Mr. COWAN. Mr. President, I have a very high respect, not only for the memory of Judge Story, but also for his teachings, and I have read the same argument which has been quoted by the honorable Senfrom NewJersey, and I think I have felt its force. But the honorable Senator should have informed us at the same time that the question has been decided the other way. I admit that a very strong and very forcible argument can be made upon this side of the question; but the difficulty about it is, that it has been for 75 years the uniform rule of the Government of the U.S. to allow the President this power, and as I think from the very necessity of the thing, because it has not been answered yet: suppose the President and Senate disagree, what is to become of the office, during the recess? For the 1st time in our history this body has been declared in permanent session. eretofore there has been a vacancy from the 4th of March to the 1st of December, and during that time there was no Senate to consent and advise to the nominations of the President. Then you meet the alternative of either having no officers at all, the Government not administered at all in that particular, or you must allow the President this power. The power heretofore has never been deemed dangerous. The power may have been ojust as the power is now annoying to a dominant party, who cannot have î.all control of the offices. But why should the President appoint bad men to office? He may not appoint a member of your party; but he is interested as much as anybody can be to appoint a member of his own party who will creditably execute and perform the duties of the office, and that has been the safety of the country always. I have another thing to say, that whenever one or the other of the 2 parties of this country are afraid to trust the other, then the government is in the throes of dissolution. The whole of its strength heretofore depended on the fact that the one party in this country was always willing to trust the other party. It is true, they said it will not administer the government as well as we would do if we had it; it will not appoint as good officers as we would do if we i. the appointment of them; but still being in the same boat, interested in the same way, there is no reason to suppose they should desire the destruction of the Government. So I say that whenever a party is unwilling to trust the other party with the appointment of the officers or the administration of any particular branch of the Government it is conclusive evidence that the Government is about in the agony of dissolution. Is not the President as much interested as anybody else to appoint good officers, to have them administer the public affairs creditably? pon that supposition the Government can stand. but if you proceed upon the supposition that the President is a traitor, that the President is a destructionist, that he is given over body and soul to the devil, and that all his adherents and all those who believe as he does are likewise given over, what then? Then, of course, you must end this Government in order to correct that mischief. If, however, honorable Senators and everybody else were to come back to the common sense view of this matter, rid themselves of their prejudices, rid themselves of their passions, and come to the conclusion to be patient and abide the regular normal working of our institutions, there would be no difficulty. But it is from this war of factions, roused passions, terrible prejudices, that the danger to all free Governments has come. Parties cease to be parties; parties become factions; and over the ruins of the very fabric they intend to save both have occasionoto lament. What will you gain by this crusade upon the President? What do you expect to achieve by curtailing him of his power? Do you pretend that he and the men who advocate the view he takes of things are not as honest as you are; that they have not the same stake in the country that you have? Do you not suppose that he and his friends have o: same care of their reputation you have; that they desire the safety, and the success, and the glory of the country as much as you do? They may differ with you as to your means of obtaining this; but is it not role that men may differ and differ honestly 7 othe President abuses his power of appointment, how is that to be corrected? ereto fore it was corrected at the next election, and the next time you come to an election you correct it by electing a new President a man who will not abuse his power; and why so? For the most obvious reason in the world, that it was far better to endure all the ills which ou can conceive of from bad and mal administration than that you should overturn the Constitution of the country overturn its settled law and introduce revolution. I put it to any Senator on this floor whether, suppose have the very worst President in the world, a man who is disposed to do all the mischief he possibly can do within the scope of his not only legal but possible power, is not that bet.ter than revolution? When you take the 1st step in revolution, when you have overturned the 1st well established principle, how are ou going to stop? Is it not the law of revolution that the 1st step begets the necessity for the 2nd, and so on? Is not that its history? I see no difficulty about this thing. I see to gentlemen of the dominant party annoyance; but I believe that if they were of my temper and my disposition they would, so far from considering it an annoyance, thank God that they were relieved from the responsibility of pointing out the proper persons to administer this Government under the appointments of the Executive, because what any man under heaven can conceive of pleasure or human en. in being run upon day and night and all the time in order to have his influence for office I cannot see. If my brethren upon the other side who are not consulted as to these appointments will just reflect for one moment they will see that they are happy. Wrest them out of the hands of the Executive, if you please, deposit them in the hands of some other officer over and above your conscientious convictions of duty with regard to the Constitution and the oath you have taken, and what then 7 You may feel conscious of a little more power, but you will not feel conscious that the Government is better administered than it was before, and you will not feel conscious that you enjoy greater ease and comfort in the part you take in it than you do now. Mr. President, this Government has existed for a long while 76 years and for 75 years it has existed under this rule. Annoyance to be sure, heart burnings to be sure, grumblings everywhere there have been by those who had not the distribution of the “plunder” and the “spoils;” but neverthe less the Government was preserved; and upon looking back over its history I think that you will find that they all got about their share. If we preserve our tempers, and if we preserve our trust in the people, (because trust in the people, as a matter of necessity, implies trust in the opposite party, in the other half of the people to which you belong,) we shall secure the perpetuity of our institutions; but nothing else will do it. I wish to say here that I have the firmest conviction in the world that if you take a single revolutionary step now in these excited times, if you overturn any well settled principle of this Government, any well settled principle of its Constitution, Ior may say any well settled item in its theory, you are on the brink of a precipice, and when you go over it ou will have no Union, no i. Republic; you will no free Government left. MF. SHERMAN. Mr. President, the senate seems today to be in a mood not to do much business, and perhaps that may. the honorable Senator in threatening us with revolution and all the dire woes unnumbered that may spring from it. In this bill Congress does not propose to do anything that is not ofby the Constitution. It proposes to prevent the violation of the Constitution, that is all. And now we are threatened by those who have violated the spirit of the constitution with woes unnumbered, with revolution, with being on the brink of a precipice! Let me say to my honorable friendfrom Pennsylvania that the Senate of the U.S. is not the place for threats like these. We have already been placed on the brink of a precipice by a different set of antagonists whom we have overthrown by war. They attempted to revolutionize this Government, but they were met and subdued by the American people. Let me say to him that whenever any other power in this Government or outside of this Government shall undertake to carry on a revolution or to carry the American people over the brink of precipice, that o.will be ground between the upper and the nether millstone. Now, what is the question here? It is a dispute as to the power of appointment to office. The Constitution of the U.S. declares that the President shall, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, nominate and appoint certain officers. The POTUS undertakes to nominate and appoint and hold in office men who have not received the sanction of the Senate and who have been actually rejected by the Senate; and now because we seek to correct tthioisnp lain and palpable abuse of the Constitu