The only difference between the fifth section of the act of 1815 for reducing the Army and the twelfth section of the act of 1821 for still further reducing it, by which the power to carry those laws into effect was granted to the President in each instance, consists in this, that by the former he was to cause the arrangement to be made of the officers, noncommissioned officers, musicians, and privates of the several corps of troops then in the service of the United States, whereas in the latter the term troops was omitted.  It can not be doubted that that omission had an object, and that it was thereby intended to guard against misconstruction in so very material and important a circumstance by authorizing the application of the act unequivocally to every corps of the staff as well as of the line.  With that word a much wider range was given to the act of 1815 on the reduction which then took place than under the last act.  The omission of it from the last act, together with all the sanctions which were given by Congress to the construction of the law in the reduction made under the former, could not fail to dispel all doubt as to the extent of the power granted by the last law and of the principles which ought to guide, and on which it was thereby made the duty of the President to execute it.  With respect to the other objection—­that is, that officers of the same grade only ought to have been transferred to these new offices—­it is equally unfounded.  It is admitted that officers may be taken from the old corps and reduced and arranged in the new in inferior grades, as was done under the former reduction.  This admission puts an end to the objection in this case; for if an officer may be reduced and arranged from one corps to another by an entire change of grade, requiring a new commission and a new nomination to the Senate, I see no reason why an officer may not be advanced in like manner.  In both instances the grade in the old corps is alike disregarded.  The transfer from it to the new turns on the merit of the party, and it is believed that the claim in this instance is felt by all with peculiar sensibility.  The claim of Colonel Towson is the stronger because the arrangement of him to the office to which he is now nominated is not to one from which any officer has been removed, and to which any other officer may in any view of the case be supposed to have had a claim.  As Colonel Gadsden held the office of Inspector-General, and as such was acknowledged by all to belong to the staff of the Army, it is not perceived on what ground his appointment can be objected to.