On the other hand, an exclusive power
of removal by the President was defended as a true exposition of the
text of the Constitution. It was maintained that there are certain
causes for which persons ought to be removed from office without being
guilty of treason, bribery, or malfeasance, and that the nature of
things demands that it should be so. "Suppose," it was said, "a man
becomes insane by the visitation of God and is likely to ruin our
affairs; are the hands of the Government to be confined from warding off
the evil? Suppose a person in office not possessing the talents he was
judged to have at the time of the appointment; is the error not to be
corrected? Suppose he acquires vicious habits and incurable indolence or
total neglect of the duties of his office, which shall work mischief to
the public welfare; is there no way to arrest the threatened danger?
Suppose he becomes odious and unpopular by reason of the measures he
pursues--and this he may do without committing any positive offense
against the law; must he preserve his office in despite of the popular
will? Suppose him grasping for his own aggrandizement and the elevation
of his connections by every means short of the treason defined by the
Constitution, hurrying your affairs to the precipice of destruction,
endangering your domestic tranquillity, plundering you of the means of
defense, alienating the affections of your allies and promoting the
spirit of discord; must the tardy, tedious, desultory road by way of
impeachment be traveled to overtake the man who, barely confining
himself within the letter of the law, is employed in drawing off the
vital principle of the Government? The nature of things, the great
objects of society, the express objects of the Constitution itself,
require that this thing should be otherwise.
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