Removal of Public Officers from Office for Cause, I

Authors

Alonzo H. Tuttle, Ohio State University College of Law

Abstract

Decidedly the most important and best considered debate in the history of Congress, is what Wm. Evarts calls the debate that took place in 1789 in the first session of Congress, under the Constitution, on the question of the nature of the power of the President to remove his appointees from office. The character of this debate is discussed elsewhere in this magazine." Suffice it to say that as a result it was decided then by Congress that under the Constitution the President has the absolute power of removal of all his appointees, without the assent of the Senate. This was the settled doctrine for seventy-eight years when Congress passed the Tenure of Office Act, requiring the consent of the Senate to Presidential removals. This act was modified in 1873, and in Cleveland's administration, as a result of the famous controversy between that President and the Senate, was repealed. The Supreme Court has never passed upon the Tenure of Office Act, so the question is still open whether the President has by virtue of his office under the Constitution the unlimited power of removal or whether Congress may by law determine where the power shall reside or whether under the Constitution it belongs to the President and Senate conjointly.

Recommended Citation

Alonzo H. Tuttle, Removal of Public Officers from Office for Cause, I, 3 Mich. L. Rev. 290 (1905).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol3/iss4/3