--_ayes_ 111,
_noes_ 38. When it was returned to the Senate, that body refused, by
a decisive vote, to concur in the amendment which placed members of
the Cabinet on the same basis with other officers respecting the
President's power of removal. Upon a conference between the two
branches on this disagreement, a substitute was adopted, declaring
that the members of the Cabinet "shall hold their offices,
respectively, for and during the term of the President by whom they
may have been appointed, and for one month thereafter, subject to
removal by and with the advice and consent of the Senate." Both
Houses agreed to the bill in this form. Mr. Farquhar's change of
mind and his motion to reconsider led to the incorporation in the bill
of the provision whose alleged violation by President Johnson was the
direct cause of his impeachment by the House of Representatives a
year later.

The final action on the measure by the Senate was on the 20th of
February, so that the President had the opportunity to endanger its
passage by postponing the veto, and it was generally anticipated that
he would do so. He communicated it, as in the case of the
Reconstruction Bill, on the 2d of March. In reviewing the measure Mr.
Johnson said: "In effect it provides that the President shall not
remove from their places any of the civil officers whose terms of
service are not limited by law, without the advice and consent of the
Senate of the United States. The bill conflicts, in my judgment, with
the Constitution of the United States. The question, as Congress is
well aware, is by no means a new one. That the power of removal is
constitutionally vested in the President of the United States, is a
principle which has been not more distinctly declared by judicial
authority and judicial commentators, than it has been uniformly
practiced upon by the Legislative and Executive Departments of the
Government. . . . The question has often been raised in subsequent
times of high excitement, and the practice of the Government has
nevertheless conformed in all cases to the decision thus made.
Having at an early period accepted the Constitution, in regard to the
Executive office, in the sense in which it was interpreted with the
concurrence of its founders, I have found no sufficient grounds in the
arguments now opposed to that construction, or in any assumed necessity
of the times, for changing those opinions. . . . For these reasons, I
return the bil