tments, Mr.
Madison spoke as follows:

It is evidently the intention of the Constitution that the first
magistrate should be responsible for the executive department. So far,
therefore, as we do not make the officers who are to aid him in the
duties of that department responsible to him, he is not responsible
to the country. Again: Is there no danger that an officer, when he is
appointed by the concurrence of the Senate and has friends in that body,
may choose rather to risk his establishment on the favor of that branch
than rest it upon the discharge of his duties to the satisfaction of the
executive branch, which is constitutionally authorized to inspect and
control his conduct? And if it should happen that the officers connect
themselves with the Senate, they may mutually support each other, and
for want of efficacy reduce the power of the President to a mere
vapor, in which case his responsibility would be annihilated, and the
expectation of it is unjust. The high executive officers, joined in
cabal with the Senate, would lay the foundation of discord, and end in
an assumption of the executive power only to be removed by a revolution
in the Government.

Mr. Sedgwick, in the same debate, referring to the proposition that
a head of Department should only be removed or suspended by the
concurrence of the Senate, used this language:

But if proof be necessary, what is then the consequence? Why, in nine
cases out of ten, where the case is very clear to the mind of the
President that the man ought to be removed, the effect can not be
produced, because it is absolutely impossible to produce the necessary
evidence. Are the Senate to proceed without evidence? Some gentlemen
contend not. Then the object will be lost. Shall a man under these
circumstances be saddled upon the President who has been appointed for
no other purpose but to aid the President in performing certain duties?
Shall he be continued, I ask again, against the will of the President?
If he is, where is the responsibility? Are you to look for it in the
President, who has no control over the officer, no power to remove him
if he acts unfeelingly or unfaithfully? Without you make him responsible
you weaken and destroy the strength and beauty of your system. What is
to be done in cases which can only be known from a long acquaintance
with the conduct of an officer?

I had indulged the hope th