This carries out the intention of the framers of the statute, violates no sound canon of construction, and is entirely reasonable in every respect.

But the imagination of this conception cannot make us insensible to its surpassing absurdity.

It is utterly unreasonable, and every construction must be rejected which is inconsistent with common sense.

The President, in formal words, undertook to say that the suspension was by virtue of the Constitution; but this was a dishonest pretext, in harmony with so much in his career.

Whatever he may say, his acts speak louder than his words.

Approval or disapproval of the Senate could make no difference in the exercise of the power he now sets up.

Approval could not confirm the suspension; disapproval could not restore the suspended Secretary of War.

Clearly the suspension was made under the Tenure-of-Office Act, and can be justified in no other way.

Study the statute in its reason and its spirit, and you cannot fail to see that the second section was intended merely as a pendant to the first, and was meant to apply to the cases included in the first, and none other.

There was no reason to suspend a person who could be removed.

It is absurd to suppose that a President would resort to a dilatory and roundabout suspension, when the short cut of removal was open to him.

Construing the statute by this plain reason, its second section must have precisely the same sphere of operation as the first.

Applying either letter or spirit consistently, the case is plain.

Such is the obvious intention, and I do not hesitate to say that any other construction leads into those absurdities which constitute the staple of the Presidential apologists.

The banks, then, and every stockholder, will find a motive to press for specie payments, and you will have that great result quietly accomplished, absolutely without shock, while the business interests of the country will rejoice.

As by the National Constitution all appointments must be with the advice and consent of the Senate, therefore any legislation in derogation thereof must be construed strictly; but the President insists that it shall be extended, even in…

I think I only utter the sentiment of three fourths of all the commercial men through our great and growing West, when I say it should become a law, and thereby secure to us our equal share of the national banking capital, which we now…

Here was the occasion for an ad interim appointment, and the repealing statute, embodying the whole law of the subject, was intended for such cases,--securing to the President time to select a successor, and also power to provide for a…

Look now at the actual facts, and you will see how little they come within the reason of an ad interim appointment.

All the intervening time was his to select a successor, being a period longer than the longest fixed for the duration of an ad interim appointment by the very statutes under which he professed to act.

And here the Tenure-of-Office Act furnishes a living and practical construction of the National Constitution from which there is no appeal.

From the Constitution it appears that the power of appointment is vested in the President and Senate conjointly, and that nothing is said of the power of removal, except in case of impeachment, when it is made by the Senate.

Therefore the power of removal is not express, but implied only, and must exist, if at all, as a necessary consequence of the power to appoint.

According to a familiar rule, the power which makes can unmake.

Unless this rule be rejected, the power of removal must exist in the President and Senate conjointly; nor is there anything unreasonable in this conclusion.