The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,778 pages of information about The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster.

The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,778 pages of information about The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster.
at all, but according to provisions made in the law itself.  There was, indeed, a provision in the law authorizing the Secretary to change the custody.  But suppose there had been no such provision; suppose the contingent power had not been given to the Secretary; would it not have been a lawful enactment?  Might not the law have provided that the public moneys should remain in the bank, until Congress itself should otherwise order, leaving no power of removal anywhere else?  And if such provision had been made, what power, or custody, or control, would the President have possessed over them?  Clearly, none at all.  The act of May, 1800, directed custom-house bonds, in places where the bank which was then in existence was situated, or in which it had branches, to be deposited in the bank or its branches for collection, without the reservation to the Secretary, or anybody else, of any power of removal.  Now, Sir, this was an unconstitutional law, if the Protest, in the part now under consideration, be correct; because it placed the public money in a custody beyond the control of the President, and in the hands of keepers not appointed by him, nor removable at his pleasure.  One may readily discern, Sir, the process of reasoning by which the author of the Protest brought himself to the conclusion that Congress could not place the public moneys beyond the President’s control.  It is all founded on the power of appointment and the power of removal.  These powers, it is supposed, must give the President complete control and authority over those who actually hold the money, and therefore must necessarily subject its custody, at all times, to his own individual will.  This is the argument.

It is true, that the appointment of all public officers, with some exceptions, is, by the Constitution, given to the President, with the consent of the Senate; and as, in most cases, public property must be held by some officer, its keepers will generally be persons so appointed.  But this is only the common, not a necessary consequence, of giving the appointing power to the President and Senate.  Congress may still, if it shall so see fit, place the public treasure in the hand of no officer appointed by the President, or removable by him, but in hands quite beyond his control.  Subject to one contingency only, it did this very thing by the charter of the present bank; and it did the same thing absolutely, and subject to no contingency, by the law of 1800.  The Protest, in the first place, seizes on the fact that all officers must be appointed by the President, or on his nomination; it then assumes the next step, that all officers are, and must be, removable at his pleasure; and then, insisting that public money, like other public property, must be kept by some public officer, it thus arrives at the conclusion that it must always be in the hands of those who are appointed by the President, and who are removable at his pleasure.  And it is very clear that the Protest means to maintain that the tenure of office cannot be so regulated by law, as that public officers shall not be removable at the pleasure of the President.

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The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.