Webster's attack on the
Fortification Bill left a sting behind.
In this same session Mr. Webster made an exhaustive speech on the question
of executive patronage and the President's power of appointment and
removal. He now went much farther than in his answer to the "Protest,"
asserting not only the right of Congress to fix the tenure of office, but
also that the power of removal, like the power of appointment, was in the
President and Senate jointly. The speech contained much that was valuable,
but in its main doctrine was radically unsound. The construction of 1789,
which decided that the power of removal belonged to the President alone,
was clearly right, and Mr. Webster failed to overthrow it. His theory,
embodied in a bill which provided that the President should state to the
Senate, when he appointed to a vacancy caused by removal, his reasons for
such removal, was thoroughly mischievous. It was more dangerous than
Jackson's doctrine, for it tended to take the power of patronage still more
from a single and responsible person and vest it in a large and therefore
wholly irresponsible body which has always been too much inclined to
degenerate into an office-broking oligarchy, and thus degrade its high and
important functions.
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