Mr. HENDRICKS. The Senfrom Michigan has discussed 2 questions which are not involved in the proposition that I have submitted to the Senate. The 1st is the power of the President to create a vacancy during the recess of the Senate by the removal of an incumbent from an office; the 2nd is the power of the President to appoint after the adjournment of the Senate a party to an office who had previously been rejected by the senate. The question which is submitted to the Senate by my amendment is this: whether in the case of a vacancy in an office existing at the time of the adjournment of the Senate the President has a right for the purpose of execu ting the laws to fill that office under the clause of the Constitution to which I have called attention. That particular question the Sena: tor has not much discussed. He has referred to the report which, as the representative of the ComJudiciary, he submitted to the Sen. ate during the 37th Congress. Now, I wish to ask of the Senfrom Michigan what is his answer to a case made by the SecyState in a correspondence which accompanies that report of the learned Senator. Suppose, during the last days of the session of a?.an office is created and there is no time before the adjournment to fill that office by an appointment and confirmation, is that office under the Constitution to remain vacant until Congress shall again assemble, or may the President appoint under his power to fill vacancies happening during the recess? I will read from the letter to which I refer of Secretary Seward, dated January 12, 1863, addressed to the distinguished Senator as the representative on that occasion of the ComJudiciary: “In regard to some of these appointments, the officeswere newly created by Congress, and required special qualifications to fill them. was not time enough for the proper consideration of the subject before the adjournment of the Senate. As to others, itnhdeuccoemmpeenntsawtiaosnnwoatsisnuc thhe asshtaopeionfvifteees application for the offices. They were consequently filled as soon as proper personscould befound to accept them. This course has been adopted in all cases when the public interest seemed to require it. In regard to the consti of this course I would respectfully refer yvoii, u ptoagthee Opinions of the attyGen, volume 223.” The law officer of the Government seems to have given the opinion that the President during the recess had the power, and it was his duty, to fill such vacancies; and, long before the political controversies that now agitate the country had sprung up, the SecyState during the administration of Mr. Lincoln recommended the appointment of many men to office when the vacancies which they were to fill had existed at the time of the adjournment of the Senate, and he stated as a necessity for such appointments that Congress had created the offices so near the adjournment that it became impossible to fill them. The President has devolved upon him under the Constitution the duty to see that the laws are executed. He can only execute them through the instrumen tality of the officers whom Congress provides. Immediately before the adjournment Congress enacts a law and provides for an officer to execute that law. It is the duty of the President to see that that law is immediately executed. Now, is it possible that the duty is devolved upon him by Congress to execute the provisions of a law, and yet that he has not the power under the Constitution to discharge that duty” The necessity of the case has compelled the construction which I believe the Senator admits to have been uniform; it is the construction which the executive dept of the Government has uniformly put upon this provision of the Constitution.