and who vie with each other in bestowing attentions, uttering pretty speeches, and deprecating the idea that they are or ever were in hostility No to the Executive. But the work will go on. one will be deceived by hollow pretenses, Those office-holders who have abused their positions to vilify the President and disrupt the Republican party will be made to give way to better men. The bare manifestation of this resolve has already half accomplished its purpose.'

So it is written. What good will it do to adopt this amendment? it is asked. Why, sir, it will satisfy the country that this work is only half done; at least that we are not more than half subdued to what is called the President's policy; that something remains yet to be done. it will do something to convince the country that there is a little of the spirit which should imbue an American Congress left still here in these Houses, which are daily visited by the. polite, as I am glad to learn we habitually are, messenger from the President; that although we are not entirely subservient and obsequious, nor slavish. It will do something to satisfy the yielding up with a most prodigal hand to meet country that the revenues which the people are the demands, and the just demands, of the nation, are appropriated in accordance with the best interests of the people, and to promote the great ends which induced them to yield them.

Mr. President, there is a feature in this dispatch that I think demands especial notice. We are informed in it that

"The President seems to have realized that longer forbearance with the enemies of his Administration and its measures was working rank injustice to his friends, and to have realized the potency of the old party maxim, that' to the victors belong the spoils.""

We are subsequently told that the ax is in motion. The ax is in motion for what? To hew down and appropriate the spoils to the victors? Who are those victors that are gathering in the spoils, and when and where did they achieve their victory? These questions ought to be answered. I cannot answer them. I know of no victory that the President of the United States has achieved since 1864, when the loyal hearts and the loyal hands of the United States elevated him to the second office in the gift of the American people. If he has achieved a victory since then I have omitted to read of it in the papers, and I have not been informed of it in any way. Who were those victors that achieved that victory? I had a slight hand in it myself, and all my heart was in it. I thought I was triumphant, and that the nation was, when the choice fell on Andrew Johnson instead of Mr. George H. Pendleton of Ohio. When and how was this victory, which I thought I could safely hug to myself, changed into a defeat? I have not changed it, nor consented to the change of it, nor have I appointed the time when I shall consent to the change of it. If spoils belong to the victors, I really submit that to the Union party, who have achieved all the victories that have been achieved at all, whether in the forum or on the field, since 1860, ought to have some share in these spoils.

I think, Mr. President, much good, great good every way, will come of the adoption of this amendment. You will improve the character of the public service. The great, the leading, the most delicate trusts which your different statutes have created to be executed by these officers will then be in honorable and honest and brave hands, and they will feel that they are secure in the possession of those Refuse this and you will see every

trusts.