and it was easy to see that men
could honestly differ as to its character in these respects. But it
was impossible to comprehend how a candid legislator could maintain
the Constitutionality and expediency of the Act, and then propose to
suspend it for that specific period of General Grant's administration,
when, if needed at all, it would be most needed. Within eight months
next ensuing the President would probably make more removals and
appointments than for the remainder of his term, and it was just for
this period that Mr. Trumbull, Mr. Edmunds, and Mr. Schurz urged that
the law be made inoperative,--inoperative in order that removals of
Democratic office-holders for good cause, and for no cause except that
they were Democrats, might in every way be expedited.

It was soon perceived that if the question before the Senate should be
reduced to a choice between suspension of the Act or to total repeal,
there was a danger that the majority would vote for repeal. To avert
that result, Mr. Edmunds asked to withdraw the proposition, and it was
accordingly recommitted to the Judiciary Committee on the 23d of March.
On the next day Mr. Trumbull reported a substitute for the existing
law, and the Senate, after brief discussion, agreed to it by _ayes_ 37,
_noes_ 15. The amendment seemed to be ingeniously framed to destroy
the original Act and yet appear to maintain it in another form. The
senators apparently wished to gratify General Grant and promote their
own purposes by rendering the removal of President Johnson's appointees
easy, and at the same time avoid the inconsistency involved in the
repeal of a law for whose enactment they had so strenuously contended
only two years before.

The first modification of the original Act, as embodied in the Senate
amendment, was to relieve the President altogether from the necessity
of filing charges against an officer whom he desired to suspend. In
the second place, all provisions of the original law authorizing the
Senate to pass specific judgment on the propriety of the suspension
and declaring that if the Senate did not approve the President's act
the person suspended should "forthwith" resume his office, were now
abandoned. The President was left at liberty to suspend any officer
without assigning a cause, and to nominate his successor. If the
nomination should be rejected, another might be made, and another,
and another, until the Senate should confirm. If the Senate sho