Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, my friendfrom Maine referred to an opinion which I expressed at the last session, and which I repeat now, that the practice, if any President should pursue it, of reappointing to office during a recess a person who has been antecedently nominated and rejected by the Senate, is in conflict with the spirit of the Constitu.tion. I have had occasion to say that to the present AttyGen and to the former AttyGen. The provisions of the constitution, the Senate will remember, give to the President the authority to appoint certain officers by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, and it is provided that other officers may be appointed in such mode as congress may provide. In order to guard against the contingency of a vacancy in any of the offices, and as necessary to carry on the public business of the country, the President is vested with the power to appoint to office during the recess of the Senate; and by the very terms of the Constitution, the commission which he is to issue in cases of that description continues until the last day of the succeeding session of the Senate. As I have said to the officer to whom I refer, and as I say now to the Senate, what I think they will concur with me in believing to be very evident, the President, under the authority which he certainly has of appointing during the recess, may dispense with the action of the Senate altogether; for if the commission which he gives to the officer he so appoints continues until the termination of the next ses.sion, the last day of the session, there is then when Congress adjourns of course a vacancy in that office happening in the recess which he is to fill; and he may go on from time to time appointing during a recess so as to avoid entirely the authority and the controlling authority which the Constitution intended to give to the Senate of the U.S. over such appointments as the President is directed to send in to the Senate for confirmation. But it is only for the President to say per. haps all the Senate are not aware of it that in what he has done in cases of this description he has but followed the example of his prede cessors; and that example was in its origin supported, and in the cases where it. has been fol since, it has been supported, by the opinions of the several Attorneys General who hap pened to be in office at the time the instances occurred. Those Attorneys General were, I think at least I only recollect those Mr. Wirt, Mr. Taney, Mr. Cushing, Mr. Crittenden, Mr. Mason, and I believe 3 or 4 others. The question was not submitted to me when I was an incumbent of that office; but I had ocoasion to say to the President, whose officer I was at that time, that I certainly should not give that opinion, except upon the authority of the precedent, and if I yielded to that authority I should say that as an original question the law was really different. The President has in some cases, I know there are several nominations here that fall within that class appointed during the recess persons whom he had before appointed during an antecedent recess, and who upon being nominated to the Senate at the last session were rejected. There may be cases in which the President would be justified in doing that, because of the particular circumstances of the case. He may be satisfied that the propriety of confirming the nomination was not brought entirely before the Senate, because all the facts which might exist in relation to the appointee were not before them. What I mean to say is, that in my judgment (and it is not a judgment recently formed, and it is one having no refer.ence to the conduct of the present President for the time being, but it is an opinion long since formed) that a practice of that kind is altogether at war with the spirit of the Constitution; be: cause it enables a President to avoid entirely the authority which the Constitution intended to give the Senate of the U.S. over such appointments as are to be made only by their consent. But upon the oof the power of removing officers different considerations govern me. I believe it was at the 1st session of the 1st Congress certainly at the time when the Treasury Dept and the State Dept were organized that it became a subject of controversy in both branches of Congress whether the President had a right to remove without 1st consulting the Senate. A great many of the best men of that day thought that he had not; a great many of the lights that have adorned this Chamber since then thought that he had not the power; but from the time it was settled by a majority of one, I believe, that majority being the casting vote of the VEEP, up to the present time, it has not been seriously questioned that the President has the right to remove under the Constitution. Mr. Webster discussed the question during the presidency of General Jackson with the ability which marked all his efforts on this floor or anywhere else; but he offered no remedy; and every President from the time of General Washington up to the present time has exercised the power as one in his judgment clearly vested in him. I think he has the power. But Mr. Madison, in the debate when the question was originally settled to which I have referred, stated, and I think stated very properly, that that power to remove, which he held to be a clear power, might be so abused as to furnish a just cause for impeaching ident; the presbut in after times a removal for such a purpose as Mr. Madison intimated would be a just ground for an impeachment was held to be no ground for impeachment at all, or not ground of censure. The most striking cases that have occurred during our existence as a nation were those that occurred, or one particularly which, occurred during the presidency of General Jackson. The Senator will remember that under the charter of the Bank of the U.S. the public moneys of the U.S. were to remain on deposit with that institution unless they were removed by the SecyTreasury. I thought then, and think now, that it was the purpose of Congress in passing that charter to i. from the President the power in that case to interfere with the duty which the section imposed upon the SecyTreasury; but the Fodecided otherwise, and he actually removed the incum bent., The Senate will see that that case pre: sented the strongest one that can be imagined upon which to bring before Congress and bring before the courts of the country the question of the President’s power to remove. The bank had an interest so deep that her safety depended upon the reversal of that authority. The public moneys being withdrawn from her vaults, the credit of the institution almost at once fell, or everybody saw that it must fall in a very short time, as in the end it did.