Orleans independent standard. [volume] (Irasburgh, Vt.) 1856-1871, 1869-03-23
Congressional News.
WASHINGTON, March II, 1869.
SENATE

w ASH1NGTON, March 1, oOJ.
SENATE.
The unfinished business-the bill
to repeal the tenure Of office act-was
taken up, and Mr. Edmunds resumed
his argument against the bill. He
read extracts from the report of the
select committee in 1926 to consider
the expediency OF limiting the execu-
tive powers, showing that the committee
had come to the conclusion that the
exercise Of this unlimited power by
the executive tended to sully the pu-
Tity of our institutions and endanger
the country. In pursuance of the rec
concentrations of the committee, six
distinct acts had been passed, all in
tended to limit the power of the exec
utive and one of these acts had clear
ly embodied the principle underlying
the tenure of Office act, by providing
that commissions should no longer be
issued to officers of the army and ma
w, with clause importing that they
should continue in office during the
pleasure of the president, but should
continue in force during behavior, and
that no officers should be dismissed
by the president except in pursuance
of the sentence of court martial or ad
dress to the president from the two
houses of congress. Thus early in
the history of the country its leading
statesmen had learned and profitted
by the great lesson of all history, that
the liberties Of freedom are always
destroyed by a gradual exercise of
executive powers eliminating IN des
potism. Referring to the history of
| the tenure of office act, he said that
it was passed not merely to restrain
mal-administration of bad president,
although the immediate occasion was
the conduct of president Johnson, but
chiefly upon the ground that it intro
duced an honest and greatly needed re-
form in the administration of the gov
ernment. The senators who thought
the act had operated to- prevent need
ed reforms in the public service should
remember that it operated only as a
restriction during recess. The state
ment that the law had embarrassed
the president in his attempts to re-
form the public service was shown to
be without foundation by the fact that
since the passage of the law all the
recesses of the senate had amounted
to only 1913 days, while that body had
been in session 1872 days, giving the
president ample opportunity to avoid
the embarrassment of making out eau
ses for removals.
Mr.. Thayer offered a substitute for
the pending bill, providing that the
act regulating the tenure of certain
civil offices is hereby made and de-
clared to be imperative and void from
and after the passage of this act, pro-
vided, however, that the president
shall report to the senate within ten
days from the beginning of each ses-
sion all appointments made by him
during the preceding recess of the
senate, which require confirmation by
the senate.
Mr.. Sherman spoke briefly in favor
of the bill. He indicated some of the
embarassments caused to the president
by the operation of the tenure of Of
flee act, and was proceeding to speak
Of others, when Mr.. Trumbull suggest
ed that it was unnecessary to point
out the evils that would arise under
the operation of the act, as no one in
the senate seemed to wish to keep il
in force.
Mr.. Sherman-If | understood the
senator from Vermont Mr.. Edmunds
correctly, he spoke for more than two
} hours in advocacy of the principles
upon which he says the act is based
Mr.. Trumbull-Yes; and he has
joined in the report of the committee
recommending suspension of the act
Mr.. Sherman continued his argu
ment, holding that the president hae