And now, as Senators, we are exhorted to find him guiltless in violating a law which we have often declared constitutional and valid, upon the subterfuge, the afterthought of the criminal, the excuse of a law-breaker caught in the act, the plea born of fear and the terrors of impeachment, and shown by the record made by his own hands to be utterly false. For one I cannot be so false to conviction, so regardless of fact, so indifferent to consistency, so blind to evidence, so lenient to crime, so reckless of my oath and of my country's peace.

Ours is a land of law. The principle of submission to the authority of law is canonized in the hearts of the American people as a sacred thing. There are none too high to be above its penalties, none too low to be beyond its protection. It is a shield to the weak, a restraint to the strong, and is the foundation of civil order and peace. When the day comes that the laws may be violated with impunity by either high or low all is lost. A pall of darkness will shut us in with anarchy, violence, and blood as our portion, and I fear the sun of peace and liberty will never more illumine our nation's path. The nation looks for a most careful observance of the law by the highest officer known to the law, because he has an "oath registered in Heaven" that he "will take care that the laws shall be faithfully executed." If the President of the United States, who should be the high exemplar to all the people, shall violate his oath with impunity, at his mere pleasure dispense with or disregard or violate the law, why may not all do the same? Why not at once sweep away the Constitution and laws, and level to the earth our temples of liberty and justice; resolve society into its original elements, where brute force, not right, shall rule, and chaos, anarchy, and lawless violence dominate the land?

The Constitution and the laws passed in pursuance thereof are the supreme law of the land." The President admits in his answer and in his defense that he acted in violation of the provisions of a statute, and his strange and startling defense is that he may suspend the operation of a law; that is to say, in plain terms, violate it at his pleasure, if, in his opinion, the law is unconstitutional; "that being unconstitutional it is void, and that penalties do not attach to its violation."

Mr. President. I utterly deny that the Pres ident has any such right. His duties are ministerial, and in no sense judicial. It is not his prerogative to exercise judicial powers. He must execute the laws, even though the Legislature may pass acts which in his opinion are unconstitutional. His duty is to study the law, not with the purpose to set it aside, but that he may obey its injunctions strictly. Can a sheriff, sworn to execute the laws, refuse to hang a convicted murderer because, in his judgment, the law under which the criminal has been tried is unconstitutional? He has no remedy but to execute the law in manner and form as prescribed, or resign to a successor who will do so.

I quote from the Constitution to show how laws become such, and that when certain prescribed forms are complied with the require ments of a law must be observed by all as long as it remains on the statute-book unrepealed by the Congress which made it, or is declared of no validity by the Supreme Court, it of course having jurisdiction upon a case stated:

"Every bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate shall, before it becomes a law, be presented to the President of the United States; if he approve, he shall sign it, but if not, he shall return it with his objections to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the objections at large on their Journal and proceed to reconsider it. If, after such reconsideration, two thirds of that House shall agree to pass the bill, it shall be sent, together with the objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two thirds of that House it shall become a law."

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"If any bill shall not be returned by the President within ten days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the same shall be a law in like manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their adjournment prevent its return, in which case it shall not be a law."

Every bill which has passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, and been ap proved by the President, "shall become a law." If not approved by him, and it is again passed by two thirds of each House, it shall become a law; " and if he retains it more than ten days, whether he approve or disapprove, it shall still become a law." 66 No matter how pertinent may be his objections in his veto message; no matter with how much learning or law he may clothe his argument; no matter how vividly he may portray the evil which may result from its execution, or how flagrantly it may, in his view, conflict with the Constitution, yet if it is passed over his veto by two thirds of the Senate and House of Representatives his power ceases and his duties are at an end, and it becomes a law, and he is bound by his oath to execute it and leave the responsibility where it belongs, with the law-makers, who must answer to the people. If he then refuses to execute it, what is this but simple resistance, sedition, usurpation, and, if persisted in, revolution? Is it in his discretion to say it is not a law when the Constitution says, in the plain English vernacular, it is a law? Yes, Mr. President, it is a law to him and to all the people, to be obeyed and enforced throughout all the land.

It is a plain provision of the Constitution "that all legislative power granted by this Constitution shall be vested in a Congress, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives." The President is no part of this legislative power. His veto message is merely suggestive, and if his reasons are deemed insufficient he is overruled, and the bill becomes a law in like manner" as if he had approved it. The doctrine contended for by the Presi dent is monstrous, and if admitted is the end of all free government. It presents the question whether the people of the United States are to make their own laws through their Representatives in Congress, or whether all the powers of the Government, executive, legis lative, and judicial, are to be lodged in a single hand? He has the executive power, and is Commander-in-Chief of the Army and the Navy. Now, if it is his province to judicially interpret and decide for himself what laws are constitutional and of binding validity upon him, then he has the judicial power, and there is no use for a Supreme Court; and, if having decided a law, in his opinion, to be unconstitutional, he may of his own will and sovereign pleasure set aside, dispense with, repeal, and violate a law which has passed over his veto, then he has the legislative power, and Congress is a myth, worse than "an excrescence hanging on the verge of the Government." Thus the purse and the sword, and all the powers which we heretofore considered so nicely balanced between the various Departments of the Government, are transferred to a single person, and the Government is as essentially a monarchy or a despotism as it would be if the Constitution and Congress were obliterated and the whole power lodged in the hands of the President. When such

questions as these are involved shall we wonder that the pulse of the popular heart of this nation beats and heaves with terrible anxiety as we near the final judgment on this great trial, in which the life of the nation hangs trembling in the scale, as much so as when it was struggling for existence in the perilous hours of the war through which it has recently passed. Am I, as a Senator and one of this high court of impeachment, called upon to register, not that the Constitution and the laws shall be the supreme law, but that the will of one man shall be the law of the land?

Let us look at another point in the defense. The President says he violated the law in removing Stanton for the purpose of making a case before the Supreme Court, and thus procuring a decision upon the constitutionality of the law. That is, he broke the law in order to bring the judiciary to his aid in resisting the will of the people. I would here commend to his careful attention the opinion of Attorney

General Black, his whilom constitutional adviser. He says, in 1860:

"But his [the President's] power is to be used only in the manner prescribed by the legislative department. He cannot accomplish a legal purpose by illegal means, or break the laws himself to prevent them from being violated by others."-9 Opinions Attorneys General, 516.

It is to be regretted that considerations of great gravity prevented the President from appearing here by counsel thus committed to a view of the extent of executive authority at once so just and so acceptable to the candid patriot.

Inasmuch as it has already been shown that good intentions do not justify the violation of known law, I am unable to see the propriety of stopping the wheels of Government and holding in abeyance the rights of many individuals, and paralyzing the usefulness of our Army, until the President sees fit to proceed through all the formalities and tedious delays of the Supreme Court, or any other court. If the President can do this, why may not any and all parties refuse compliance with the requirements of inconvenient laws upon the same plea? To oppose such a view with argument is to dignify an absurdity.

One other point of the defeuse I wish to notice before closing. It is argued at length that an offense charged before a court of impeachment must be an indietable one, or else the respondent must have a verdict of acquittal. Then why provide for impeachment at all? Why did not the Constitution leave the whole matter to a grand jury and the criminal courts? Nothing can be added to the arguments and citations of precedents by the honorable Managers on this point, and those most learned in the law cannot strengthen that view which is obvious to the most cursory student of the Constitution, namely, that impeachment is a form of trial provided for cases which may lack as well as those which do contain the features of indictable crime. Corresponding to the equity side of a civil court, it provides for the trial and punishment not only of indictable offenses, but of those not technically described in rules of criminal procedure. The absurdity of the respondent's plea is the more manifest in this case, because, not the Supreme Court, but the Senate of the United States is the only tribunal to try impeachments, and the President's vision should rather have been directed to what the Senate, sitting as a court of impeachment, would decide, than to have been anticipating what some future decision of a court having no jurisdiction in the case might be.

Impeachable misdemeanors partake of the nature of both political and criminal offenses. Hence the Constitution has wisely conferred upon the people, through their Representatives in Congress, the right and duty to become the prosecutors of great offenders for violations of laws and crimes tending to the destruction of social order and the overthrow of government, and has devolved the trial of such cases upon the Senate, composed of men supposed to be competent judges of law and facts, and who are allowed larger latitude of rulings than pertains to courts. With this view I have tried to weigh impartially the testimony in this case. I would not wrong the respondent, nor do I wish harm to come to the institutions of this land by his usurpations. I also desire to be consistent with myself so far as I may justly do so. I voted, not in haste, but deliberately, that the action of the President in removing or attempting to remove Stanton was unconsti tutional and in violation of law.

Is it possible that there is some newly-discovered "quirk" in the law, not understood on the 24th of February last, which renders Johnson's act less criminal than it then appeared? Did not Senators believe the act of March 2, 1867, constitutional when they voted for it? After the President had arrayed all conceivable objections against it in his veto, did not two thirds of this and of the other House still vote it constitutional and a valid law? Did they not by solemn resolution declare that the President had violated it

The question relative to the Secretary of the Interior to be settled, would be: How long will his commission run? while the answer would be, just one month after the termination of the term of Mr. Johnson, by whom he was, by the advice and consent of the Senate, appointed. So his term would expire on the 4th day of April, 1869, which would be the end of one month after the expiration of Mr. Johnson's term, in case he filled the full unexpired term of Mr. Lincoln. He being in office on the 2d of March, 1867, under a commission which was a precise copy of Mr. Stan- | ton's, I would look forward, not backward, to find the period of time when the law would put an end to his term of office, unless sooner removed by and with the advice and consent of the Senate.

To find the limit of Mr. Stanton's term I would look forward also, and as he is serving with the Secretary of the Interior, upon the same term, and under the same identical commission, I would declare him liable to removal by force of law, just as soon as one month shall have passed after the expiration of the term, which is being served out alike by himself and the Secretary of the Interior.

To the objection that the Secretary of the Interior was appointed by Mr. Johnson, and is serving out his term, while Mr. Stanton was appointed by Mr. Lincoln, whose term had expired nearly two years before the date of the act limiting terms, I reply that the terms of these Secretaries are one and the same, and there is no period of time subsequent to the date of the act at which one Secretary shall retire in advance of another.

In regard to Mr. Stanton's term having expired according to the limitations of this law, one month after the death of Mr. Lincoln, Í || deny the proposition: first, because the law was not in existence until about two years subsequent to that event. Second, because it could not, on the 2d day of March, 1867, act back and produce a vacancy in an office already filled, every act of which has been regarded valid by every branch of the Government. Third, because Mr. Stanton has been in office ever since the date of the law, and is still performing the functions of Secretary of War. As Mr. Johnson received from Mr. Lincoln the War Office with its Secretary, just as he received each one of the other Departments of Government with its Secretary, each and all of them with subsequent appointments must be regarded as of his own appointment, for all purposes of the civil-tenure act; and as it is impossible to remove a portion in the past and the balance in the future, they must all share the same fate and be subject to the same limitations.

be regarded in the light of one of his original appointments and retire accordingly.

By every reasonable rule of construction it seems perfectly plain that Mr. Stanton has not been removed by force of the civil-tenure act, and consequently is entitled to its protection, which was accorded to him by the Senate when they restored him from suspension by their vote of January 13, 1868. Having attempted to accomplish that, independent of the Senate, which he failed to secure when admitting the constitutionality of the act by yielding to its provision for suspensions, the President has certainly been guilty, as charged in the first article, of a "high misdemeanor in office."

The plea which he makes in his answer, that he does not believe the act of March 2, 1867, constitutional, cannot avail him, since, when Congress passed the act and laid it before him for his signature, he having vetoed it, it was then passed over the veto by three fourths of each branch of Congress-the provision of the Constitution being that a bill passed by two thirds of each House over the President's veto "shall become a law." Having thus become a law, he had no discretion but to enforce it as such; and by disregarding it merited all the penalties thus incurred.

He is not to be shielded behind the opinions of his Cabinet, although they may have advised him to disregard the law, since their only business is to enforce and obey the laws governing their several Departments, and neither to claim or exercise judicial functions.

The plea of innocent intentions is certainly not to vindicate him for having violated a law, for every criminal would be able to plead justifiable motives in extenuation of punishment, till every law was broken and every barrier of safety swept aside.

The strongest possible case that can be stated would be that of a Senator who might have declared his belief of the unconstitutionality of the act of March 2, 1867, before its passage over the veto, and now being called upon to decide upon the right of the President to disregard the provisions of this same act. I hold that he would be bound by his oath of office to demand of the President obedience to its provisions until such time as it should be repealed by Congress or annulled by the decision of a court of competent jurisdiction. The President must take care that the laws are faithfully executed.

It is very astonishing that the President should deny that Mr. Stanton is protected in office by the civil-tenure act, after having suspended him from office under that act on the 12th of August, 1867, and having reported him to the Senate under the same act as being legally suspended, and having, under a special provision of the same act, notified the Secre tary of the Treasury of his action in the premises; for unless he was legally Secretary of War he was not subject to such suspension.

It has been argued that as Mr. Stanton has continued to occupy the War Office, and the removal has not been entirely completed, the penalty for removal cannot attach; but Mr. Johnson receives General Thomas as Secretary of War at his Cabinet meetings, thus affirming his belief that Thomas is entitled to be accredited as such. It should be remembered, in this connection, that it is a high misdemeanor to attempt to do an act which is a misdemeanor. The removal of Mr. Stanton against law would be a high misdemeanor, and a persistent effort in that direction, issuing orders, withdrawing association from him, and accrediting another, does, in my opinion, constitute a high misdemeanor.

By article two he stands charged, during the session of the Senate, with having issued a letter of authority to Lorenzo Thomas, author

exercise the functions of Secretary of the Department of War, without the advice and consent of the Senate, which is charged to have been in violation of the express letter of the Constitution and of the act of March 2, 1867.

Of his power to appoint the Constitution, article two, section two, says:

"He shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate shall appoint."

In this case he claimed a vacancy to which he might appoint independent of the Senate, while the Constitution affirms that the President shall have power to fill up all vacancies that may happen during "the recess of the Senate," not during the session of the Senate.

It is only necessary to quote the charge, the text of the Constitution, and his own admission in his answer, that he did issue and deliver the writing as set forth in said second article, in order to establish the commission

of an unconstitutional act." But the language of the act of March 2, 1867, is equally explicit. It affirms in section six

"That every removal, appointment, or employment made, had or exercised contrary to the provisions of this act, and the making, signing, sealing, countersigning, or issuing of any commission or letter of authority for or in respect to any such appointment or employment, shall be deemed, and are hereby declared to be, misdemeanors; and upon trial and conviction thereof every person guilty thereof shall be punished by a fine not exceeding $10,000, or by imprisonment not exceeding five years, or both said punishments, in the discretion of the court."

If Mr. Stanton was protected by the first clause of section one, the issuing of the letter to Thomas drew upon the author the penalty; but if he was covered by the proviso, the va eancy had not happened and the consequence was the same. And if the President, during session of the Senate, can remove one officer and appoint ad interim, so he may remove any or all, and thus usurp Departments and offices, while the people seek in vain for the restraining and supervising power of a prostrate and insulted tribunal.

The first article, affirming the illegal removal of Secretary Stanton; the second, charging the illegal issue of the letter of authority to Thomas, and the third, affirming the ad interim appointment of General Thomas, admitted as facts and established by evidence, are the foundations of the whole impeachment superstructure.

The fourth, relative to an unlawful conspiracy with respect to intimidating the Secretary of War; the fifth, affirming a combination to prevent the execution of a law; the sixth, charging a conspiracy to seize and possess the property of the War Department in violation of an act of 1861; the seventh, charging a like intent in violation of an act of 1867; and the eighth, charging the appointment of Thomas with intent to control the disbursements of the War Department, are all more or less incidental acts, springing from or tending to the same criminal foundation charges, and may or may not be considered established without affecting the original articles. If, however, the first three are not sustained, these will not be likely to receive more than a passing notice.

The ninth article charges the President with having instructed General Emory that part of a law of the United States, which provides that "all orders and instructions relative to military operations issued by the President or Secretary of War shall be issued through the General of the Army, and, in case of his inability, through the next in rank," was unconstitutional and in contravention of the commission of said Emory, in order to induce him to violate the laws and military orders.

It appears that while General Emory was acting under a commission requiring him to observe and follow such orders and directions as he should receive from the President and other officers set over him by law, an order reached him embodying a section of law, which law had been previously approved by the President himself, but, as it provided that orders from the President and Secretary of War should be issued through the General of the Army, or next in rank, and the President being engaged to remove the Secretary of War and thwart the action of the Senate, in a discussion with General Emory, as to his duty as an officer, said, "This (meaning the order) is not in conformity with the Constitution of the United

the orders under a claim of legal right, and that General Thomas received them because, as a subordinate officer, he thought it was his duty. Such conduct does not define a conspiracy.

It only remains for me to consider the conduct of the President in issuing the order for the removal of Mr. Stanton from the office of Secretary of War, and the ad interim appointment of General Thomas. The force and effect of the ad interim appointment must depend upon the validity of the order for the removal of Mr. Stanton. If the removal did not in law take place upon the issue of the order, then, as Mr. Stanton did not surrender the office, the appointment did not clothe General Thomas with any authority-it was a blank, without legal force or meaning. If Mr. Stanton's commission did not become revoked, the appointment of General Thomas was of no more force or consequence than a second deed by the same grantor.

66

Had the President the authority to remove Mr. Stanton? According to the provisions of the act of August 7, 1789, creating the War Department and the terms of his commission, Mr. Stanton held the office "during the pleasure of the President of the United States for the time being." That act expressly recognized the power of the President to remove the Secretary of War at any time. It did not confer the power, but recognized it as already possessed, the provision being that "whenever the said principal officer (the Secretary) shall be removed from office by the President of the United States, and in any other case of vacancy," the chief clerk of the Department shall for the time being have charge of the records, books, &c. Under that law, Mr. Stanton received his commission from President Lincoln, January 15, 1862, to hold the said office, with all the powers, &c., during the pleasure of the President of the United States for the time being." Has that law been repealed or amended in that respect. The tenure-of-office act of March 2, 1867, has no repealing clause, and therefore repeals or modifies the act of 1789 only so far as the two acts cannot stand together. Mr. Stanton's term of office, as fixed by the law and his commission, was during the will of the President, and I think a proper construction of the first section of the tenure-of-office act leaves that unchanged. He was appointed during Mr. Lincoln's first term, which expired on the 4th of March, 1865, and therefore it is unnecessary to consider the question which has been discussed, whether Mr. Johnson is filling the office for Mr. Lincoln's unexpired term, or whether he has his own term of office; for it is quite certain that he is not in the term during which Mr. Stanton was appointed. The first and second terms of the presidential office for which Mr. Lincoln was elected were as distinct, under the Constitution, as if another had been elected in his stead for the second.

If the tenure of Mr. Stanton's office be changed by the tenure-of-office act it is by the proviso to the first section, and clearly the proviso has no such effect. The proviso is that the Cabinet officers "shall hold their offices respectively for and during the term of the President by whom they may have been appointed, and for one month thereafter." Not having been appointed during the existing presidential term, Mr. Stanton has no new term bestowed upon him, but he still holds, in the language of his commission, "during the pleasure of the President." This obvious construction of the language is strengthened by a consideration of the history of the tenure-of-office bill. It first passed the Senate in such form as expressly to exclude all Cabinet officers. In the House it was so amended as to include them. The Senate disagreed to that amendment. A committee of conference was the result of this disagreement between the two Houses. In this condition of the measure it will be observed that the Senate insisted that Cabinet officers should not be included at all,

and the House insisted that they should be included just as other officers are. The conference committee considered this question of disagreement and settled it upon the proposition, then supposed to be just, that each President shall have the selection of his own Cabinet officers, and shall not be required to continue the Secretaries of his predecessor. The Senate conceded that a President, having selected his own Cabinet, shall continue them during his term, and the House conceded that he shall not be required to continue the Cabinet of his predecessor, or any member thereof. Upon that adjustment the bill passed. This construction was then put upon the proviso in the Senate for when the bill came back from the committee with the proviso, as the com. promise between the two Houses, Mr. SHERMAN, of the committee, said:

"That this provision does not apply to the present case is shown by the fact that its language is so framed as not to apply to the present President. The Senator [Mr. DOOLITTLE] shows that himself, and argues truly that it would not prevent the present President from removing the Secretary of War, the Secretary of the Navy, and the Secretary of State."

This construction of the bill was then acquiesced in by the silence of the other members of the conference committee, and not disagreed to by any Senator; and thereupon the Senate agreed to its passage. And now, by adhering to that construction, we have just what the Senate then intended, what is plainly just and right-that the President shall select his own constitutional advisers-and what will promote the harmony and efficient action of the executive department, and we avoid a question of serious difficulty. If the act be so construed as to include Mr. Stanton's case, the constitutional question arises whether Congress can by law extend the term and change the tenure of an office after the appointment has been made with the consent of the Senate. Such construction would allow that after the appointing power under the Constitution had bestowed the office, the legislative department, having no power of appointment, might bestow an additional term upon the officer, and thus become an appointing power. It is gratifying that the language of the act, the history of its enactment, the legislative construction, the obvious intention of the Senate, and the highest interests of the public service all allow me to so construe the act as to avoid this grave question. Mr. Stanton's case not being within the tenureof office act, the power of the President to make the removal is beyond doubt; and the only question remaining is, did he have the power to make the appointment of General Thomas ad interim? There is great force in the opinion that has been expressed that the constitutional obligation upon the President to see that the laws be executed carries with it the power to use such agencies as may be clearly necessary in the absence of legislative provision. In that view it would appear that, in the case of a vacancy in an office and until it could be filled, in the case of sickness, absence from the post of duty, or other disability of an officer to discharge the duties, the President might designate some person to discharge them in the mean time, to the end that the laws might be executed and the public service suffer no harm. And this opinion seems to have, been entertained by our most eminent and revered Presidents, for they made very many such ad interim appointments without the pretense of legislative authority. But in the case now before this court we need not consider this question, for, in my judgment, the authority of the President to make the ad interim appointment, as well during the session as the recess of the Senate, is clearly established by law.

Section eight of the act of May 8, 1792, provides as follows:

"That in case of the death, absence from the seat of Government, or sickness of the Secretary of State, of Secretary of the Treasury, or of the Secretary of the War Department, or of any officer of either of the said Departments whose appointment is not in the head thereof, whereby they cannot perform the duties of their said respective offices, it shall be lawful for the President of the United States, in case he

It will be observed that this section authorized ad interim appointments only in three of the Departments, that is, in the Departments of State, Treasury, and War; and only in three cases, that is, the cases of death, absence from the seat of Government, and sickness of the head of the Department or other officer. It fails to provide for the temporary supply of the service of any vacancy occurring otherwise than by death. That omission was in part supplied by the act of February 13, 1795, but only as to the same three Departments. That

act is as follows:

"Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That in case of vacancy in the office of Secretary of State, Secretary of the Treasury, or of the Secretary of the Department of War, or of any officer of either of the said Departments whose appointment is not in the head thereof, whereby they cannot perform the duties of their said respective offices, it shall be lawful for the President of the United States, in case he shall think it necessary, to authorize any person or persons, at his discretion, to perform the duties of the said respective offices until a successor be appointed or such vacancy be filled: Provided, That no one vacancy shall be supplied in manner aforesaid for a longer term than six months."

It will be observed that this act of 1795 provides a temporary supply of the service in all cases of vacancies, whether caused by death, resignation, removal from office, or expiration of the term, but makes no provision for the cases of temporary disability already provided for by the act of 1792, and therefore does not repeal that act. Both acts remained in force without further legislation on the subject until the passage of the act of February 20, 1863, which is as follows:

That in case of death, resignation, absence from the seat of Government, or sickness of the head of any executive Department of the Government, or of any officer of either of the said Departments whose appointment is not in the head thereof, whereby they cannot perform the duties of their respective offices, it shall be lawful for the President of the United States, in case he shall think it necessary, to authorize the head of any other executive Department, or other officer in either of said Departments, whose appointment is vested in the President, at his discretion, to perform the duties of the said respective offices until a successor be appointed, or until such absence or inability by sickness shall cease: Provided, That no one vacancy shall be supplied in manner aforesaid for a longer term than six months."

The legislative purpose in the enactment of this law was not to repeal the act of February 13, 1795, but to extend the provisions of the act of May 8, 1792, to the other Departments. During the previous month President Lincoln had called the attention of Congress to the subject in the following message:

WASHINGTON, January 2, 1863. To the Senate and House of Representatives: I submit to Congress the expediency of extending to other Departments of the Government the authority conferred on the President by the eighth section of the act of the 8th of May, 1792, to appoint a person to temporarily discharge the duties of Secretary of State. Secretary of the Treasury, and Secretary of War, in case of the death, absence from the seat of Government, or sickness of either of those officers. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

It was in response to that message that the act of 1863 was passed, and it does not appear that the attention of Congress was at all called to the act of 1795. Neither its history nor the provisions of the act of 1863 justify us in believ ing that it was the intention of Congress thereby to repeal the act of 1795. The acts are not inconsistent; both can stand; both must remain, for the act of 1795 provides for two cases of vacancy-by removal and by expiration of the term-not provided for in the act of 1863. It is not questioned that the act of 1795, if unrepealed, confers upon the President the power to provide temporarily for the service in the case of a removal, and, therefore, I need not further consider this part of the case, except to add that the tenure-of office act does not, in terms or by implication, repeal either the act of 1795 or the act of 1863. It has no repeal ing clause, and there is no such inconsistency in the provisions of the acts as to cause a repeal by implication. There is the same necessity