impeachment, take up, consider, and decide upon the
official acts of the Executive. But in no part of the Constitution is
the President subjected to any such responsibility, and in no part of
that instrument is any such power conferred on either branch of the
Legislature.

The justice of these conclusions will be illustrated and confirmed by
a brief analysis of the powers of the Senate and a comparison of their
recent proceedings with those powers.

The high functions assigned by the Constitution to the Senate are in
their nature either legislative, executive, or judicial. It is only in
the exercise of its judicial powers, when sitting as a court for the
trial of impeachments, that the Senate is expressly authorized and
necessarily required to consider and decide upon the conduct of the
President or any other public officer. Indirectly, however, as has
already been suggested, it may frequently be called on to perform that
office. Cases may occur in the course of its legislative or executive
proceedings in which it may be indispensable to the proper exercise of
its powers that it should inquire into and decide upon the conduct of
the President or other public officers, and in every such case its
constitutional right to do so is cheerfully conceded. But to authorize
the Senate to enter on such a task in its legislative or executive
capacity the inquiry must actually grow out of and tend to some
legislative or executive action, and the decision, when expressed,
must take the form of some appropriate legislative or executive act.

The resolution in question was introduced, discussed, and passed not as
a joint but as a separate resolution. It asserts no legislative power,
proposes no legislative action, and neither possesses the form nor any
of the attributes of a legislative measure. It does not appear to have
been entertained or passed with any view or expectation of its issuing
in a law or joint resolution, or in the repeal of any law or joint
resolution, or in any other legislative action.

Whilst wanting both the form and substance of a legislative measure,
it is equally manifest that the resolution was not justified by any
of the executive powers conferred on the Senate. These powers relate
exclusively to the consideration of treaties and nominations to office,
and they are exercised in secret session and with closed doors. This
resolution does not apply to any treaty or nomination, and was passed
in a public sessi