This, Sir, completes the work.  This handsomely rounds off the whole executive system of executive authority.  First, the President has the whole responsibility; and then, being thus responsible for all, he has, and ought to have, the whole power.  We have heard of political units, and our American executive, as here represented, is indeed a unit.  We have a charmingly simple government!  Instead of many officers, in different departments, each having appropriate duties, and each responsible for his own duties, we are so fortunate as to have to deal with but one officer.  The President carries on the government; all the rest are but sub-contractors.  Sir, whatever name we give him, we have but ONE EXECUTIVE OFFICER.  A Briareus sits in the centre of our system, and with his hundred hands touches every thing, moves every thing, controls every thing.  I ask, Sir, Is this republicanism?  Is this a government of laws?  Is this legal responsibility?

According to the Protest, the very duties which every officer under the government performs are the duties of the President himself.  It says that the President has a right to employ agents of his own choice, to aid HIM in the performance of HIS duties.

Mr. President, if these doctrines be true, it is idle for us any longer to talk about any such thing as a government of laws.  We have no government of laws, not even the semblance or shadow of it; we have no legal responsibility.  We have an executive, consisting of one person, wielding all official power, and which is, to every effectual purpose, completely irresponsible.  The President declares that he is “responsible for the entire action of the executive department.”  Responsible?  What does he mean by being “responsible”?  Does he mean legal responsibility?  Certainly not.  No such thing.  Legal responsibility signifies liability to punishment for misconduct or maladministration.  But the Protest does not mean that the President is liable to be impeached and punished if a secretary of state should commit treason, if a collector of the customs should be guilty of bribery, or if a treasurer should embezzle the public money.  It does not mean, and cannot mean, that he should be answerable for any such crime or such delinquency.  What then, is its notion of that responsibility which it says the President is under for all officers, and which authorizes him to consider all officers as his own personal agents?  Sir, it is merely responsibility to public opinion.  It is a liability to be blamed; it is the chance of becoming unpopular, the danger of losing a re-election.  Nothing else is meant in the world.  It is the hazard of failing in any attempt or enterprise of ambition.  This is all the responsibility to which the doctrines of the Protest hold the President subject.