til such absence
or inability by sickness shall cease: _Provided_, That no one vacancy
shall be supplied in manner aforesaid for a longer term than six months.

This law, with some modifications, reenacts the act of 1792, and
provides, as did that act, for the sort of vacancies so to be filled;
but, like the act of 1792, it makes no provision for a vacancy
occasioned by removal. It has reference altogether to vacancies arising
from other causes.

According to my construction of the act of 1863, while it impliedly
repeals the act of 1792 regulating the vacancies therein described, it
has no bearing whatever upon so much of the act of 1795 as applies to a
vacancy caused by removal. The act of 1795 therefore furnishes the rule
for a vacancy occasioned by removal--one of the vacancies expressly
referred to in the act of the 7th of August, 1789, creating the
Department of War. Certainly there is no express repeal by the act of
1863 of the act of 1795. The repeal, if there is any, is by implication,
and can only be admitted so far as there is a clear inconsistency
between the two acts. The act of 1795 is inconsistent with that of 1863
as to a vacancy occasioned by death, resignation, absence, or sickness,
but not at all inconsistent as to a vacancy caused by removal.

It is assuredly proper that the President should have the same power to
fill temporarily a vacancy occasioned by removal as he has to supply
a place made vacant by death or the expiration of a term. If, for
instance, the incumbent of an office should be found to be wholly unfit
to exercise its functions, and the public service should require his
immediate expulsion, a remedy should exist and be at once applied, and
time be allowed the President to select and appoint a successor, as is
permitted him in case of a vacancy caused by death or the termination of
an official term.

The necessity, therefore, for an _ad interim_ appointment is just as
great, and, indeed, may be greater in cases of removal than in any
others. Before it be held, therefore, that the power given by the act
of 1795 in cases of removal is abrogated by succeeding legislation an
express repeal ought to appear. So wholesome a power should certainly
not be taken away by loose implication.

It may be, however, that in this, as in other cases of implied repeal,
doubts may arise. It is confessedly one of the most subtle and debatable
questions which arise in the construction of statutes. I