Mr. HISE. Mr. Speaker, the few remarks that I intend to submit I have no idea will contain anything particularly interesting to the members of the They will be some what didactic and elementary. I believe it is a cardinal principle in polit’ ical philosophy, as enunciated by Montesquieu and afterward approved and adopted by Madison, that the distribution of the powers of a government intended to be free into separate and independent depts is necessary in order that free government should be maintained and perpetuated; and that the contrary doctrine of the amalgamation or concentration of all the governmental powers in the hands of one single magistrate or a single dept of the whether the officers of that dept held their powers for life or a shorter time, and whether it be hereditary or elective, is the very essence of despotism, and any Government based upon such doctrine will, in the absence of the restraints or checks existing by reason of a division of its powers between different and independent depts, as shown by the light of experience and history, end in corrupt, arbitrary, irresponsible, and opPressive misrule, notwithstanding there be a written constitution strictly defin ini and limiting its powers. believe that the framers of the Constitution of the U.S., as well as the framers of all our State constitutions, founded the frame work of our governments upon the fundamental principle to which I have referred. It was held to be indispensably necessary, in order that government.? be free, that there should be this division of its powers among at least 3 different depts. There is a broad line of distinction between the powers of these branches of the Government, the executive, the legislative, and the judicial. To state it simply, the legislative dept makes the laws, the judicial dept construes them and determines all contests between individual litigants, and pass upon and apply, as required in cases within their defined and established jurisdiction, all the laws both statutory andfundamental; while the executive dept was provided for a distinct and different purpose, as its name imports, and that was to execute the laws as passed by the Legislature and sustained by the judiciary. The State governments were organized to operate upon the rights of person and property; and to secure civil order and well regulated liberty among the people. The Federal government was constituted for a very different purpose. It was designed for the management of what are called national purposes and objects, such as our relations with foreign nations and the Preservation of peace between the States. It was, therefore, necessary that all those divisions of power which existed in the State constitutions should be Preserved in the federal Constitution, so as to prevent encroachment by this Government upon the reserved rights of the States. The framers of the Constitution provided further in the legislative dept for a difference in the qualifications of members of the Senate and HoRep, with the hope and expectation that there would be more experience, moderation, and wisdom, in the body 1st named than there would perhaps be in the HoRep, which, on account of the youth and inexperience of its members and its numerical force, would be more apt to be controlled by partisan passion. But, as is now the case, bo;.of Congress might be in the hands of one political party, both interested in practicing partisan abuses, and so power was lodged in the hands of the Executive to operate upon, and to some extent control, the legislative dept by means of the veto. The necessity of maintaining these checks and balances provided by the Constitution in this distribution of powers is shown by the fact of the various acts committed by the legislative dept of the Government during the last 4, 5, or 6 years. Educated in the school of polities that I have been, it does seem to me that the tendency of those acts has been to set up a government here regard less of the Constitution of the U.S. I refer not only to the exercise of legislative. power, which they do not possess, but to the act that they are legislating so as to cripple and emasculate, if not to destroy, the authority and jurisdiction of the judicial as well as the executive branch of the Government. The bill that is now before the House is intended to destroy the independence of the executive dept of the Government. An act has also been introduced into oin relation to the SCOTUS now comof 9 members, and which court has ull and plenary authority to decide upon all questions of the constitutionality of any of the laws of Congress; which act is intended Virtually to deprive that branch of the Government of its beneficent power and influence in Preserving the people of the U.S and the State governments from legislative usurpation. And the jurisdiction of the State courts has been invaded by requiring causes that have been instituted in those courts to be taken away without authority and lodged in the Federal courts, in order to get in illegal defenses that would not be admissible in the State courts. We have seen acts of confiscation, by which the property of the citizen, without any trial or conviction, or adjudication of a court with compe tent jurisdiction, is attempted to be wrested from him, contrary to the Constitution of the U.S. Hence, I hold that the examples furnished and Presented by the acts of the Present Congress, both done and contemplated, as well as the acts of preceding Congresses show the importance and the necessity of maintaining these checks and balances in our system of Government, both State and Federal. Now, sir, the executive branch of the government must necessarily hold all the executive power pertaining to it. You cannot constitutionally strip it of any power that must necessarily be classified as executive, as contra distinguished from judicial or legislative power; and it is only for candid and intelligent men, free from party bias and passion, to look for a moment at any act to be able to decide whether the power involved is legislative, executive, or judicial. Now, what is the object of constitutional government at all? The object is to Prescribe limits, boundaries, and restraints upon the various depts of the Government in which the powers of government are lodged; to say to each Dept, “Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther.” In regard to the Federal Government, it was considered that there were rights of men and rights and powers of the states that should not be infringed or encroached upon by any majority of the legislative branch of the Government, however great that majority might be. No matter if some reprehensible measure might be carried by the entire body of Congress, yet, if they respect their oaths, they will not be guilty of it, merely because they have the power of numbers, because if they should be guilty of it they would not only violate their oaths, : depart from the principles of sound statesmanship and overthrow and subvert the Constitution of this Government, which, if carried out as now established, will tend to produce all the grand results which my friendfrom NewYork [Mr. RAYMonpl could only hope to obtain by claiming that there is an unwritten constitution higher and above the written one. Now, I insist upon it, that in order to secure the independence of the executive branch of the Government, that it may have the power and efficiency, according to the design of the Constitution, to interpose an effectual check against usurpations upon the part of the legislative branch of the Government, the Executive must have the exclusively executive power of making appointments, with the Senate’s concurrence, and of removing all executive officers at his unfettered and unrestricted pleasure. I hold that any intervention upon the part of Congress to fix the tenure of executive officers is an unwarrantable exercise of power, unauthorized by the Constitution. Now, the Constitution is very plain in its terms; we want no more law upon the subject; the fundamental law settles the question; and because it is an executive power the to: of appointment and removal is necessarily given to the POTUS; for the power of removing an executive officer is necessarily an executive power. The Constitution says the President shall nominate and, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, appoint. The word “President” is the nominative to both the verbs, the one that precedes and the one that follows the words “by and with the advice and consent of the Senate.” It is the President who nominates; if he does not nominate the Senate cannot act at all. If the President, there being a vacancy, does make a nomination, and the advice and consent of the Senate is asked, then whether the consent be given or refused, if an appointment is made at all it must be made by the President alone, and he is not prohibited from appointing his own nominee notwithstanding the disapproval of the Senate. The same clause of the Constitution provides that the Congress may by law place the appointment of inferior officers in the heads of depts and in courts of law. Now, what does any candid, intelligent man understand to be the meaning of that clause of the Constitution in regard to inferior officers? He understands it, and can understand it reasonably, in no other way than as meaning that the authority of Congress to place the appointment of inferior officers in the heads of o Dept had reference of course exclusively to those inferior officers who were employed in conducting the business of that Dept alone. Does that constitutional provision authorize Congress to vest in the hands of the SecyTreasury the power to appoint postmasters, and vice versa, to vest in the PayMGen the appointment of subordinate officers of the Treasury Dept? Surely not. So, too, in regard to the courts. When congress is authorized to confer on the courts of law the appointing power it simply means that Congress may by legislative act authorize the different tribunals to appoint the various subordinate officers necessary to aid in the administration of justice. Who can with any show of reason maintain that Congress has the right by law to vest in the hands of the judges the appointment of a Treasury officer to confer, as is proposed, on the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court the power to appoint the ComrIntRev? By such an act we should bestow on the judicial dept of the Government executive power which under the Constitution can be exercised by the executive dept only. If you thus strip the executive branch of its legitimate func.tions, you should at the same time relieve it of the corresponding responsibility. No intelligent, candid man, unbiased by party zeal or party passions, can believe otherwise than that the Constitution intended that the appointing power to be lodged in the courts should be donfined to the subordinate officers of those courts, such as sheriffs, marshals, messengers, clerks, &c., officers necessary to aid in the administration of justice and in the exercise of the powers or functions pertaining to the iudicial dept.