Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, I am aware that the money of the Government is placed under the control of Congress; and in one sense, therefore, Congress has the right to refuse to pay salaries. They may refuse to pay the President his salary. now fixed by law. They may refuse to appropriate at all for the payment of the compensation which the laws give, or which the laws ought to give, to the Officers who may be appointed from time to time by the appointing power. But the honorable member, I am sure, will see that the ground uion which he places the constitutionality of this legislation, as far as that particular ground is concerned, is one which will not bear examination. If the President has the power to appoint, and the apointee has the right to go 1to office under the constitution, although Congress may have the power to say that they will not pay, have they the moral right to say that they will not pay? and if there is no moral right to deny payment in such a case, are they not warring against the spirit of the Constitution, though not against its letter, by refusing to pay I The Senate of the U.S., or both branches of Congress, may become so dissatis fied with the POTUSas to be exceedingly anxious to get rid of him. His remaining in office mayjnterfere with some favorite policy of Congress; Congress may look to political measures upon which, as they suppose, the welfare of the country depends, and find that they cannot accomplish their purpose in having such measures adopted as ibng as theiucumbent of the presidential Office is in his seat. There are 2 ways to get rid of him. One is to impeach him. That requires, to be successful, a vote in the body of 2/3rds. Anotheris to starve him out, and that may be accomplished by refusing to pay his salary; and the honorable members argument would be just as solid in a case of that description in support of legislation such as I have supposed, as it is in relation to the case before tm Senate, provided the President has the authority to remove and to appoint. Mr. President, in all good temper, I caution my friends, or rather the member who offcirs this amendment, against what may be the consequences of this precedent in the future. It may answer the temporary purpose for which he avows it now to be designed; but it may be relied upon hereafter to answer a temporary uipose which the honorable member from Illinois would be the last man to wish to see accomplished. The precedent may return to plague the inventor. The deininant party now in each House of Congress may, in the course of time, become a mine iit. They may have elected their President, an he may be an officci who is willing to carry out their particular oliey. These seats, however, and the seats in the other House may be filled by a inajorit of members who think that the oliey which the minorit and the President or the time being may desire to carryI out, is dangerous to the country, and then they may propose just what the honorable member proposes now, not to take away the power of appomtment, as he says, but to refuse to appropriate; not to de clare that he shall not appoint, but to declare that if he does appoint his appointmentwill be futile; and they may go further and say following the principle for which this may be cited as a precedent, that the President, for the time being stands in the way of the true interest and honor of the country, or stands in the way of some part aspiration; but as he cannot be got ten rid o by impeachment they strike at his appointing power, and if they cannot get rid of him by taking from him, practically, the benefit of his appointing power, they accomplish the same thing by providingthat no money shall go out of the Treasury to compensate his appointees. have now the book before me, and if the Senate will indulge me for a few moments I shall be able to find the letter to which I adverted when I 1st rose, from Mr. Madison, upon this subject, written when his intellect was as bright as it ever was, written at a period when (if there is any war between Congress and the existing President) there was a war even more bigter than may be supposed to he existing now, between the then Congress and the then POTUS