ARTICLE VI.

In consideration of the cession aforesaid, the United States agree to pay at the Treasury in Washington, within ten months after the exchange of the ratifications of this convention, to the diplomatic representative or other agent of His Majesty the Emperor of all the Russias, duly authorized to receive the same, seven million two hundred thousand dollars in gold....

ARTICLE VII.

When this convention shall have been duly ratified by the President of the United States, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, on the one part, and, on the other, by His Majesty the Emperor of all the Russias, the ratifications shall be exchanged at Washington within. three months from the date hereof, or sooner if possible.

In faith whereof the respective Plenipotentiaries have signed this convention, and thereto affixed the seals of their arms.

Done at Washington the thirtieth day of March, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-seven.

WILLIAM H. SEWARD.

EDOUARD DE STOECKL.

[L.S.] [L.S.]

192. THE REMOVAL OF STANTON

Edwin M. Stanton, held over from Lincoln's Administration as Secretary of War, had played a more or less treacherous game of opposition to Johnson, who first removed him when Congress was not sitting, and then when the Senate reinstated him, removed him anew February 21, 1868. The following document is a temperate and able statement by Johnson as to his powers in the matter.

Richardson, Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Vol. 6, pp. 621-627.

WASHINGTON, D. C., February 22, 1868.

To the Senate of the United States:

I have received a copy of the resolution adopted by the Senate on the 21st instant, as follows:

Whereas the Senate have received and considered the communication of the President stating that he had removed Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War, and had designated the Adjutant-General of the Army to act as Secretary of War ad interim: Therefore,

Resolved by the Senate of the United States, That under the Constitution and laws of the United States the President has no power to remove the Secretary of War and designate any other officer to perform the duties of that office ad interim.

The uniform practice from the beginning of the Government, as established by every President who has exercised the office, and the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States have settled the question in favor of the power of the President to remove all officers excepting a class holding appointments of a judicial character. No practice nor any decision has ever excepted a Secretary of War from this general power of the President to make removals from office.

It is only necessary, then, that I should refer to the power of the Executive, under the laws of the United States, to remove from office a Secretary of War. The resolution denies that under these laws this power has any existence. In other words, it affirms that no such authority is recognized or given by the statutes of the country.

What, then, are the laws of the United States which deny the President the power to remove that officer? I know but two laws which bear upon this question. The first in order of time is the act of August 7, 1789, creating the Department of War, which, after providing for a Secretary as its principal officer, proceeds as follows:

SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That there shall be in the said Department an inferior officer, to be appointed by the said principal officer, to be employed therein as he shall deem proper, and to be called the chief clerk in the Department of War, and who, whenever the said principal officer shall be removed from office by the President of the United States, or in any other case of vacancy, shall during such vacancy have the charge and custody of all records, books, and papers appertaining to the said Department.

It is clear that this act, passed by a Congress many of whose members participated in the formation of the Constitution, so far from denying the power of the President to remove the Secretary of War, recognizes it as existing in the Executive alone, without the concurrence of the Senate or of any other department of the Government...

The other act which refers to this question is that regulating the tenure of certain civil offices, passed by Congress on the 2d day of March, 1867. The first section of that act is in the following words:

That every person holding any civil office to which he has been appointed by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, and every person who shall hereafter be appointed to any such office, and shall become duly qualified

to act therein, is and shall be entitled to hold such office until a successor shall have been in like manner appointed and duly qualified, except as herein otherwise provided: Provided, That the Secretaries of State, of the Treasury, of War, of the Navy, and of the Interior, the Postmaster-General, and the Attorney-General shall hold their offices, respectively, for and during the term of the President by whom they may have been appointed and for one month thereafter, subject to removal by and with the advice and consent of the Senate.

The fourth section of the same act restricts the term of offices to the limit prescribed by the law creating them.

Thus, as to these enumerated officers, the proviso takes from the President the power of removal except with the advice and consent of the Senate. By its terms, however, before he can be deprived of the power to displace them it must appear that he himself has appointed them. It is only in that case that they have any tenure of office or any independent right to hold during the term of the President and for one month after the cessation of his official functions. The proviso, therefore, gives no tenure of office to any one of these officers who has been appointed by a former President beyond one month after the accession of his successor.

In the case of Mr. Stanton, the only appointment under which he held the office of Secretary of War was that conferred upon him by my immediate predecessor, with the advice and consent of the Senate. He has never held from me any appointment as the head of the War Department. Whatever right he had to hold the office was derived from that original appointment and my own sufferance. The law was not intended to protect such an incumbent of the War Department by taking from the President the power to remove him... The consequence is that as to my Cabinet, embracing the seven officers designated in the first section, the act takes from me the power, without the concurrence of the Senate, to remove any one of them that I have appointed, but it does not protect such of them as I did not appoint, nor give to them any tenure of office beyond my pleasure.

I have deemed it proper, in vindication of the course which I have considered it my duty to take, to place before the Senate the reasons upon which I have based my action. Although I have been advised by every member of my Cabinet that the entire tenure-of-office act is unconstitutional, and therefore void, and although I have expressly

concurred in that opinion in the veto message which I had the honor to submit to Congress when I returned the bill for reconsideration, I have refrained from making a removal of any officer contrary to the provisions of the law, and have only exercised that power in the case of Mr. Stanton, which, in my judgment, did not come within its provisions. I have endeavored to proceed with the greatest circumspection, and have acted only in an extreme and exceptional case, carefully following the course which I have marked out for myself as a general rule, faithfully to execute all laws, though passed over my objections on the score of constitutionality. In the present instance I have appealed, or sought to appeal, to that final arbiter fixed by the Constitution for the determination of all such questions. To this course I have been impelled by the solemn obligations which rest upon me to sustain inviolate the powers of the high office committed to my hands.

Whatever may be the consequences merely personal to myself, I could not allow them to prevail against a public duty so clear to my own mind, and so imperative. If what was possible had been certain, if I had been fully advised when I removed Mr. Stanton that in thus defending the trust committed to my hands my own removal was sure to follow, I could not have hesitated. Actuated by public considerations of the highest character, I earnestly protest against the resolution of the Senate which charges me in what I have done with a violation of the Constitution and laws of the United States.

ANDREW JOHNSON.

193. ARTICLES OF IMPEACHMENT AGAINST JOHNSON February 24, 1868, the House of Representatives voted to impeach Johnson. The following articles, later drawn, endeavored to set Johnson's alleged violation of the Tenure of Office Act in the removal of Stanton, in various criminal lights: they also covered what were merely offenses of excessive partisanship and bad taste. Johnson's removal from office under the articles would practically have established the right of a two-thirds majority to remove a President who failed to agree with them politically. On Johnson's trial before the Senate that body fell just short of a two-thirds vote of conviction on the articles voted on: a larger number of senators was prepared to vote for acquittal if their votes were needed.

Richardson, Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Vol. 6, pp. 709-718.

ON the 24th of February, 1868, the House of Representatives of the Congress of the United States resolved to impeach Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, of high crimes and misdemeanors, of which the Senate was apprised, and arrangements were made for the trial. On the 2d and 3d of March articles of impeachment were agreed upon the House of Representatives, and on the 4th they were presented to the Senate by the managers on the part of the House... The articles are as follows:

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

UNITED STATES,

March 2, 1868.

ARTICLES EXHIBITED BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES, IN THE NAME OF THEMSELVES AND ALL THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES, AGAINST ANDREW JOHNSON, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, IN MAINTENANCE AND SUPPORT OF THEIR IMPEACHMENT AGAINST HIM FOR HIGH CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS IN OFFICE.

ARTICLE I. That said Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, on the 21st day of February, A. D. 1868, at Washington, in the District of Columbia, unmindful of the high duties of his office, of his oath of office, and of the requirement of the Constitution that he should take care that the laws be faithfully executed, did unlawfully and in violation of the Constitution and laws of the United States issue an order in writing for the removal of Edwin M. Stanton from the office of Secretary for the Department of War, said Edwin M. Stanton having been theretofore duly appointed and commissioned, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate of the United States, as such Secretary; ..

ART. II. That on said 21st day of February, A. D. 1868, at Washington, in the District of Columbia, said Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, . . did, . . issue and deliver to one Lorenzo Thomas a letter of authority in substance as follows; that is

to say:

EXECUTIVE MANSION, Washington, D. C., February 21, 1868.