of the executive department of the Government, rather than one connected with the legislative or judicial departments.  The objections to designating either the President pro tempore of the Senate or the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, especially in the event of a vacancy produced by removal, are so obvious and so unanswerable that they need not be stated in detail.  It is enough to state that they are both interested in producing a vacancy, and, according to the provisions of the Constitution, are members of the tribunal by whose decree a vacancy may be produced.

Under such circumstances the impropriety of designating either of these officers to succeed the President so removed is palpable.  The framers of the Constitution, when they referred to Congress the settlement of the succession to the office of President in the event of a vacancy in the offices of both President and Vice-President, did not, in my opinion, contemplate the designation of any other than an officer of the executive department, on whom, in such a contingency, the powers and duties of the President should devolve.  Until recently the contingency has been remote, and serious attention has not been called to the manifest incongruity between the provisions of the Constitution on this subject and the act of Congress of 1792.  Having, however, been brought almost face to face with this important question, it seems an eminently proper time for us to make the legislation conform to the language, intent, and theory of the Constitution, and thus place the executive department beyond the reach of usurpation, and remove from the legislative and judicial departments every temptation to combine for the absorption of all the powers of government.

It has occurred to me that in the event of such a vacancy the duties of President would devolve most appropriately upon some one of the heads of the several Executive Departments, and under this conviction I present for your consideration an amendment to the Constitution on this subject, with the recommendation that it be submitted to the people for their action.

Experience seems to have established the necessity of an amendment of that clause of the Constitution which provides for the election of Senators to Congress by the legislatures of the several States.  It would be more consistent with the genius of our form of government if the Senators were chosen directly by the people of the several States.  The objections to the election of Senators by the legislatures are so palpable that I deem it unnecessary to do more than submit the proposition for such an amendment, with the recommendation that it be opened to the people for their judgment.

It is strongly impressed on my mind that the tenure of office by the judiciary of the United States during good behavior for life is incompatible with the spirit of republican government, and in this opinion I am fully sustained by the evidence of popular judgment upon this subject in the different States of the Union.