importance they attributed to the measure. In a
committee of the whole house on the bill "to establish an executive
department to be denominated the[42] department of foreign affairs,"
Mr. White moved to strike out the clause which declared the secretary
to be removeable by the President. The power of removal, where no
express provision existed, was, he said, in the nature of things,
incidental to that of appointment. And as the senate was, by the
constitution, associated with the President in making appointments,
that body must, in the same degree, participate in the power of
removing from office.

[Footnote 42: This has since been denominated the department
of state.]

Mr. White was supported by Mr. Smith of South Carolina, Mr. Page, Mr.
Stone, and Mr. Jackson.

Those gentlemen contended that the clause was either unnecessary or
improper. If the constitution gave the power to the President, a
repetition of the grant in an act of congress was nugatory: if the
constitution did not give it, the attempt to confer it by law was
improper. If it belonged conjointly to the President and senate, the
house of representatives should not attempt to abridge the
constitutional prerogative of the other branch of the legislature.
However this might be, they were clearly of opinion that it was not
placed in the President alone. In the power over all the executive
officers which the bill proposed to confer upon the President, the
most alarming dangers to liberty were perceived. It was in the nature
of monarchical prerogative, and would convert them into the mere tools
and creatures of his will. A dependence so servile on one individual,
would deter men of high and honourable minds from engaging in the
public service; and if, contrary to expectation, such men should be
brought into office, they would be reduced to the necessity of
sacrificing every principle of independence to the will of the chief
magistrate, or of exposing themselves to the disgrace of being removed
from office, and that too at a time when it might be no longer in
their power to engage in other pursuits.

Gentlemen they feared were too much dazzled with the splendour of the
virtues which adorned the actual President, to be able to look into
futurity. But the framers of the constitution had not confined their
views to the person who would most probably first fill the
presidential chair. The house of representatives ought to follow their
example, and to