em as the authority
for his action, in his message announcing the suspension of
the official.

The controversy waxed warm in the Senate, and in the press
throughout the country. The effect of it was that the confirmation
of Mr. Cleveland's nominees for important offices was postponed
for several months, in some cases eight to ten, but as they
were exercising their functions under temporary appointments,
it made no difference to them. When they were at last confirmed
by the Senate, they received commissions dated from the appointment
which took place after the advice and consent of the Senate.
So the four years, for which they could hold office, began
to run then, and when a new Administration of a different
politics came into power, they held their office for a period
considerably more than four years, except a few who were
actually removed by President Harrison.

I do not think the people cared much about the dispute. The
sympathy was rather with President Cleveland. The people,
both Republicans and Democrats, expected that the political
control of the more important offices would be changed when
a new party came into power, and considered Mr. Edmunds's
Constitutional argument as a mere ingenious device to protract
the day when their political fate should overtake the Republican
officials.

I united with the majority of the Committee in the report,
for the reasons I have stated above. I still think the position
of the Senate right, and that of the President wrong. But
I never agreed to the claim that the Senate had anything to
do with the President's power of removal. So I took the first
opportunity to introduce a bill repealing the provisions of
the statute relating to the tenure of office, which interfered
with the President's power of removal, so that we might go
back again to the law which had been in force from the foundation
of the Government, in the controversy with President Jackson.
A majority of the Republicans had attempted to do that, as
I have said, in the first session of Congress under President
Grant. But it had been defeated by the Senate. So I introduced
in the December session, 1886, a bill which became a law March
3, 1887, as follows:

"Be enacted, etc., That sections 1767, 1768, 1769, 1770,
1771, and 1772 of the Revised Statutes of the United States
are hereby repealed.

"Sec. 2. This repeal shall not affect any officer heretofore
suspended under the provisions of said sections