Mr. BINGHAM. I move the following amendment to the amendment: Except in cases of commissions to fill vacancies which may have oby death or resignation during the recess of the Senate. I call the attention of the committee to the fact, as the amendment stands it excludes the payment of assessors or collectors commissioned by the President to fill vacancies hap pening during the recess of the Senate. If a vacancy o by death or resignation, so stands your Constitution, the President is empowered to fill that vacancy by a commission which shall expire at the end of the next session of the Senate. There is certainly no man here prepared to say that that duty, enjoined upon the President by the express words of the Constitution, shall nevertheless be so far interfered with that the person so commissioned shall receive no compensation. There is no excuse for any such legislation. On the other hand, I am free to confess that I am not of that class of persons who suppose that the words in the Constitution of the U.S., “vacancies that may happen during the recess of the Senate, ” may be tortured into any such construction as has been attempted to be put upon them by the present Executive, to wit: that he will make vacancies at his arbitrary will and pleasure without regard to the public interest. Satisfy this House that a vacancy has been created in that way for corrupt ends, and you satisfy it at once that the Executive is guilty of a high crime and misdemeanor within the meaning of the Constitution. When he is armed by the Constitution with all executive power and charged with the duty to take care that the laws are faithfully executed, it never by implication or otherwise was intended that he, under pretense of executing the laws of the U.S., should remove men from office duly appointed and commissioned by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, not because of incapacity or infidelity to duty, but men of eminent capacity, because of their stern fidelity to duty and unwillingness to corrupt a trust.