Mr. COWAN. The trouble is, the old incumbent may be utterly unfit to hold. Everybody may desire that he should be removed. He may be a defaulter; he may have committed frauds in the execution of his office; and then the question arises whether there is any power in the Government to fill that office, or shall the office go unfilled and the public suffer? I think this is an attempt to cure a mischief which from the nature of things is not curable. See what Story says about it; and here is the foundation upon which we have always heretofore acted. I am not prepared to say that it is not free from difficulty, not free from mischief. There is no part of the administration of the Government that is free entirely from mischief, or can be. But the question is whether this can be removed without creating a greater one. These difficulties exist everywhere. Nobody in the world will join gentlemen more heartil than I will if any way can be devised by which the offices are not to be converted into political spoils and plunder. If that can be done, I will join with anybody heartily in it; but here is what Story says with regard to the propriety of this grant of power to the President: “The propriety of this grant, is so obvious that it can require no elucidation. There was but one of 2 courses to be adopted either that the Senate should be perpetually in session in order to provide for the appointinent of officers, or that the President should be authorized to make temporary appointments during the recess, which should expire when the Senate should have had an opportunity to upon act the subject.” That was the best thing that could be devised. A very fine point arose as to what recess the vacancy should happen in. If there is any reason why the President should have the right during the recess to appoint for a vacancy hap pening in that recess, is not the same reason equally potent why he should have the right to appoint to a vacancy happening in the next recess? I perfectly agree that if the Senate once decide upon the appointment of an officer, the President makes an appointment to the Senate and he is rejected, if he be afterward reappointed to that same office, it is against the spirit of the Constitution; but certainly the contrary for the last 35 years has been always held. Ever since the time of General Jackson it has been admitted that a man rejected by the Senate for the same office might be reappointed afterward and it was good; but that you can prevent the President from filling the vacancies occurring in any recess or at any time when the Senate is not in session is simply to say that you can abolish the office altogether, which I think ought not to be, and I think it is clearly contrary to the spirit of the Constitution, and as certainly clearly opposed to the practice of the Government for 75 years. I have only to reply to what is said by the honorable Senfrom Ohio when he declares that I threatened revolution, that I threatened no such thing. I deprecate revolution. I protest against revolution. I stated distinctly that in these excited and troubled times, when the passions of men were heated to the highest point and when factious prejudices and hatreds were in existence so rife, this was not the time to experiment in this way, and that it would be a great deal better for us to put up with the ills which we now know of than to adventure ourselves upon others as yet unknown. would rather, for my own part, if I were a member of the dominant party here, wait for 2 years for a chance to have the control of the offices, if I wanted to control them, than that I would disturb any well settled principle of the Government now. I am not only not in favor of revolution, Mr. President, but I am of the opinion that anything is better than revolution and better than war anything at all. I would submit to any kind of misgov.ernment, any kind of maladministration, and trust to time and the good sense of the people in time, when they suffered from the calamities of such misgovernment and malad ministration, to correct if peacefully, as it was intended our difficulties should be corrected, through the medium of amendments to our Constitution and alterations in our laws. But in these times, when it is impossible to deny that the minds of men are in a state of great agitation, I think this is not the proper period to adventure ourselves upon an experiment of this kind. I think we had better stand upon the decisions until there is greater quiet.