ate war, was appointed to the last
remaining one. General Atkinson having declined the office of Adjutant
General, Colonel Gadsden, an officer of distinguished merit and believed
to possess qualifications suitably adapted to it, was appointed in
his stead. In making the arrangement the merits of Colonel Butler and
Colonel Jones were not overlooked. The former was assigned to the place
which he would have held in the line if he had retained his original
lineal commission, and the latter to his commission in the line, which
he had continued to hold with his staff appointment.

That the reduction of the Army and the arrangement of the officers
from the old to the new establishment and the appointments referred to
were in every instance strictly conformable to law will, I think, be
apparent. To the arrangement generally no objection has been heard; it
has been made, however, to the appointments to the original vacancies,
and particularly to those of Colonel Towson and Colonel Gadsden. To
those appointments, therefore, further attention is due. If they were
improper it must be either that they were illegal or that the officers
did not merit the offices conferred on them. The acknowledged merit of
the officers and the peculiar fitness for the offices to which they were
respectively appointed must preclude all objection on that head. Having
already suggested my impression that in filling offices newly created,
to which on no principle whatever anyone could have a claim of right,
Congress could not under the Constitution restrain the free selection of
the President from the whole body of his fellow-citizens, I shall only
further remark that if that impression is well founded all objection
to these appointments must cease. If the law imposed such restraint,
it would in that case be void. But, according to my judgment, the law
imposed none. An objection to the legality of those appointments must be
founded either on the principle that those officers were not comprised
within the corps then in the service of the United States--that is, did
not belong to the peace establishment--or that the power granted by
the word "arrange" imposed on the President the necessity of placing
in these new offices persons of the same grade only from the old. It is
believed that neither objection is well founded. Colonel Towson belonged
to one of the corps then in the service of the United States, or, in
other words, of the military peace establishment