Removal from office

“ EXECUTIVE PATRONAGE AND REMOVAL FROM OFFICE FROM A SPEECH DELIVERED AT THE NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CONVENTION HELD AT WORCESTER, MASSACHUSETTS, OCTOBER 12, 1832
The same party selfishness which drives good men out of office will push bad men in. Political proscription leads necessarily to the filling of offices with incompetent persons, and to a consequent mal-execution of official duties. And in my opinion, Sir, this principle of claiming a monopoly of office by the right of conquest, unless the public shall effectually rebuke and restrain it, will entirely change the character of our government. ”

“ It is a matter of serious doubt with thinking men whether, as long as this vicious system of making appointments on the “spoils” basis is preserved, a system of removal at the pleasure of the Executive is not after all as good as and perhaps better than any we can invent; and whether the tenure-of-office act does not do more harm on the whole in preventing and impeding desirable removals by a good President than in impeding unjust removals by a bad one. ”

“ Sudden removals from office are seldom necessary; we see how seldom, by reference to the practice of the government under all administrations which preceded the present. And if we look back over the removals which have been made in the last six years, there is no man who can maintain that there is one case in a hundred in which the country would have suffered the least inconvenience if no removal had been made without the consent of the Senate. Party might have felt the inconvenience, but the country never. ”

“ On the other hand, if the power of removal is not to be regarded as a limitation upon the tenure of the office, but the process of removal is to be considered as a mode in which the unfitness or incapacity of the incumbent is to be ascertained,—treating it as a substitute for impeachment, to be used in cases of palpable official incapacity or unfitness,—then it is not repugnant to the tenure of good behavior. ”

“ The historic meaning of the words High Crimes and Misdemeanors, the writings of the Founders and my own reasoned judgement convince me that a President can indeed commit acts against the Public trust that are so egregious that while they are not statutory crimes, they would demand removal from Office. To maintain that the lack of a codified and comprehensive list of all the outrageous acts that a President might conceivably commit renders Congress powerless to remove such a President defies reason. ”

“ The power of removal, under the influence of a false political philosophy, has been perverted into the duty of removal so as to give the offices to the winning party. A new President of different politics from his predecessor is expected to make sweeping changes, amounting even to a "total administrative cataclysm." The appointment of a political antagonist excites surprise, and requires an explanation or apology. Experience of the working of an office, ability, honesty, fitness, are not conclusive. ”

“ Consequently, removal would be always and justly regarded as a stigma upon character, and a man removed from a position in a public office would be virtually branded as a convicted criminal. Removal for cause, therefore, if the cause were to be decided by any authority but that of the responsible superior officer, instead of improving, would swiftly and enormously enhance the cost, and ruin the efficiency, of the public service, by destroying subordination, and making every lazy and worthless member of it twice as careless and incompetent as he is now. ”

“ If the executive, to prevent a non-execution of the laws, or a non-performance of his own proper functions, had a right to suspend an unworthy officer from office, this power was in no respect distinguishable from a power of removal. In fact, it is an exercise, though in a more moderated form, of the same power. Besides; it was argued, that the danger, that a president would remove good men from office was wholly imaginary. It was not by the splendour attached to the character of a particular president like Washington, that such an opinion was to be maintained. ”

“ By the operation of this law, the President can deprive a man of office without taking the responsibility of removing him. The law itself vacates the office, and gives the means of rewarding a friend without the exercise of the power of removal at all. Here is increased power, with diminished responsibility. Here is a still greater dependence, for the means of living, on executive favor, and, of course, a new dominion acquired over opinion and over conduct. The power of removal is, or at least formerly was, a suspected and odious power. ”

“ If a due participation of office is a matter of right, how are vacancies to be obtained? Those by death are few; by resignation, none. Can any other mode than that of removal be proposed? This is a painful office; but it is made my duty, and I meet it as such. I proceed in the operation with deliberation and inquiry, that it may injure the best men least, and effect the purposes of justice and public utility with the least private distress; that it may be thrown, as much as possible, on delinquency, on oppression, on intolerance, on ante-revolutionary adherence to our enemies. ”

“ Considering the great increase which has been made in public offices in the last quarter of a century and the probability of further increase, we incur the hazard of witnessing violent political contests, directed too often to the single object of retaining office by those who are in or obtaining it by those who are out. Under the influence of these convictions I shall cordially concur in any constitutional measure for regulating and, by regulating, restraining the power of removal. ”

“ But I am content with the slightest degree of restraint which may be sufficient to arrest the totally unnecessary, unreasonable, and dangerous exercise of the power of removal. I desire only, for the present at least, that, when the President turns a man out of office, he should give his reasons for it to the Senate, when he nominates another person to fill the place. ”

“ That we favor reforms in the administration of the Government, in the abolition of all sinecures, useless offices and officers, in the election by the people of officers of the Government instead of appointment by the President. That competency, honesty, and sobriety are essential qualifications for holding civil office, and we oppose the removal of such persons from mere administrative offices, except so far as it may be absolutely necessary to secure effectiveness to the vital issues on which the general administration of the Government has been intrusted to a party. ”

“ An expulsion from the Senate or the House of Representatives is the most severe form of congressional self-discipline. While there are no specific grounds for an expulsion expressed in the Constitution, expulsion actions in both the House and the Senate have generally concerned cases of perceived disloyalty to the United States Government, or the conviction of a criminal statutory offense which involved abuse of one’s official position. ”

“ Congress has already been made familiar with my views respecting the "tenure-of-office bill." Experience has proved that its repeal is demanded by the best interests of the country, and that while it remains in force the President can not enjoin that rigid accountability of public officers so essential to an honest and efficient execution of the laws. Its revocation would enable the executive department to exercise the power of appointment and removal in accordance with the original design of the Federal Constitution. ”

“ It was a vile slander, put forth so as to evade the responsibility of a legal prosecution. We think he is the last man to hold an office, the value of which depends upon the enterprise and integrity of the very men whose families and business were alike to be overwhelmed with ruin at his special application.
'His removal from an office thus obtained would be doubly gratifying to us, when we know his family does not need its emoluments for support. ”

“ Men were continually removed from office purely for political reasons. The general character of his appointments to office, you can judge of better than I. It seems to me the removal of subordinate officers from their station on account of their vote is one great evil in the management of our institutions. Of what consequence is it whether the postmaster at Eastham or West-Newton, the keeper of the lighthouse at Cape Anne, or the Clay Pounds of Truro, or the district attorney in Boston, or the tide-waiters at Nantucket are "good whigs," or not good whigs? ”

“ While one inducted into office or public employment is entitled to the privileges or emoluments thereof, until legally separated therefrom, he is not absolved from the duty of diligence upon his part in the assertion of his right to the office, or to the compensation attached thereto. Public policy requires that the government shall be seasonably advised of the attitude of its officers and employees attempted to be displaced when they assert illegal removal or suspension as a basis for the recovery of the office or its emoluments. ”

“ Trumbull, Mr. Edmunds, and Mr. Schurz. Mr. Edmunds, pressed by Mr. Grimes to furnish a good reason for suspending the Act, replied that "owing to the peculiar circumstances that have attended the last administration, it is desirable that there should be an immediate and general removal of the office-holders of the country as a rule; and as an agency of that removal, subject to our approval when we meet again in confirmation of their successors, these bad men being put out, we are willing to trust this Executive with that discretion." ”

“ Members of Congress are not removed by way of an “impeachment” procedure in the legislature, as are executive and judicial officers, but are subject to the more simplified legislative process of expulsion. [9] A removal through an impeachment requires the action of both houses of Congress—impeachment in the House and trial and conviction in the Senate; while an expulsion is accomplished merely by the House or Senate acting alone concerning one of its own Members, and without the constitutional requirement of trial and conviction. ”

“ In the judgment of your committee, the power of the House to expel or punish by censure a Member for misconduct occurring before his election or in a preceding or former Congress is sustained by the practice of the House, sanctioned by reason and sound policy and in extreme cases is absolutely essential to enable the House to exclude from its deliberations and councils notoriously corrupt men, who have unexpectedly and suddenly dishonored themselves .... ”

“ In such cases the power of removal may be properly exercised; and neglect of duty or malfeasance in office will be no more tolerated in individuals appointed by myself than in those appointed by others. ”

“ But you can insure the selection of fit persons for office if, in the first place, the rule is established that officers shall not be liable to removal for party reasons, but only upon grounds connected with the discharge of their official duties, as it was tinder the early Administrations. ”

“ At the establishment of our constitutions, the judiciary bodies were supposed to be the most helpless and harmless members of the government. Experience, however, soon showed in what way they were to become the most dangerous; that the insufficiency of the means provided for their removal gave them a freehold and irresponsibility in office; that their decisions, seeming to concern individual suitors only, pass silent and unheeded by the public at large; ”

“ While an expulsion is an internal authority of legislative bodies incident to their general powers over their own proceedings and Members, recall is a special process outside of the legislature itself, exercised by the people through a special election. ”

“ It takes cognizance of the fact that it is impossible for the head of a Department or a large office personally to know all the applicants, and therefore it provides a method by which, when a vacancy occurs by death, by resignation, by the unlimited power of removal, a suitable person may be designated to fill the vacancy. ”

“ The authority to expel has thus been used cautiously, particularly when the institution of Congress might be seen as usurping or supplanting its own institutional judgment for that of the electorate as to the character or fitness for office of someone the people have chosen to represent them in Congress. ”

“ Supporters of recall provisions see this mechanism as a device to assure regular and close oversight of elected public officials, and to make elected officials more continuously, rather than periodically, responsible and responsive to the will and desires of the electorate. With recall procedures available, it is argued, there is no need for the electorate to tolerate an incompetent, corrupt, and/or unresponsive official until that official’s term is over. ”

“ The right to remove from office, while subjected to no just restraint, is inevitably destined to produce a spirit of crouching servility with the official corps, which, in order to uphold the hand which feeds them, would lead to direct and active interference in the elections, both State and Federal, thereby subjecting the course of State legislation to the dictation of the chief executive officer and making the will of that officer absolute and supreme. ”

“ It leads to the usurpation, in a large measure, of the executive power of appointment by members of the legislative branch, substituting their irresponsible views of personal or party interest for the judgment as to the public good, and the sense of responsibility of the executive. It subjects those who exercise the appointing power, from the President of the United States down, to the intrusion of hordes of office-hunters and their patrons, who rob them of the time and strength they should devote to the public interest. ”