trict of Columbia, shall be crimes or misdemeanors, according to their grades, and shall be indictable and punishable in the District of Columbia in your own courts.

I listened to the learned gentleman from New York the other day, upon this point, and for the life of me--and I beg his pardon for saying so-I could not understand what induced the gentleman to venture upon the intimation that there was any such thing possible as a defense of the President for the unlawful attempt to violate this law.

By admitting the order to be an unlawful attempt, I say with all respect to the gentleman, that it has been settled through the current century and longer, by the highest courts of this country and of England, that the attempt to commit a misdemeanor, whether the misdemeanor be one at common law or a misdemeanor by statute law, the attempt is itself a misdemeanor.

Mr. BINGHAM quoted Russell, 84, to the above effect. 1 would like to see a book brought into this Chamber to contradict that rule. It is common law as well as common sense. But, further, what use is there for raising a question when the further provision of the statute is "That the making, signing, sealing, countersigning or issuing any commission, letterfof authority, or ownership of any such appointment or employment shall be assumed, and are hereby declared to be a high misdemeanor." Who is to challenge this, here or elsewhere?

What answer has been made? What answer can be made to this? None, Senators, none. When the words of a statute are plain there is an end to all controversy, and in this, as in every other part of this discussion touching the laws of the land, I stand upon that accepted canon of construction stated by the learned Attorney-General in his defense of the President last week, when he said effeet must be given to every part of the written law.

I have discharged my duty-my whole duty. The ques tion which now remains is whether the Tennre of Office act is valid? If it is, whatever gentlemen may say about the first article, there is no man in America but knows that under the second and third and eighth articles, by issuing a letter of authority, the President was guilty of a high misdemeanor in the words of the statute. He did issue the letter of authority, and he has written it down on the 10th of February that his object and purpose was to violate that very law and to prevent the Secretary of War from resuming the functions of his office, although the law says he shall forthwith resume the functions of his office, in case the Senate non-concurred in the suspension. And yet. gentlemen wriggle here about this question as if it was an open question. It is not an open question. It is a settled, closed question this day, this hour, in the judgment of every enlightened, intelligent man who has access to your record, and it is useless, and worse than useless, to waste time on it. The question now is, is the act valid? Is it constitutional? Senators, I ought to consider that question closely. I ought to assume that the Congress of the United States which passed the act will abide by it. Congress acted on the responsibility of its oath. It acted under the limitations of the Constitution. The Thirty-ninth Congress, not unmindful, I trust. of its obligation, and not incapable of judging and considering the grants and limitations of the Constitution, passed this law because, first, it deemed itself authorized to do go by the Constitution, and because, secondly, it deemed that its enactment was necessary, and that is the language of the Constitution itself.

To the public welfare, and the public interest Congress sent it, in obedience to the requirements of the Constitution, to the President for his approval. The President. in the exercise of his power, and of his right under the Constitution, considered it, and returned it to the House in which it originated, with his objections. When he had done this we claim that all his power over the question of the validity of that law terminated. He returned it to the House, and with it his objections. He suggested that it was unconstitutional. Congress reconsidered it in obedience to the Constitution, and it was again passed by a two-thirds vote of both Houses, and, in the words of the Constitution, it thereby became a law-a law to the President of the United States-and it will forever remain a law until it is repealed by the law making power or reversed by the courts. And now what took place?

These gentlemen come before the Senate with their answer, and tell the Senate the law was unconstitutional.. They ask the Senate, in other words, to change their record. They ask to have this journal read hereafter at the opening of the court:-"The People of the United States against the Senate and House of Representatives, charged with high crimes and misdemeanors, in this, that, in disregard of the Constitution, in disregard of their oath of office, they did enact a certain law, entitled, 'An act to regulate the tenure of certain civil offices,' to the hurt and injury of the American people, and that they are thereby guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors in office."

Well, gentlemen, we have had our lessons here on charity in the progress of this trial, and really it does seem to me that this would be a stretch of that charity which requires you to give your coat, &c. I never knew before that it went beyond your outer garments, your bread, and the money in your purse; but it seems that you are to make a voluntary surrender of your good name, of your character, and of your conscience, in order to accommodate this accursed culprit, and to say, after all that, it is not the President of the United States who is impeached, but that it is the Senate, which is sitting in judgment upon him that is impeached, and that you will accommodate this unfortunate man by making a confession before the gods and before men, that we violated our own oath; that we violated the Constitution of our country, in that we did enact into a law,

despite the President's veto to the contrary, a certain act passed March 2, 1867. Well, when it comes to that it is not for me to say what becomes of the Senate. This is an attempt to gibbet us all in eternal infamy for making up the, record of this case deliberately and of malice aforethought, to the injury of the rights of a whole people, and to the disconcern and shame and disgrace of human nature itself.

And yet the question is made here that the law is unconstitutional. If the law be valid the President is guilty, and there is no escape for him. It is needless to make the issue, but having it, it is enough that the Senate decided. If the Senate decide that the law is constitutional there is an end of it. It has decided it three times. It decided it when it first passed the law. It decided it when it reenacted the law over the President's veto, and it decided it again, as it was its duty to do, when he sent his message to the Senate on the 21st of February, 1868, telling the Se nate that he had violated it and defied the provisions of the law. It was the duty of the Senate te decide it.

The Senate needs no apology, and I am sure will never offer an apology to any man in this life, or to any set of men, for what it did on that occasion. What! is the President of the United States deliberately to violate the law, to disregard the solemn action of the Senate, to treat with contempt the notice served upon him by the Senate in accordance with that law, and is he then to come into their own chamber and insult them, and defiantly challenge them in regard to this law? To this challenge the Senate made answer, as was its duty, Sir, the thing that you have done is not warranted by the Constitution and the laws of the country. This, Senators, is my answer to that challenge in the prosecution of this impeachment.

The representatives of the people, and others who have thought it worth while to notice my own official conduct touching this matter of impeachment, knew well that I kept myself back, and endeavored to keep others back from rushing madly into this conflict between the people and their President. The Senate, also, acting in the same spirit, gave him this notice that he might retrace his steps and thereby save the institutions of the country from this great shock. But no, it was needful that he should illustrate that Pagan rule: "Whom the gods mean to destroy they first make mad," and so he went on, and here we are to-day to try this issue.

I return to the question of the validity of this law with the simple statement that by the act of the Constitution, as I have already read it, it is provided that all appointments not otherwise provided for in the Constitution, shall be made by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. It necessarily results, as Mr. Webster said, that the removing power is incident to the appointing power until otherwise provided by law. I have shown to the Senate that the removing power has never been otherwise exercised from the first Congress to this hour, except in obedience to the express provisions of law. I have shown the Senate that the act of 1789 authorized removals, and the act of 1795 authorized temporary appointments.

I add further that I have cited the fact of this provision of the Constitution that the President shall have power to fill up all vacancies that happen during the recess of the Senate, by issuing commissions which shall expire with the end of the next session, which very necessarily implication means, and means nothing else, that he shall create vacancies without authority of law during the session of the Senate, and shall not fill them at his pleasure without the consent of the Senate.

I have but one word further to add in support of the constitutionality of this law, and that is the express grant in the Constitution itself that the Congress shall have power to pass all laws necessary and proper. Interpreting that word "proper," in the words of Judge Marshall himself, in the great case of McCulloch vs. Maryland, as meaning "adapted to the execution of all the powers granted by this Constitution to the United States, or to any department thereof," I think that grant of power is plain enough and clear enough to sanction the Tenure of Office act.

Even admitting that the power of removal and appointment, "subject to law of course," was conferred upon the President, I do not stop, Senators, to argue the proposition further, but I refer to the authority of Mr. Webster, in volume 4, page 199, in which he recognizes the same principles most distinctly and clearly-that it is proper for the Congress of the United States to regulate this very question by law. I add, that the Congress of the United States, from the First Congress to this hour, has approved the same thing by its legislation. That is all there is of this question. The law, I take it, is valid, and will remain valid forever, if its validity is to depend upon the judgment of the Senate, which twice passed it under the solemn obligations of its oath.

Something has been said here, Senators, about the continued practice of eighty years. I have said enough on that subject to fully answer all that has been said, and so well said, by the learned counsel for the President. I have shown that the act of 1789, by the interpretation and construction of one of the first men in America, Mr. Webster, did really, by direct operation,separate the removing from the appointing power, and was itself a grant of power. I have shown that the Constitution confers that power on the Senate. Then there is no practice of eighty years adverse to this Tenure of Office act, so that I need say no word further on that subject, but leave it there.

all the acts from 1780 to 1867 bear witness to one thing, and that is that Congress has full power under the Constitution, by law, to confer upon the President the power of temporary or permanent removal, or to withhold that power. That is precisely what Congress has done, and I stand upon it here, as a representative of the people, prose

cuting for the people these articles of impeachment, and declare here, this day, upon my conscience and on what little reputation I may have in this world, that the whole legislation of the country, from 1789 to 1867, altogether bears one common testimony to the power of Congress to regulate, by law, the removal and appointment of all officers within the general limitation of the Constitution and the supervisory power of the Senate that the act of 1789, as Mr. Webster stated, conferred upon the President of the United States the power af removal, and thereby separated that power from the pwer of appointment, of which it was a necessary incident. The act of 1795, on the other hand, gave him power to make certain temporary appointments limited here to over six months for any vacancies, thereby showing that it was no power under the Constitution and beyond the limitation and restrictions of law. The act of 1863 limited and restricted him as did also the act of 1789..

If, therefore, the President of the United States has this power by force of the Constitution, independent of law, I say, tell me, Senators, how it comes that the act of 1789 limited and restricted him to the chief clerk of the department? How comes it that the act of 1795 limited and restricted him to the period of six months only for one vacancy, if, as if claimed in his answer, he has power of indefinite removal, and therefore the power of indefinite appointment? How comes it that the act of 1863 limited him to certain officials of the government, and did not leave him at liberty to choose from the body of the people?

I waste no further words on the subject. I consider the question fully closed and settled; and all the legislation shows the power of the President to be subject to the limitations of such enactments as the Congress may make, which enactments must bind him as they bind everybody else, whether he approves them or not, and until they be duly reserved by the courts of the United States or they shall be repealed by the peoples' representatives, in Congrees assembled.

I may be pardoned, Senators, in having gone very heavily in this way over the general facts of the case, for saying that the President's declarations are here interposed to shield him from the conseqence of his guilt under the first three, the eighth, and eleventh articles of impeachment. These declarations of the President are declarations of the fact. Most of them were excluded by the Senate, and were properly, in my judgment, excluded. Some of them were admitted. I do not regret that; it showed that the Senate was willing, even if it were a doubtful question, or if it were not a doubtful question to modify the rules of evidence in the exercise of a discretion to see what explanation the Chief Executive could possibly give of his conduct.

The Senate allowed him, contrary to the rules of evidence, to be a witness in his own case, and that not under the obligation of an oath. The counsel produced his declarations. They amounted to no more than I have referred to already that his purpose in violating the law was merely to test its validity in the courts. That is all there is of it. There was nothing more in the declarations of the President, as witnessed by himself on this trial. They cannot by any means excuse him in the light of the facts to which they have referred before, namely, that it was simply imposible for him to test questions in the courts in the manner proposed. There is an end of it. There is no use of pressing the question, and the farther

The President has no right to challenge the laws, and to suspend their execution until it is his pleasure to test their validity in a court of justice. But, Senators, what more is there? He is charged with conspiracy here. A conEpriracy is proved upon him by his letter of authority to General Thomas, and by Thomas' acceptance under his own hands. Both of these papers are before the Senate, and in evidence. What is a conspiracy? A simple agree ment between two or more persons to do an unlawful act, either with or without force, and the offense is completed the moment the agreement is entered into.

It is a misdemeanor at common law, and it is a misdemeanor under the act of 1801. It is a misdemeanor under the act of 1831. It is a misdemeanor for which Andrew Johnson and Lorenzo Thomas are both indictable after these proceedings shall have closed. And it is a misdemeanor, an indictment for which would be worth no more than the paper on which it would be written, until after this impeachment trial shall have closed, and the Senate shall have pronounced the righteous judgment of guilty on this offender against your laws, and for this simple reason, Senators, that it is written in your Constitution that the President shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for all offenses against the United States save in cases of impeachment. Indeed, if Lorenzo Thomas were to-morrow indicted for a conspiracy with Andrew Johnson to prevent Edwin M. Stanton from resuming the functions of his office, all that would be wanted would be for Andrew Johnson with a mere wave of his hand to issue a general pardon and to dismiss the proceedings.

I say again, this is the tribunal of the people, in which to try this great offender, this violator of oaths, of the Constitution and the laws. Well, say gentlemen, it is a very little offense, and you may forgive him that. It is a very little offense when the pardoning power does not happen to be conferred upon him, and these tender and tearful appeals to the Senate on the ground of its being a little thing, do not amount to very much; but, say the gentlemen, you have also charged him, under the act of 1861, with having conspired with Lorenzo Thomas in the one article with force, and in the other with threats and intimidations, to work out the same result in preventing the execution of the law.

So we have, and we say that he is clearly proved

guilty. How? By the confession'made by his co-conspira tor. I have said that the conspiracy is established by the written letter of authority and by the written acceptance of that letter of authority by Thomas, and the conspiracy being established, I say that the declaration of the co-conspirator made in the prosecution of the common design is evidence against both.

Mr. Bingham, in this connection, read some extracts from the testimony of General Thomas in reference to the mode in which he proposed to gain possession of the papers of the War Department, and particularly in reference to the draft of a letter which he submitted for the President's consideration on the 10th of March. Mr. Bingham, referring to the date of this draft letter, remarked that this was after the President was impeached, and that it showed that the President was still defying the power of the people to check him.

The Senate will notice, he said, that these two confederates and co-conspirators have not only been deliberately conferring together about violating the Tenure of Office act, and the act making appropriations for the army, but that one of the conspirators has written out an order for the very purpose of violating the law, and that the other conspirator, seeing the handwriting on the wall, and apprehensive after all that the Senate of the United States, in the name of all the people, may pronounce him guilty, concludes to whisper in the car of his co-conspirator, "Let it rest until after the impeachment."

Give him, Senators, a letter of authority, and he is ready to renew this contest, and again to sit in judicial judg ment on all your statutes, and to say in the language of his accomplished and learned advocate (Mr. Curtis), that he has deliberately settled down in the Constitution that your law regulating the army, fixing the headquarters of its general in the Capitol, not removable without the consent of the Senate, does impair certain rights conferred upon him by the Constitntion, and that by his profound judicial judgment he had come to the conclusion to set aside that law and to order General Grant to California, or to the Oregon, or Maine, and defy you again to try him. Senators, I trust you will spare the people any such exhibition.

Now, Senators, it has been my endeavor to finish to day all that I desire to say on this matter. I know that if I were in possession of my strength I could finish all I have to say in the course of an hour or an hour and a half. It is now, however, past four o'clock, and if the Senate will be good enough to indulge me, I promise that I shall conclude my argument before recess to-morrow. The court then adjourned.

PROCEEDINGS OF WEDNESDAY, MAY 6.

The court was opened in due form, and Mr. Bingham resumed his argument as follows:-

Senators: On yesterday I had said nearly all that I had to say touching the question of the power of the President to assume legislative power for the executive office of this government. For the better understanding of my argu ment, however, Senators, I will read the provisions of the acts of 1789 and 1795 in the presence of the Senate, and will show by the law, as read by the counsel for the President on this trial, that the act of 1789, and the act of 1795 have ceased to be laws, and that the President can no more exercise authority under them to-day than can the humblest private citizen.

I desire also, Senators, in reading these statutes to reaffirm the position which I assumed on yesterday, with perfect confidence, that it would command the judgment and conscience of the Senate, to wit, that the whole legis. lation of this country, from the first Congress, in 1789, to this hour bears uniform witness to the fact that the Presldent of the United States has no control over the executive offices of this government, except such control as is given by the text of the Constitution which I read yesterday, to fill up such vacancies as may occur during the recess of the Senate with limited commission to expire with the next session, or such power as is given him by express authority of law. I care nothing for the conflicting speeches of the representatives in the first Congress upon this question; the statute of the country conclude them, and conclnde us, and conclude as well every officer of this government from the Executive down.

What, then, Senators, is the provision of this act of 1789? I may be allowed, in passing, to remark that the act establishing the Department of Foreign Affairs contains precisely the same provision, word for word, as the act to establish the Department of War.

Mr. Bingham read the act of 1789, and continued:Standing upon that statute, Senators, and upon the continued and unbroken practice of eighty years, I want to know, as I inquired yesterday, where it appears that this vacancy thus created by authority of the act of 1789, could be filled during the session of the Senate by the appointment of a new head to that department, without the consent of the Senate as prescribed in the Constitution?

I remarked yesterday, what I repeat now, in passing, that the vacancy was filled without the consent of the

Senate, and that was the end of this unbroken current of decisions, upon which the gentleman relied to sustain this assumption of power on the part of the accused President, I repeat, Senators, the act of 1789 excludes the conclusions which they attempted to impress upon the minds of the Senate in defense of the President. Why, the law restricted the appointment to the Chief Clerk. Could he over-ride that law? Could he give the papers of that department to any human being but the chief clerk, not appointed by him-by the head of the department? There stands the law, and in the light of that law the defense made by the President turns to dust and ashes in the presence of the Senate. I say no more upon that point, reminding the Senate that the act of 1789, establishing the War Department, contains the same provision, giving him no power to fill the vacancy by appointment during the session of the Senate.

I pass now to the act of 1795. The act of 1792 is obsolete; has been superseded, and was substantially the same as the act ef 1795, and what I have to say, therefore, on the act of 1795 applies as well to the act of 1792.

Mr. Bingham read the law from the Statutes at Large, and continued:-There stood the law of 1798 unrepealed up to this time, I admit, expressly authorizing the President to fill the vacancy, but restricting him, under the control of the department after it was created, to the Chief Clerk of the department. This act expressly repeals the act of 1789, in so far as it expressly provided that "It shall be lawful for the President of the United States, in case he shall deem it necessary, to authorize any person or persons, at his discretion, to perform the duty of the said respective office until a successor be appoinfed."

It was a grant of power-and no grant of power could be more plainly given. What is the necessity of this grant if the reason, made by the President, as charged in his answer, and read by me yesterday, that the power is his by virtue of the Constitution, is correct? and if it be, I ask to-day, as I asked yesterday, how comes it that this con stitutional power was restricted to appointments not to exceed six months for any one vacancy? That is the language of the statute. Am I to argue, Senatore, that this term "any one vacancy"-excludes the conclusion that the President could, upon his own motion, multiply vacancies in finitum, creating another at the end of six months, and making a new appointment? Senators, there is no unbroken current of decision to support any such assumption, and here I leave it.

I ask the attention of Senators now to the act of 1863, which affirms "the absolute control of the Legislative department over the whole question of removal and appointments, except the express provisions of the Constitution, which Congress cannot take away, that the President shall fill vacancies which may happen during the recess of the Senate by limited commission, to expire at the end of such commission.

Mr. BINGHAM read the act of 1863, and said:-Senators, what man can read the statute without being forced to the conclusion that the Legislature thereby reaffirmed the power that they had affirmed in 1867-the power that they had affirmed in 1795, to control and regulate by the law this asserted unlimited power of the Executive over appointments or removals either. Why look at the statute if it be permitted to choose at large from the body of the community to fill temporarily these vacancies? Not at all. It is restricted by the very terms of the statute to the heads of departments, or to such inferior officers of the several departments as are by law subject to his own appointment, and by that act he can appoint no other human being; and yet gentlemen stand here and say, the acts of 1789 and 1795 are not repealed, when they read authority themselves to show that when two statutes are altogether irreconcilable, the last must control. For the purpose of my argument it is not needful that I should rest upon the repeal of the act of 1795 any further, more than it relates to the vacancies which arise from the causes enumerated in the act of 1783.

It is a reassertion of the power of the Legislature to control this whole question, and that is the unbroken current of decision from the first Congress to this day, that the President can exercise no control over this question, except by authority of law. and subject to the express requirement of law. This brings me then, Senators, to the act of 1867, for the purpose of completing this argument upon this question, as to the limitation imposed by law upon the President of the United States, touching this matter of the appointment and removal of heads of departments, and of all other officers whose appointment is under the Constitution and laws, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate,

My chief object in referring again this morning to show to the Senate what I am sure must have occurred to them already, and rather to perfect my own argument than to suggest any new points to them at this very rule of interpretation by every letter and word read in the progress of these arguments on behalf of the President by his counsel. The act of 1867, by necessary implication, beyond the shadow of a doubt, repeals the acts of 1789 and 1795, and leaves the President of the United States subject to the requirement of the law as to all that class of officials.

Mr. Bingham read the act of 1789, and the Tenure of Office bill, and said, what becomes of this grant of power in the act of 1789 to the President to remove? What becomes of this grant of power, in the act of 1795, to make temporary appointments for six months?

Mr. BINGHAM went on to argue at great length, supporting his argument on the Constitution and on the statute of 1867, that the meaning of the clause in the Tenure of Ottice act, by which the Secretaries were to hold

their offices during the term of the President by whom they were appointed, was, that they should hold their offices during the term for which Mr. Lincoln was elected and that if a President should happen to be elected for two, or three, or four successive terms, the law would ope rate in giving the offices to the Secretaries until the exp ration of the term of the President.

On this latter point, he said. I read the law literally as it is. The Secretaries are to hold their offices during the entire term, if it should be eight years, or twelve years or si teen years, of the President by whom they were appointed That is my position in regard to the appointment. Ther is no person who has a term but the President, elected by the people, and there is no person, therefore, whose appointment can by any possibility be within the provision of the proviso in the Tenure of Office act but such a Presi dent. If Mr. Lincoln had lived he could not have availed himself of the act of 1789 or of 1795, to remove a single head of a department appointed by himself at any time during the term.

I do not care how: often his term was renewed, it was still the term, and answered to the statute, and he was still the President by whom those officers were appointed. When his term expired, whether it was his first, second, third or fourth term, the proviso then took effect according to its express language, and the offices became vacant one month after the expiration of that term; but that term never does expire until the end of the time for which the President was elected.

What else is there about this matter? Counsel for the defense argued here, and have put in the answer of the President, that the Tenure of Office act is unconstitutional and void. They talked for hours, in order to convince the Senate that no man can be guilty of crime-for the viola tion of an unconstitutional act-because it was no law which was violated. But why all this effort to prove the Tenure of Office act to be unconstitutional, if, after all, it did not embrace Mr. Stanton; if. after all, there was IPO violation of this provision; if, after all, it was no crime for the President to make an ad interim appointment; if after all, the acts of 1789 and of 1795 remained in full force? Senators, I have no patience to pursue an argument of this sort.

The position assumed is utterly inexcusable, and utterly indefensible. I ask you Senators, to consider also, whether the counsel for the President were not too fast in saying that even admitting that the Secretary of War had ceased to be entitled to the office, and was not to be protected in it, under the operation of the Tenure of Office act, the President, nevertheless, must go acquit of the conspiracy into which he had entered, and must go acquit of issuing the letter of authority to Thomas, in direct violation of the sixth section of the act.

The Senate will recollect the language of the counsel of the President (Mr. Stanbery) to the effect that this act was odious, offensive and unconstitutional, and that it at tempted to impose penalties on the Executive for dis charging Executive functions, and made it a crime and misdemeanor for him to exercise his undoubted discre tionary power under the Constitution as claimed in his answer. He affirmed here, with emphasis, that the fifth section of the act makes it a crime to every man who par ticipates with the President voluntarily in the breach of the law, and makes it a high misdemeanor for any person to accept any appointment under such circumstances.

I do not understand, Senators, why this line of argument was entered upon, if my friend from Ohio was right in coming to the conclusion that there was nothing in the conspiracy, and that there was nothing in issuing the let ter of authority in violation of the express provisions of the law.

Mr. Bingham alluded to a remark made by Mr. Nelson, to the effect that it was his opinion, and was also the opinion of the President, that the House of Representatives, as now organized, had no power under the Constitution to impeach him, and that the Senate of the United States, as now organized, had no power under the Consti tution to to try him on impeachment.

We are very thankful, continued Mr. Bingham, that the President of his grace permits the Senate to sit quietly to deliberate on this question presented by the articles of impeachment by the people's representatives.

But I ask Senators to consider whether the President, at least, is not notifying us through his counsel-for I observed that counsel did not intimate that the President was will ing to abide the judgment of the Senate, but only that he was willing to waft the trial-of what we may expect, and whether he is not playing the same role which he did play, when he availed himself of the provisions of the Tenure of Office act to suspend E. M. Stanton from office, and to appoint a Secretary ad interim, and afterwards, when the Senate did not concur in the suspension of Mr. Stanton, refused to recognize the binding force of the Tenure of Office act.

I think it would have been well for the President of the United States when he was informing us of his opinion, through his learned counsel, to have gone a step farther and informed us whether he will abide the judgment of the Senate.

Mr. Bingham also referred to a remark made by Mr. Curtis in sustaining his argument, to the effect that the letter of authority to General Thomas could not be strictly called a military order; but that the habitual custom of the officers of the army to obey all the orders of their su perior officers gave it, in some sense, the force of a military order. In that connection, Mr. Bingham said:-It would not surprise me, Senators, at all, if the President were to issue an order to-morrow, to his AdjutantGeneral to disperse the Senate, after his sending here