Port Tobacco times, and Charles County advertiser. (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1845-1898, 1886-03-12
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PORT TOBACCO:
Friday Morning...".....M March IL, 1886
The President and the Senate

Mr.. Edmunds formally opened his as
sault upon the administration in the Sen
ate Tuesday. His speech, which Was
made in support of the majority report of
the Senate judiciary committee, censuring
the Attorney General expressly, and the
President implicitly, for Withholding GER
tain papers relating to the removal of dis
trict attorney Duskin. had been pre-an-
nounced for several days, and as result
the galleries were filed to their full capa-
city to hear full and authoritative state
ment of the Republican quarrel with the
President. Mr.. Edmunds occupied near
ly the whole session in his speech, in
which he celebrated upon his complaint
and sought by specious and obscure logic
and vigorous rhetoric to disguise what he
must have now found is the utter untena-
bility of his position.
His argument which it was hoped would
fire the republican popular mind with in
dicnation and resentment against usurp-
ing Executive, has fallen fiat. The opin-
ion of nearly all iudicious minds Of Mr..
Edmunds's speech is that it presents
throughout the most absolute begging of
the question. He comedies in the off set
that the Presidents power to suspend an
officer in his discretion is well established,
but attempts to draw a distinction be-
tween suspension and rem oval and insists
that the President cannot remove an off
Ger without the consent Of the Senate
evinced by its concurrence in the appoiat-
ment of his successor, and that the Senate
possesses as complete a coordinate power
in the matter of removals from, as in az
pointments to office The authorities he
cites TO this extraordinary point are ahso-
lutely without weight as well as without
relevancy.
The position announced by the Presi-
dent in his able message, that the Presi-
dent being vested by the constitution
with the execution of the laws and made
solely responsible therefor, is for that pur-
pose vested with discretionary power, II
the matter of removing the agents whom
he employs in this behalf, when they prove
unsatisfactory to him; and that the sole
function of the Senate, as conferred by the
constitution, is to pass upon the fitness
of the agents whom the President may
from time to time find it necessary to en-
ploy in the execution of the laws, by con-
frming thsir appointments. He sustai2s
this position by showing that this wa,
the construction given to the constitution
as early as Washingten's administration
and has been since uniformly maintained.
Dir. Edmunds opposes this high and con-
elusive authority by making irrelevant
citations from opinions of Ex-Attorneys-
General Alderman and Devens bright
luminariesD in which it was sought to
draw a distinction between suspension
and removal.
Further along the s;ena or gravely con
tends that the requirement of the cons'i-
tuition that the President shsll Uniform
Congress of the state of the Union" re-
qairss him to furnish them with all in
formation as to the irregularities or mis-
conduct of any officers which may have
Influenced him in their removal.
He contends that the Congress and not
the Executive shall be tbs exclusive judges
of whether or not the examination of pa
pers called for by them is compatible with
the public interest He gives his own
spse dirit'for proof of this position and
makes no explanation of the uabroken
precedents in acquisitions of this charac
tie, from Congress in which the proviso is
always inserted "if not Incompatible with
the public interest" or words to that effect.
Altogether Mr.. Edm ,nd.'s great onset
has proved to be extremely weak, and it
proves nothing. perhaps. except that the
old man is getting in his dotage.