This respondent was informed and verily believed that it was practically
settled by the First Congress of the United States, and had been so
considered and uniformly and in great numbers of instances acted on by
each Congress and President of the United States, in succession, from
President Washington to and including President Lincoln, and from the
First Congress to the Thirty-ninth Congress, that the Constitution of
the United States conferred on the President, as part of the executive
power and as one of the necessary means and instruments of performing
the executive duty expressly imposed on him by the Constitution of
taking care that the laws be faithfully executed, the power at any and
all times of removing from office all executive officers for cause to be
judged of by the President alone. This respondent had, in pursuance of
the Constitution, required the opinion of each principal officer of the
Executive Departments upon this question of constitutional executive
power and duty, and had been advised by each of them, including
the said Stanton, Secretary for the Department of War, that under
the Constitution of the United States this power was lodged by
the Constitution in the President of the United States, and that,
consequently, it could be lawfully exercised by him, and the Congress
could not deprive him thereof; and this respondent, in his capacity of
President of the United States, and because in that capacity he was both
enabled and bound to use his best judgment upon this question, did, in
good faith and with an earnest desire to arrive at the truth, come to
the conclusion and opinion, and did make the same known to the honorable
the Senate of the United States by a message dated on the 2d day of
March, 1867 (a true copy whereof is hereunto annexed and marked A), that
the power last mentioned was conferred and the duty of exercising it in
fit cases was imposed on the President by the Constitution of the United
States, and that the President could not be deprived of this power
or relieved of this duty, nor could the same be vested by law in the
President and the Senate jointly, either in part or whole; and this has
ever since remained and was the opinion of this respondent at the time
when he was forced as aforesaid to consider and decide what act or acts
should and might lawfully be done by this respondent, as President of
the United States, to cause the said Stanton to surrender the said
office.
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