Mr. WILLIAMS. Mr. President, sudden illness in the family of the honorable chairman of the committee reporting this bill has called him away, and its charge has.de volved upon me. I suppose it is proper that I should submit some views in favor of the passage of the bill; and perhaps this is as suitable a time as any other, as I find that members are disposed to discuss the merits of the whole question involved. Mr. President, I think that Congress has the constitutional power to pass this bill. No argument need be made as to its necessity, for that is obvious and generally admitted. Whenever doubts arise as to the meaning and effect of any provision of the Constitution, as they are supposed to arise in this case, it is customary to refer to the proceedings of the Convention by which the Constitution was formed to resolve or remove those doubts. Following that custom upon this occasion, I find that in the proceedings and discussions of that Convention there was no allusion whatever made to the subject of removals from office, and therefore all the light that we can obtain from that source upon the question must be altogether a matter of inference. Some effort has been made to construe those proceedings into evidence that they sustain the claim of executive power as to removals from office, and which has heretofore been exercised; but I claim that a fair and reasonable construction of those proceedings, so far as they have any bearing upon the subject, tend in a contrary direction. I argue, in the 1st place, that the absence of any express provision in the constitution conferring any such power upon the POTUS is presumptive evidence that the men who made the Constitution did not intend that he should possess and exercise that power. Now, sir, the absolute power to remove from office in this country is a very great power, a power that enables the Executive to absolutely control, if not revolutionize, the administration of the Government. If the men who made the Constitution intended the President should possess it they would no doubt have said so, for to confer that power in express language was an easy thing; and the fact that they did not make any provision creating or delegating such a power Iis, say, strong evidence that they did not intend that any such power should exist in the President. All primary or principal powers delegated to any dept of the Government, as a general rule, are expressly described in the constitution, and only those powers which are incidental are left to be deduced and exercised by inference or construction. Is it reasonable to suppose that the men who founded this Government and made the Constitution intended to confer this kingly prerogative upon the POTUS a prerogative that makes him in many respects equal to the Sultan of Turkey without any direct or indirect allusion to the subject in the text of the Constitution? More room would be left to prove the existence of this power, by implication or construction, if the 8.did not, when it created the executive dept of the government, describe and define the powers which that dept should exercise. Manifestly the subject was before the mind of the Convention; the question was presented and discussed there as to what powers the Executive of the U.S. should possess and exercise; and therefore it cannot be claimed that this omission to give the power of removal to the President was an accidental omission in the formation of the Constitution; but, on the contrary, it is to be presumed that after due consideration all provisions for such a power were excluded from the Constitution because those who made it did not intend that it should exist. Those powers which the POTUS may exercise are specifically enumerated and defined in the constitution; and I think it is a rule of construction recognized by all legal authorities that where general language is employed to create an office, and afterward in the same connection the powers which shall attach to that office are specifically enumerated, the particular words control those of a general nature, and the office has those powers which are contained in the specific enumeration and no others. There can be no other object in expressly declaring what shall be the powers or attributes of an office except to limit its juris diction and prevent the exercise of non-enu merated powers. I can see no reason why the framers of the Constitution did not grant to the Executive all the primary powers which they intended he ol.if have, and I conclude that they did so, and they did not give him the right to remove from office, which is a power equal in magnitude to any that were conferred upon the Executive. I fortify this conclusion by the fact that the proceedings of that Convention show that the men who made the Constitution were distrust ful of executive power. Impressed with the lessons of history, they were of the opinion (and subsequent events have verified the correctness of that opinion) that it would be the tendency of power to concentrate in the hands of the Executive; and various propositions were made in the Convention to place a limitation upon his power. Suggestions were made that a council of state should be organized; that a privy or ancillary council should be formed; that persons should be placed around the President to advise with him as to his executive action. Those suggestions, however, were not adopted; but the Senate of the U.S. was, to some extent, placed in the relation of a council of state to the Executive. No opinion, as I am advised, prior to the adoption of the Constitution was expressed on this subject by any member of the Convention or any other distinguished man in the U.S., except the one that is found in the 77th number of the Federalist, and ascribed to Alexander Hamilton. When the Convention submitted the Constitution to the different States of the Union objections were made to it such as had been presented to the convention, that there was reasonable ground to apprehend that too much power was vested in the Executive; and to silence those objections, and to satisfy the country that such an apprehension was not well founded, Alexander amilton, who was then recognized as one of the ablest men of the day and one of those best qualified to expound the Constitution, published to the country his view of that subject; and I will trouble the Senate to hear what he said at that time as to the question before the Senate. Mr. Hamilton. “It has beenmentioned as one of the advantages to be expected from the cooperation of the Senate in the businessof appointments that it would contribute to the stability of the Administration. The consent of that body would be necessary to displace as well as to appoint. A change of fore, the Chief Magistrate, there would not occasion so violent or so General a revolution in the officersof the Government as Inight be expected if he were the sole disposer of offices. Where a man in any station had given satisfactory evidence of his fitness for it, a new President would be restrained from attempting a change in favor of a person more agreeable to him by the apprehension that the discountenance of the Senate might frus torate the attempt and bring somedegree of discredit himself., of Those who canbestestimatethe value a steady Administration will be most disposed to prize a provision which connectsthe official existence of public men with the approbation or disapprobation of that body; which, from the greater perma nency of its own composition, will in all probability be less subject to inconstancy than any other member of the Government.” Now, sir, to answer the objections that were made to the Constitution of the U.S. at the time it was submitted by the Convention, Alexander Hamilton published these views, and, so far as I am able to learn from history, they were acquiesced in by every member of the constitutional Convention; and, with the understanding that these views of Alexander Hamilton were a correct interpretation of the Constitution, it was ratified by the requisite number of States; and I say that it is fair to infer from the history of that day that the people who adopted the Constitution adopted it with the understanding that, as Hamilton says, it was as necessary that the consent of the Senate should be obtained to displace as it was to appoint an officer. Taking, then, all the authorities (and they are very meager) upon the subject prior to the discussion in the Congress of 1789, I say that the proceedings of the Convention and the statements of those who were members of the Convention tend to show that it was not the intention of the men who made the Constitution to confer upon the Executive of the U.S. the absolute and unqualified power of removal from office. Coming down, then, to the Congress of 1789, we find that a discussion there took place which is relied upon by those who contend for the existence of this Executive power as set thng the question in favor of their position. Whenever allusion is made to this discussion there is an effort made to surround it with some extraordinary sanctity, and we are admonished sometimes to pull off our shoes as we tread upon this ground because it is holy ground. Sir, I hope I have a suitable reverence for old men and old things; but I do not think that old decisions, like wine, grow better by age. On the contrary, they are very apt to partake of the obsolete customs and manners and opinions which obtained in the day in which they were made. I say as to that decision, in the 1st place, that it is not applicable to the question now before the Senate. Dur. ING that Congress a bill was introduced to create a dept of foreign affairs, and the hill proposed to confer upon the President the power to remove the head of that dept at his pleasure, and a motion was e to strike. provision from the bill, and upon that question the discussion arose; so that the precise question before that Congress was as to whether by legislation the power ought or ought not to be conferred upon the President to remove a certain officer. The question before that Congress was not as to whether the Constitution of the U.S. did or did not confer any such power upon the President. I think every Senator will admit that it does not follow, because Congress can pass a law creating an office and in that law confer upon the President the power to remove the person appointed to fill d. office, that therefore the Constitution confers upon the President any such power; for there is a vast difference between the powers which may be conferred upon the President by the legislation of congress and the powers that are conferred upon the President by the terms of the Constitution. I acknowledge that the discussions upon that motion indicate that a majority of the members of Congress were of the opinion that this power did belong to the F.but it is to be remembered, in considering the weight of that decision, that there was a very large minority, including some of the most eminent statesmen of that day, who did not concur in that view. The opinion of the Senate upon the subject was equally divided, and the question was then decided by the casting vote of the presiding officer. Although, numerically, there were more votes in favor of the right of the Executive to remove under the Constitution, it is not altogether certain that the argument and the logic and the reasons were not on the side of the minority. To sanction this doctrine of Executive power reference is always made to Mr. Madison, and it is supposed to be hallowed because it is as sociated with his name. I do not, of course, presume to say anything in disparagement of that great and good man; but I will take the liberty to say that Mr. Madison was not infal lible, that he might have been mistaken in his opinion;, that he might have been influenced by considerations which cannot and ought not to influence Congress at this time, in confirmation of which it has been said by distinguished men in discussing this subject that the proba bility was that the judgment of Mr. Madison was very much influenced by his confidence and respect for the then POTUS, who was justly denominated “the Father of his Country.” But, sir, in respect to this subject, Mr. Madison might have been mistaken as he was in other opinions which he then expressed, according to the judgment of modern times, and particularly in his views as to the doctrine of State rights, which has been repudiated and condemned by the judgment of the present day.