w again before us, whether the President
really had assumed such illegal power; that point is decided, so far as
the Senate ever can decide it. But the Protest denies that, supposing
the President to have assumed such illegal power, the Senate could
properly pass the resolution; or, what is the same thing, it denies that
the Senate could, in this way, express any opinion about it. It denies
that the Senate has any right, by resolution, in this or any other case,
to express disapprobation of the President's conduct, let that conduct
be what it may; and this, one of the leading doctrines of the Protest, I
propose to consider. But as I concurred in the resolution of the 28th of
March, and did not trouble the Senate, at that time, with any statement
of my own reasons, I will avail myself of this opportunity to explain,
shortly, what those reasons were.

In the first place, then, I have to say, that I did not vote for the
resolution on the mere ground of the removal of Mr. Duane from the
office of Secretary of the Treasury. Although I disapprove of the
removal altogether, yet the power of removal does exist in the
President, according to the established construction of the
Constitution; and therefore, although in a particular case it may be
abused, and, in my opinion, was abused in this case, yet its exercise
cannot be justly said to be an assumption or usurpation. We must all
agree that Mr. Duane is out of office. He has, therefore, been removed
by a power constitutionally competent to remove him, whatever may be
thought of the exercise of that power under the circumstances of the
case.

If, then, the act of removing the Secretary be not the assumption of
power which the resolution declares, in what is that assumption found?
Before giving a precise answer to this inquiry, allow me to recur to
some of the principal previous events.

At the end of the last session of Congress, the public moneys of the
United States were still in their proper place. That place was fixed by
the law of the land, and no power of change was conferred on any other
human being than the Secretary of the Treasury. On him the power of
change was conferred, to be exercised by himself, if emergency should
arise, and to be exercised for reasons which he was bound to lay before
Congress. No other officer of the government had the slightest pretence
of authority to lay his hand on these moneys for the purpose of changing
the place of their custody. All t