, 1884-04-20
The Democratic Leader.
OUR POINT ADMITTED.

cisml Intelligent cnbcIsm eorrects error
or, at least. it works benefit but vituper-
alton does neither. Making faces" at a
rival speaker does not answer or eontro-
vert his argument.
We are led to these reflections by the
editorial in the Sun of yesterday, which
assumed to answer The LEADER of the
previous day as to the power of the
President to accept the resignation of
judge.
Let us state the case upon
which the Sun dilates. THE LEADER
said that the President could, if
he would, accept Judge Sener's r~esigna-
ton. The SHn, upon the day following;
said The LEADER was in error; that lit
is not lawful for the President to accept
the resignation as otherwise than indicat-
ing the desire Of the incumbent to be.
relieved OF lAJAs a
Now, let it be understood that the Sun
assumed the authority to say that The
LEADER was in error. Where it got its
law it did not and does not say. 1t cites
no precedent whatever. The LEADER
then showed that two Attorney Generals
of the United States had expressly decided
that the President had the authority to
accept the resignation Of an officer, even
before q successor had been appointed
and qualified. We showed that General
Grant accepted the resignation of q
number of Federal oficeholders, including
that Of General Belknap, Secretary of
War; further, that President Arthur
accepted the designations of Wayne
McVeagh as Attorney General, and also
that Of another Cabinet officer and,
finally, that President Hayes had ac-
cepted the resignation ofEI-Chief Justice
Fisher, of this Territory, long before a
successor was appointed, .,s.t
1t strikes the ordinary mind that u
array Of authorities and precedents was
invulnerable. 1t is further apparent that
the proper way to answer our citations
was to cite counter citations and show by
law and precedent that our authorities
weere wrong. But does the Sun attempt
that? No. 1t attempts no answer. In
stead, 1t confines itself to an attempt to
abuse persons connected with this paper
and Judge Peck. Docs abuse prove any
thingt .E rrT
And now to review the Suns article OF
yesterday: IL has certainly the night to
express an opinion In this case, IL was
the aggressor. ltbegan by declaring iii
LEADER wrong whereas, we have proved
eonclusively that the Sun was wrong. 1t
chose to differ from The LEADER hrst.
We are simply defending an attack.
The Sun then proceeds to put the
halter about its neck by admitting Just
h We proved, to wit: That the fresi-
lent could accept designations, But, 1t
says, 1T is an extraordinary proceeding
for the president to relieve an officer from
his duties before his successor has duly
qualified Suppose it Is the fact re-
mains, however, that he can do 50, just
the samesaIhe Sun then says, AS to u
citations, thai the acceptance Of resigna-
tons appears to have been done only
where the incumbent had either disgraced
himself In the eyes of the public so as
to make 1t manltestly improper for him to
continue to discharge the duties Of the
othce, or had accepted new respon-
sibilities that would conflict with the posi-
ton he had held, az was the case when
Judge Fisher resigned and took the Office
Of Prosecuting Attorney.
So, by the authority of this great
Daniel come to Judgment, a rascal can
be relieved Of his office at once; but fla
man is not actually Il rascal he can be re-
lieved only when he assumes another po-
sition. What silly nonsense But the
point is that the San admits the power of
the president to accept designations,
which is all We claimed. 1t is no matter
what the ground of ac%ceptancei is. Indeed,
the San puts itself in a ridiculous posi-
ton when it says that it is proper to ac-
cept the resignation of a rascal. II any
reason ever existed why a resignation
should not be accepted so that the incum-
bent might thereby be relieved Of
official responsibility, it existed
in a case ike Belknap's. If the
president had not the authority to accept