following reasons: First. The relation in which that clause stands to
the other, which declares the general mode of appointing officers of the
United States, denotes it to be nothing more than a supplement to
the other, for the purpose of establishing an auxiliary method of
appointment, in cases to which the general method was inadequate. The
ordinary power of appointment is confined to the President and Senate
JOINTLY, and can therefore only be exercised during the session of the
Senate; but as it would have been improper to oblige this body to be
continually in session for the appointment of officers and as vacancies
might happen IN THEIR RECESS, which it might be necessary for the
public service to fill without delay, the succeeding clause is
evidently intended to authorize the President, SINGLY, to make temporary
appointments "during the recess of the Senate, by granting commissions
which shall expire at the end of their next session." Second. If this
clause is to be considered as supplementary to the one which precedes,
the VACANCIES of which it speaks must be construed to relate to the
"officers" described in the preceding one; and this, we have seen,
excludes from its description the members of the Senate. Third. The time
within which the power is to operate, "during the recess of the Senate,"
and the duration of the appointments, "to the end of the next session"
of that body, conspire to elucidate the sense of the provision, which,
if it had been intended to comprehend senators, would naturally have
referred the temporary power of filling vacancies to the recess of the
State legislatures, who are to make the permanent appointments, and
not to the recess of the national Senate, who are to have no concern in
those appointments; and would have extended the duration in office of
the temporary senators to the next session of the legislature of the
State, in whose representation the vacancies had happened, instead of
making it to expire at the end of the ensuing session of the national
Senate. The circumstances of the body authorized to make the permanent
appointments would, of course, have governed the modification of a power
which related to the temporary appointments; and as the national Senate
is the body, whose situation is alone contemplated in the clause upon
which the suggestion under examination has been founded, the vacancies
to which it alludes can only be deemed to respect those officers in
whose appointment