is exercised by his Department) in defiance of the Chief
Magistrate elected by the people and responsible to them.

But the evil tendency of the particular doctrine adverted to, though
sufficiently serious, would be as nothing in comparison with the
pernicious consequences which would inevitably flow from the approbation
and allowance by the people and the practice by the Senate of the
unconstitutional power of arraigning and censuring the official conduct
of the Executive in the manner recently pursued. Such proceedings are
eminently calculated to unsettle the foundations of the Government, to
disturb the harmonious action of its different departments, and to break
down the checks and balances by which the wisdom of its framers sought
to insure its stability and usefulness.

The honest differences of opinion which occasionally exist between the
Senate and the President in regard to matters in which both are obliged
to participate are sufficiently embarrassing; but if the course recently
adopted by the Senate shall hereafter be frequently pursued, it is not
only obvious that the harmony of the relations between the President and
the Senate will be destroyed, but that other and graver effects will
ultimately ensue. If the censures of the Senate be submitted to by the
President, the confidence of the people in his ability and virtue and
the character and usefulness of his Administration will soon be at an
end, and the real power of the Government will fall into the hands of a
body holding their offices for long terms, not elected by the people and
not to them directly responsible. If, on the other hand, the illegal
censures of the Senate should be resisted by the President, collisions
and angry controversies might ensue, discreditable in their progress and
in the end compelling the people to adopt the conclusion either that
their Chief Magistrate was unworthy of their respect or that the Senate
was chargeable with calumny and injustice. Either of these results would
impair public confidence in the perfection of the system and lead to
serious alterations of its framework or to the practical abandonment of
some of its provisions.

The influence of such proceedings on the other departments of the
Government, and more especially on the States, could not fail to be
extensively pernicious. When the judges in the last resort of official
misconduct themselves overleap the bounds of their authority as
prescribed by the Constitut