n responsibility, without
requiring the advice and consent of the Senate, still that
while the President was proceeding under the law by which
the appointment itself operated as a removal, and a failure
to affirm the appointment restored the old officer to his
place again, that the Senate whose action was to have that
important effect, was entitled not only to know whether the
public interest would be served by the appointment of the
proposed official on his own merits solely, but also whether
it would be best served by the removal of his predecessor
or by the restoration to office of his predecessor. Both
the President and the Senate were acting under the existing
law, treating it as in force and valid. Now suppose it were
true that the question of advising and consenting to the appointment
proposed by the President were a very doubtful one indeed,
the question on its merits being closely balanced; and the
officer to be removed or restored according as the Senate
should consent or refuse to consent, was a man of conspicuous
and unquestioned capacity and character, against whom no reasonable
objection was brought, to be removed for political reasons
solely. The Senate certainly, in exercising its power had
the right to consider all that the President had a right to
consider, and therefore it seems to me that we were justified,
in that class of cases, in asking for the documents in his
possession bearing upon the question of removal.

It will be observed that in none of the arguments of this
Constitutional question has it been claimed that the President
had the right without statute authority to suspend public
officers, even if he had the right to remove them. That right,
if he had it at all, he got under the statute under which
he and the Senate were acting.

On the 17th of July, 1885, the President issued an order
suspending George M. Duskin of Alabama, from the office of
Attorney of the United States, by virtue of the authority
conferred upon him by Sec. 1768 of the Revised Statutes,
which is a reenactment of the law of which I have just spoken.

On the 14th of December, 1885, the President nominated to
the Senate John D. Burnett, vice George M. Duskin, suspended.
The Chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary, as had been
usual in such cases, addressed a note to the Attorney-General,
asking that all papers and information in the possession of
the Department touching the conduct and administration of
the o