If the Senate be regarded as personally or politically hostile to
the President, it is natural, and not altogether unreasonable, for the
officer to expect that it will take his part as far as possible, restore
him to his place, and give him a triumph over his Executive superior.
The officer has other chances of impunity arising from accidental
defects of evidence, the mode of investigating it, and the secrecy of
the hearing. It is not wonderful that official malfeasance should become
bold in proportion as the delinquents learn to think themselves safe.
I am entirely persuaded that under such a rule the President can not
perform the great duty assigned to him of seeing the laws faithfully
executed, and that it disables him most especially from enforcing that
rigid accountability which is necessary to the due execution of the
revenue laws.
The Constitution invests the President with authority to _decide_
whether a removal should be made in any given case; the act of Congress
declares in substance that he shall only _accuse_ such as he supposes to
be unworthy of their trust.
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