point.[1] A change of the chief magistrate, therefore, would not occasion so violent or so general a revolution in the officers of the government as might be expected, if he were the sole disposer of offices. Where a man, in any station, had given satisfactory evidence of his fitness for it, a new president would be restrained from attempting a change in favour of a person more agreeable to him, by the apprehension that the discountenance of the senate might frustrate the attempt, and bring some degree of discredit upon himself. Those who can best estimate the value of a steady administration, will be most disposed to prize a provision, which connects the official existence of public men with the approbation or disapprobation of that body, which, from the greater permanency of its own composition, will, in all probability, be less subject to inconstancy than any other member of the government.
To this union of the senate with the president, in the article of appointments, it has in some cases been objected, that it would serve to give the president an undue influence over the senate; and in others, that it would have an opposite tendency; a strong proof that neither suggestion is true.
To state the first in its proper form, is to refute it. It amounts to this....the president would have an improper influence over the senate; because the senate would have the power of restraining him. This is an absurdity in terms. It cannot admit of a doubt, that the intire power of appointment would enable him much more effectually to establish a dangerous empire over that body, than a mere power of nomination subject to their control.
Let us take a view of the converse of the proposition: "the senate would influence the executive." As I have had occasion to remark in several other instances, the indistinctness of the objection forbids a precise answer. In what manner is this influence to be exerted? In
- ↑ This construction has since been rejected by the legislature; and it is now settled in practice, that the power of displacing belongs exclusively to the president.
