Mr. DAVIS. Mr. President, in the year 1840 I made a report, somewhat elaborate, on this whole subject of the power of appointment and removal to the HoRep. I there assumed the ground distinctly that in order to remove as well as appoint the concurrence of the whole appointing power was necessary, namely, the President and Senate. The converse of that proposition has been acted on from that time to the Present, and I am not prepared to say now how far I would concede a modification of my former opinion by the subsequent practice and usage of the Government. But, sir, in relation to members of the Cab inet, I hold that that is a subject which Congress has no power to legislate upon as regards their ofrom office. The members of the Cabinet are not inferior officers in the sense of the Constitution, because the Constitution exPressly provides that Congress by may law authorize the appointment of inferior officers of the Government by the heads of Depts. It would be an absurdity to say that the Constitution vested the appointment potentially of inferior officers of the Government in inferior officers of the Government; and when it by exPress language invests Congress with the power to give the appointment of inferior officers to the heads of Depts, it necessarily classifies the heads of Depts as superior officers of Government. As such they are appointed by the nomination of the President and the confirmation of the Senate. The organized power to appoint the heads of the Depts is then a purely constitutional power. It is one that is organized by the Constitution, and it is to be exercised, according to my judgment, in conformity to the principle of the Constitution. If the Constitution permits the President to remove a head of a Dept from office, Congress by its legislation has no power to shackle that power of the President to remove the head of a dept. If the power of removal inheres oth in the President and in the Senate it is so by constitutional provision, it is so by constitutional principle, and Congress has no right and no authority to attempt by legislation the modification of the existence or exercise of that power. It is, then, according to my opinion, a judicial question under the Constitution, and is to be adjudged by the Constitution and by the provisions of the Constitution. If the President removes a Cabinet officer, the question might arise by a writ of quo warranto, or some other judicial proceeding, inquiring into the right of the successor of that removed Cabinet officer to perfoom the duties of the place, and in that way it would become a judicial question under the Constitution, not for control or modification by act of Congress, but simply to be adjudged of by the courts as a question arising in court under the Constitution itself. That view of the subject will induce me to vote against the amendment of the House. If it was a doubtful question, the expediency and the absolute necessity of the exercise of this power by the President is so great, so vital that I would surrender any doubt that I ha in relation to the principle, and would concede to the President the power and the right to remove his Cabinet officers. I concur in the suggestions so forcibly made by the Senfrom Ohio that the President cannot get along at all in the administration of his dept of the Government with any sort of convenience in administration of the Government generally without the exercise of this power. I once had a conversation with