United States Reclamation Service

“ The power of congress has been exerted to a great extent, under this clause, in favour of the executive department. The president is by law invested, either solely, or with the senate, with the appointment of all military and naval officers, and of the most important civil officers, and especially of those connected with the administration of justice, the collection of the revenue, and the supplies and expenditures of the nation. The courts of the Union possess the narrow prerogative of appointing their own clerk, and reporter, without any farther patronage. ”

“ What the Reclamation Act has done for the country is by no means limited to its material accomplishment. This Act and the results flowing from it have helped powerfully to prove to the Nation that it can handle its own resources and exercise direct and business-like control over them. ”

“ In the cases of claims for services done and supplies furnished during the war, when the demand, though originating under the authority of this state, is properly against the United States, the opinion of the commissioners is against the allowance of any recompense, because those claims should more properly be preferred to Congress ”

“ Whether Congress could have chosen to take claimants' rights by the exercise of its dominant navigation servitude is immaterial. By directing the Secretary to proceed under the Reclamation Act of 1902, Congress elected not 'to in any way interfere with the laws of any State * * * relating to the control, appropriation, use, or distribution of water used in irrigation, or any vested right acquired thereunder.' 32 Stat. ”

“ The most serious obstacle, however, to an improvement of the civil service, and especially to a reform in the method of appointment and removal, has been found to be the practice, under what is known as the spoils system, by which the appointing power has been so largely encroached upon by members of Congress. The first step in the reform of the civil service must be a complete divorce between Congress and the Executive in the matter of appointments. ”

“ I find no warrant in the Act for drawing the line, as the Court does, between 'direct communication with Congress' and other pressures on Congress. The Act is as much concerned with one, as with the other.
The words 'direct communication with Congress' are not in the Act. Congress was concerned with the raising of money to aid in the passage or defeat of legislation, whatever tactics were used. ”

“ But a more conclusive objection is, that the decisions upon all such appeals would not answer the purpose of maintaining, or restoring the constitutional equilibrium of the government. The remarks of the Federalist, on this subject, are so striking, that they scarcely admit of abridgment without impairing their force:
We have seen, that the tendency of republican governments is to aggrandizement of the legislature at the expense of the other departments. The appeals to the people, therefore, would usually be made by the executive and judiciary departments. ”

“ Legislation designed to prohibit and to avoid potential conflicts of interest in the performance of governmental service is supported by the legitimate interest in maintaining the public's confidence in the integrity of the federal service. [20] Neither good faith, nor full disclosure, nor exemplary performance of public office will excuse the making or receipt of a prohibited payment. ”

“ The reform of the civil service will make no safe or satisfactory advance until the present law and its equal administration are well established in the confidence of the people. It will be my pleasure, as it is my duty, to see that the law is executed with firmness and impartiality. If some of its provisions have been fraudulently evaded by appointing officers, our resentment should not suggest the repeal of the law, but reform in its administration. ”

“ In only a few unavoidable instances has the proper execution of the process of the United States failed by reason of the absence of the requisite appropriation. This course of official conduct on the part of these officers, highly creditable to their fidelity, was advised by the Attorney-General, who informed them, however, that they would necessarily have to rely for their compensation upon the prospect of future legislation by Congress. ”

“ I allude to the recommendation for the appointment of a commission to settle private claims against the United States. Justice to individuals, as well as to the Government, imperatively demands that some more convenient and expeditious mode than an appeal to Congress should be adopted. ”

“ He shall nominate, and, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States, whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by law. But Congress may by law vest the appointment of such inferior officers as they think proper in the president alone, in the courts of law, or in the heads of departments. ”

“ Looking now to the present, and future, and with reference to a resumption of national authority within the States wherein that authority has been suspended, I have thought fit to issue a Proclamation, a copy of which is herewith transmitted. On examination of this Proclamation it will appear, as is believed, that nothing is attempted beyond what is amply justified by the Constitution. True, the form of an oath is given, but no man is coerced to take it. ”

“ United States, supra. The Georgia policy, which is opposed to this federal policy, must accordingly give way. For as we noted in Public Utilities Comm. of California v. United States, supra, 355 U.S. at 544, 78 S.Ct. at 453, a State is without power by reason of the Supremacy Clause to provide the conditions on which the Federal Government will effectuate its policies. Whether the federal policy is a wise one is for the Congress and the Chief Executive to determine. ”

“ As an entity formed privately, rather than at the Federal Government's prompting, to render confidential advice with respect to the President's constitutionally specified power to nominate federal judges-an entity in receipt of no federal funds and not amenable to the strict management by agency officials envisaged by Executive Order No. ”

“ They feel much honored by the praises, which their services and conduct have merited, as well as by the confidence which Congress shows in them, by desiring them to pass another campaign in the service of the United States. Their letter, a copy of which is annexed, expresses their resolution to 265 accept this invitation, and moreover contains proofs of an unlimited confidence in the justice and goodness of Congress.
I do not doubt, Sir, that these sentiments will increase the degree of esteem and good will, which they already deserve on account of their distinguished services. ”

“ If we would promise we must put ourselves in a position to perform our promise. We cannot permit the possible failure of justice, due to local prejudice in any State or municipal government, to expose us to the risk of a war which might be avoided if federal jurisdiction was asserted by suitable legislation by Congress and carried out by proper proceedings instituted by the Executive in the courts of the National Government. ”

“ But, suppose the state-roads do not furnish (as in point of fact they did not at the time of the adoption of the constitution, and as hereafter, for many exigencies of the government in times of war and otherwise, they may not) suitable routes for the mails, what is then to be done? Is the power of the general government to be paralyzed? Suppose a mail-road is out of repair and founderous, cannot congress authorize the repair of it? If they can, why then not make it originally? Is the one more a means to an end, than the other? ”

“ Subsection 391.1 stated that it was 'highly important to the interests of the United States that no person be employed in the Department who is disloyal or who constitutes a security risk.' Subsection 391.2 stated that so far as the Regulations related to the handling of loyalty cases, they were promulgated in accordance with Executive Order No. ”

“ Without undertaking, in the solution of these inquiries, to define with perfect exactness the powers of the Postmaster-General, or to deny or affirm any implied general power in that officer to make loans on the credit or responsibility of the government, we think it may be safely assumed that such a power, if vested in that officer, must be limited to acts inseparable from the exigencies of the Department over which he presides; acts necessarily incident to its regular, legitimate operations. ”

“ In short, I cannot conceive, looking to the whole statute, that Congress intended any thing more than to regulate the conduct of its own officers, in compelling them to furnish all the evidence in their power of the contract and the circumstances attending its negotiation ”

“ There is no act of Congress, and nothing to be found in American jurisprudence, which bears very directly on the subject. In the English law the instrument is thus defined: 'Proclamation proclamatio-is a notice publicly given of anything whereof the king thinks fit to advertise his subjects. ”

“ It is not alone hasty and inconsiderate legislation that he is required to check; but if at any time Congress shall, after apparently full deliberation, resolve on measures which he deems subversive of the Constitution or of the vital interests of the country, it is his solemn duty to stand in the breach and resist them. The President is bound to approve or disapprove every bill which passes Congress and is presented to him for his signature. ”

“ Power to hear and determine claims founded upon any law of Congress, or upon any regulation of an executive department, or upon any contract, express or implied, with the government of the United States, and all claims which may be referred to it by either house of Congress, is vested in the Court of Claims. Mere applications for extra allowance, unsupported by any contract express or implied, must be made to Congress, where alone they can properly be entertained. ”

“ In its application to the Executive, with reference to the legislative branch of the Government, the same rule of action should make the President ever anxious to avoid the exercise of any discretionary authority which can be regulated by Congress. The biases which may operate upon him will not be so likely to extend to the representatives of the people in that body. ”

“ Must they wait until the mischief has been done, and can they apply the remedy only when it is too late? To confer this authority to meet future cases under circumstances strictly specified is as clearly within the war-declaring power as such an authority conferred upon the President by act of Congress after the deed had been done. In the progress of a great nation many exigencies must arise imperatively requiring that Congress should authorize the President to act promptly on certain conditions which may or may not afterwards arise. ”

“ Where a federal agency is authorized to invoke an overriding federal power except in certain prescribed situations and then to leave the problem to traditional state control, the existence of federal authority to act should appear affirmatively and not rest on inference alone. ”

“ Its action in now overturning the precedents of seventy-five years governing a business of such volume and of such wide ramifications, cannot fail to be the occasion for loosing a flood of litigation and of legislation, state and national, in order to establish a new boundary between state and national power, raising questions which cannot be answered for years to come, during which a great business and the regulatory officers of every state must be harassed by all the doubts and difficulties inseparable from a realignment of the distribution of power in our federal system. ”

“ Projects are on foot, it is believed, to induce Congress to provide for new classes of claims, and to revive old ones through the repeal or modification of the statute of limitations, by which they are now barred. I presume these schemes, if proposed, will be received with little favor by Congress, and I recommend that persons having claims against the United States cognizable by any tribunal or Department thereof be required to present them at an early day, and that legislation be directed as far as practicable to the defeat of unfounded and unjust demands upon the Government ”

“ Despite Congress' clear expression of its purpose to grant broad condemnation power to T.V.A. we are asked to hold that the Authority's power is less than the powers to condemn granted other governmental agencies, which under 40 U.S.C. § 257, 40 U.S.C.A. § 257 have been held to have a power to condemn coextensive with their power to purchase. ”

“ If there is resistance to the Federal courts, interference with the mails, or interstate commerce, or molestation of Federal property, or if the State authorities in some crisis which they are unable to face call for help, then the Federal Government may interfere ”

“ It is, therefore, analogous to a case in which a public officer has rendered a service to a third party, not necessarily connected with his public duty, as salvage by an officer of the government; can the payment for this service be rejected, beeause of the office the individual held? See the case of The Tigre, decided by Judge Washington. 3 W. C. C. 567.
2. This proviso was well considered, in the case of the United States v. Gratiot. The terms of the act, by their own force, are limited to appropriations made during the then session of congress. ”