Then again he declared his purpose to “discharge the duties of the office with that impartiality and zeal for the public good which ought never to suffer connections of blood or friendship to intermingle so as to have the least sway on decisions of a public nature.”[89]

This excellent rule of conduct is illustrated by the advice to his successor with regard to the promotion of his son, John Quincy Adams. After giving it as his “decided opinion” that the latter “is the most valuable public character we have abroad,” and promises to be “the ablest of all our diplomatic corps,” Washington declares:—

Considering the importance of the rule, it were better for the country if it had prevailed over parental regard and the extraordinary merits of the son.

In vindicating his conduct at a later day, John Adams protested against what he called “the hypersuperlative public virtue” of Washington, and insisted: “A President ought not to appoint a man because he is his relation; nor ought he to refuse or neglect to appoint him for that reason.”[91] With absolute certainty that the President is above all prejudice of family and sensitive to merit only, this rule is not unreasonable; but who can be trusted to apply it?

Jefferson developed and explained the true principles in a manner worthy of republican institutions. In a letter to a relation immediately after becoming President, he wrote:

After his retirement from the Presidency, in a letter to a kinsman, he asserts the rule again:—

That statement is unanswerable. The elect of the people must live so as best to maintain their interests and to elevate the national sentiment. This can be only by an example of unselfish devotion to the public weal which shall be above suspicion. A President suspected of weakness for his relations is already shorn of strength.

In saying that his predecessor “degraded himself infinitely by his conduct on this subject,” Jefferson shows the rigor of his requirement. Besides the transfer of his son, John Quincy Adams, from one diplomatic mission of lower grade to another of a higher, John Adams is responsible for the appointment of his son-in-law, Colonel Smith, as surveyor of the port of New York, and his wife’s nephew, William Cranch, as chief-justice of the Circuit Court of the District of Columbia,—both persons of merit, and the former “serving through the war with high applause of his superiors.”[94] The public sentiment appears in the condemnation of these appointments. In refusing another of his relations, we have already seen[95] that John Adams wrote: “You know it is impossible for me to appoint my own relations to anything without drawing forth a torrent of obloquy.” But this torrent was nothing but the judgment of the American people unwilling that republican institutions at that early day should suffer.

Thus far John Adams stands alone. If any other President has made appointments from his own family, it has been on so petty a scale as not to be recognized in history. John Quincy Adams, when President, did not follow his father. An early letter to his mother foreshadows a rule not unlike that of Jefferson:—

To Jefferson’s sense of public duty John Quincy Adams added the sense of personal delicacy, both strong against such appointment of relations. To the irresistible judgment against this abuse, a recent moralist, of lofty nature, Theodore Parker, imparts new expression, when he says, “It is a dangerous and unjust practice.”[97] This is simple and monitory.

PRESIDENTIAL APOLOGIES FOR NEPOTISM.

Without the avalanche of testimony against this Presidential pretension, it is necessary only to glance at the defences sometimes set up; for such is the insensibility bred by Presidential example, that even this intolerable outrage is not without voices speaking for the President. Sometimes it is said, that, his salary being far from royal, the people will not scan closely an attempt to help relations,—which, being interpreted, means that the President may supplement the pettiness of his salary by the appointing power. Let John Adams, who did not hesitate to bestow office upon a few relations of unquestioned merit, judge this pretension. I quote his words:—

It is impossible to deny the soundness of this requirement and its completeness as an answer to one of the apologies.

Sometimes the defender is more audacious, insisting openly upon the Presidential prerogative without question, until we seem to hear in aggravated form the obnoxious cry, “To the victor belong the spoils.” I did not suppose that this old cry could be revived in any form; but since it is heard again, I choose to expose it; and here I use the language of Madison, whose mild wisdom has illumined so much of constitutional duty. In his judgment the pretension was odious, “that offices and emoluments were the spoils of victory, the personal property of the successful candidate for the Presidency”; and he adds in words not to be forgotten at this moment:—

This is strong language. The rule in its early form could not fail to degrade any Administration. But now this degrading rule is extended, and we are told that to the President’s family belong the spoils.

Another apology, vouchsafed even on this floor, is, that, if the President cannot appoint his relations, they alone of all citizens are excluded from office,—which, it is said, should not be. But is it not for the public good that they should be excluded? Such was the wise judgment of Jefferson, and such is the testimony from another quarter. That eminent prelate, Bishop Butler, who has given to English literature one of its most masterly productions, known as “Butler’s Analogy,” after his elevation to the see of Durham with its remarkable patronage, was so self-denying with regard to his family that a nephew said to him, “Methinks, my Lord, it is a misfortune to be related to you.”[100] Golden words of honor for the English Bishop! But none such have been earned by the American President.

Assuming that in case of positive merit designating a citizen for a particular post the President might appoint a relation, it would be only where the merit was so shining that his absence would be noticed. At least it must be such as to make the citizen a candidate without regard to family. But no such merit is attributed to the beneficiaries of our President, some of whom have done little but bring scandal upon the public service. At least one is tainted with fraud; and another, with the commission of the Republic abroad, has been guilty of indiscretions inconsistent with his trust. Appointed originally in open defiance of republican principles, they have been retained in office after their unfitness became painfully manifest. By the testimony before a Congressional Committee, one of these, a brother-in-law, was implicated in bribery and corruption. It is said that at last, after considerable delay, the President has consented to his removal.

Here I leave for the present this enormous unrepublican pretension, waiting to hear if it can again find an apologist. Is there a single Senator who will not dismiss it to judgment?

GIFT-TAKING,—AND REPAYMENT WITH OFFICE.

From one typical abuse I pass to another. From a dropsical Nepotism swollen to elephantiasis, which nobody can defend, I pass to Gift-Taking, which with our President has assumed an unprecedented form. Sometimes public men even in our country have taken gifts, but it is not known that any President before has repaid the patron with office. For a public man to take gifts is reprehensible; for a President to select Cabinet councillors and other officers among those from whom he has taken gifts is an anomaly in republican annals. Observe, Sir, that I speak of it gently, unwilling to exhibit the indignation which such a Presidential pretension is calculated to arouse. The country will judge it, and blot it out as an example.

There have been throughout history corrupt characters in official station; but, whether in ancient or modern times, the testimony is constant against the taking of gifts, and nowhere with more force than in our Scriptures, where it is said: “Thou shalt not wrest judgment, thou shalt not respect persons, neither take a gift; for a gift doth blind the eyes of the wise.”[101] Here is the inhibition, and also the reason, which slight observation shows to be true. Does not a gift blind the eyes of the wise? The influence of gifts is represented by Plutarch in the life of a Spartan king:—

What is done under the influence of a gift is mercenary; but whether from ruler to subject or from subject to ruler, the gift is equally pernicious. An ancient patriot “feared the Greeks bearing gifts,”[103] and these words have become a proverb; but there are Greeks bearing gifts elsewhere than at Troy. A public man can traffic with such only at his peril. At their appearance the prayer should be said, “Lead us not into temptation.”

The best examples testify. Thus, in the autobiography of Lord Brougham, posthumously published, it appears that at a great meeting in Glasgow five hundred pounds were subscribed as a gift to him for his public service, to be put into such form as he might think best. He hesitated. “This required,” he records, “much consideration, as such gifts were liable to be abused.” Not content with his own judgment, he assembled some friends to discuss it,—“Lord Holland, Lord Erskine, Romilly, and Baring,”—and he wrote to Earl Grey, afterward Prime-Minister, who replied:—

It ended in his declining to accept anything more than the small top of a gold inkstand.[104]

In our country Washington keeps his lofty heights, setting himself against gift-taking as against nepotism. In 1785, while in private life, two years after he ceased to be commander-in-chief of our armies and four years before he became President, he could not be induced to accept a certain amount of canal stock offered him by the State of Virginia, as appears in an official communication:—

Fully to appreciate the reply of Washington, it must be borne in mind, that, according to Washington Irving, his biographer, “some degree of economy was necessary, for his financial concerns had suffered during the war, and the products of his estate had fallen off.”[106] But he was not tempted. Thus he wrote:—

And subsequently to Jefferson:—

How admirably he touches the point when he asks, “Should I not thenceforward be considered as a dependant?” According to our Scripture the gift blinds the eyes; according to Washington it makes the receiver a dependant.

In harmony with this sentiment was his subsequent refusal, when President, as is recorded by an ingenuous writer:—

By such instances, brought to light recently, and shining in contrast with our times, we learn to admire anew the virtue of Washington.

It would be easy to show how in all ages the refusal of gifts has been recognized as the sign of virtue, if not the requirement of duty. The story of St. Louis of France is beautiful and suggestive. Leaving on a crusade, he charged the Queen, who remained behind, “not to accept presents for herself or her children.”[110] Such was one of the injunctions by which this monarch, when far away on a pious expedition, impressed himself upon his country.

My own strong convictions on this Presidential pretension were aroused in a conversation which it was my privilege to enjoy with John Quincy Adams, as he sat in his sick-chamber at his son’s house in Boston, a short time before he fell at his post of duty in the House of Representatives. In a voice trembling with age and with emotion, he said that no public man could take gifts without peril; and he confessed that his own judgment had been quickened by the example of Count Romanzoff, the eminent Chancellor of the Russian Empire, who, after receiving costly gifts from foreign sovereigns with whom he had negotiated treaties, felt a difficulty of conscience in keeping them, and at last handed over their value to a hospital, as he related to Mr. Adams, then Minister at St. Petersburg.[111] The latter was impressed by this Russian example, and through his long career, as Minister abroad, Secretary of State, President, and Representative, always refused gifts, unless a book or some small article in its nature a token and not a reward or bribe.

The Constitution testifies against the taking of gifts by officers of the United States, when it provides that “no person holding any office of profit or trust under them shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present or emolument from any king, prince, or foreign State.” The acceptance of a present or emolument from our own citizens was left without constitutional inhibition, to be constrained by the public conscience and the just aversion to any semblance of bargain and sale, or bribery, in the public service.

The case of our President is exceptional. Notoriously he has taken gifts while in the public service, some at least after he had been elected President, until “the Galena tanner of a few hundred dollars a year”—to borrow the words of my colleague [Mr. Wilson], one of his supporters—is now rich in houses, lands, and stock, above his salary, being probably the richest President since George Washington. Notoriously he has appointed to his Cabinet several among these “Greeks bearing gifts,” without seeming to see the indecorum, if not the indecency, of the transaction. At least two, if not three, of these Greeks, having no known position in the Republican Party, or influence in the country, have been selected as his counsellors in national affairs and heads of great departments of government. Again do I repeat the words of our Scriptures, “A gift doth blind the eyes of the wise”; again the words of Washington, “Should I not thenceforward be considered as a dependant?”

Nor does the case of the first Secretary of State differ in character from that of the other three Cabinet officers referred to. The President, feeling under personal obligation to Mr. Washburne for important support, gave him a complimentary nomination, with the understanding that after confirmation he should forthwith resign. I cannot forget the indignant comment of the late Mr. Fessenden, as we passed out of the Senate Chamber immediately after the confirmation. “Who,” said he, “ever heard before of a man nominated Secretary of State merely as a compliment?” But this is only another case of the public service subordinated to personal considerations.

Not only in the Cabinet, but in other offices, there is reason to believe that the President has been under the influence of patrons. Why was he so blind to Thomas Murphy? The custom-house of New York, with all its capacity as a political engine, was handed over to this agent, whose want of recognition in the Republican Party was outbalanced by Presidential favor, and whose gifts have become notorious. And when the demand for his removal was irresistible, the President accepted his resignation with an effusion of sentiment natural toward a patron, but without justification in the character of the retiring officer.

Shakespeare, who saw intuitively the springs of human conduct, touches more than once on the operation of the gift. “I’ll do thee service for so good a gift,” said Gloster to Warwick.[112] Then, again, how truly spoke the lord, who said of Timon,—

And such were the returns made by the President.

Thus much for gifts, reciprocated by office. The instance is original and without precedent in our history.

THE PRESIDENCY A PERQUISITE.

I have now completed the survey of the two typical instances—Nepotism, and Gift-Taking with repayment by office—in which we are compelled to see the President. In these things he shows himself. Here is no portrait drawn by critic or enemy; it is the original who stands forth, saying: “Behold the generosity I practise to my relations at the expense of the public service! also the gifts I take, and then my way of rewarding the patrons, always at the expense of the public service!” In this open exhibition we see how the Presidency, instead of a trust, has become a perquisite. Bad as are these two capital instances, and important as is their condemnation, so that they may not become a precedent, I dwell on them now as illustrating character. A President who can do such things, and not recognize at once the error he has committed, shows that supereminence of egotism under which Constitution, International Law, and Municipal Law, to say nothing of Republican Government in its primary principles, are all subordinated to the Presidential will; and this is Personal Government. Add an insensibility to the honest convictions of others, and you have a natural feature of this pretension.

Lawyers cite what are called “Leading Cases.” A few of these show the Presidential will in constant operation with little regard to precedent or reason, so as to be a caprice, if it were not a pretension. Imitating the Popes in Nepotism, the President has imitated them in ostentatious assumption of Infallibility.

THE PRESIDENT’S INAUGURAL ADDRESS.

Other Presidents have entered upon their high office with a certain modesty and distrust. Washington in his Inaugural Address declared his “anxieties,” also his sense of “the magnitude and difficulty of the trust,” “awakening a distrustful scrutiny into his qualifications.”[114] Jefferson, in his famous Inaugural, so replete with political wisdom, after declaring his “sincere consciousness that the task is above his talents,” says: “I approach it with those anxious and awful presentiments which the greatness of the charge and the weakness of my powers so justly inspire, … and humble myself before the magnitude of the undertaking.”[115]

Our soldier, absolutely untried in civil life, entirely a new man, entering upon the sublimest duties, before which Washington and Jefferson had shrunk, said in his Inaugural: “The responsibilities of the position I feel, but accept them without fear.”[116] Great predecessors, with ample preparation for the responsibilities, had shrunk back with fear. He had none. Either he did not see the responsibilities, or the Cæsar began to stir in his bosom.

SELECTION OF HIS CABINET.

Next after the Inaugural Address, his first official act was the selection of his Cabinet; and here the general disappointment was equalled by the general wonder. As the President was little known except from the victories which had commended him, it was not then seen how completely characteristic was this initial act. Looking back upon it, we recognize the pretension by which all tradition, usage, and propriety were discarded, by which the just expectations of the party that had elected him were set at nought, and the safeguards of constitutional government were subordinated to the personal pretensions of One Man. In this Cabinet were persons having small relations with the Republican Party and little position in the country, some absolutely without claims from public service, and some actually disqualified by the gifts they had made to the President. Such was the political phenomenon presented for the first time in American history, while reported sayings of the President showed the simplicity with which he acted. To a committee he described his Cabinet as his “family,” with which no stranger could be allowed to interfere, and to a member of Congress he announced that he selected his Cabinet “to please himself and nobody else,”—being good rules unquestionably for the organization of a household and the choice of domestics, to which the Cabinet seem to have been likened. This personal government flowered in the Navy Department, where a gift-bearing Greek was suddenly changed to a Secretary. No less a personage than the grand old Admiral, the brave, yet modest Farragut, was reported as asking, on the fifth of March, the very day when the Cabinet was announced, in unaffected ignorance, “Do you know anything of Borie?” And yet this unconspicuous citizen, bearer of gifts to the President, was constituted the naval superior of that historic character. If others were less obscure, the Cabinet as a unit was none the less notable as the creature of Presidential will, where Chance vied with Favoritism as arbiter.

All this is so strange, when we consider the true idea of a Cabinet. Though not named in the Constitution, yet by virtue of unbroken usage among us, and in harmony with constitutional governments everywhere, the Cabinet has become a constitutional body, hardly less than if expressly established by the Constitution itself. Its members, besides being the heads of great departments, are the counsellors of the President, with the duty to advise him of all matters within the sphere of his office, being nothing less than the great catalogue in the Preamble of the Constitution, beginning with duty to the Union, and ending with the duty to secure the blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity. Besides undoubted fitness for these exalted responsibilities, as head of a department and as counsellor, a member should have such acknowledged position in the country that his presence inspires confidence and gives strength to the Administration. How little these things were regarded by the President need not be said.

Unquestionably the President has a discretion in the appointment of his Cabinet; but it is a constitutional discretion, regulated by regard for the interests of the country and not by mere personal will, by statesmanship and not by favoritism. A Cabinet is a national institution and not a Presidential perquisite,—unless our President is allowed to copy the example of Imperial France. In all constitutional governments, the Cabinet is selected on public reasons, and with a single eye to the public service; it is not in any respect the “family” of the sovereign, nor is it “to please himself and nobody else.” English monarchs have often accepted statesmen personally disagreeable, when they had become representatives of the prevailing party,—as when George the Third, the most obstinate of rulers, accepted Fox, and George the Fourth, as prejudiced as his father was obstinate, accepted Canning, each bringing to the service commanding faculties. It is related that the Duke of Wellington, with military frankness, encountered the personal objections of the King in the latter case, by saying: “Your Majesty is the sovereign of England, with duties to your people far above any to yourself; and these duties render it imperative that you should at this time employ the abilities of Mr. Canning.”[117] By such instances in a constitutional government is the Cabinet fixed as a constitutional and not a personal body. It is only by some extraordinary hallucination that the President of a Republic dedicated to Constitutional Liberty can imagine himself invested with a transforming prerogative above that of any English sovereign, by which his counsellors are changed from public officers to personal attendants, and a great constitutional body, in which all citizens have a common interest, is made a perquisite of the President.

APPROPRIATION OF THE OFFICES.

Marked among the spectacles which followed, and kindred in character with the appropriation of the Cabinet as individual property, was the appropriation of the offices of the country, to which I refer in this place even at the expense of repetition. Obscure and undeserving relations, marriage connections, personal retainers, army associates, friends of unknown fame and notable only as personal friends or friends of his relations, evidently absorbed the Presidential mind during those months of obdurate reticence when a generous people supposed the Cabinet to be the all-absorbing thought. Judging by the facts, it would seem as if the chief and most spontaneous thought was how to exploit the appointing power to his own personal behoof. At this period the New York Custom-House presented itself to the imagination, and a letter was written consigning a military dependant to the generosity of the Collector. You know the rest. Dr. Johnson, acting as executor in selling the distillery of Mr. Thrale, said: “We are not here to sell a parcel of boilers and vats, but the potentiality of growing rich beyond the dreams of avarice.”[118] If the President did not use the sounding phrase of the great English moralist, it is evident that his military dependant felt in that letter all the “potentiality” advertised in the earlier case, and acted accordingly.

It is not necessary to say that in these things there was departure from the requirements of law, whether in the appointment of his Cabinet or of personal favorites, even in return for personal benefactions, although it was plainly unrepublican, offensive, and indefensible. But this same usurping spirit, born of an untutored egotism, brooking no restraint, showed itself in another class of transactions, to which I have already referred, where Law and Constitution were little regarded.

PRESIDENTIAL ASSAULT ON A SAFEGUARD OF THE TREASURY.

First in time and very indigenous in character was the Presidential attempt against one of the sacred safeguards of the Treasury, the original workmanship of Alexander Hamilton, being nothing less than the “Act to establish the Treasury Department.” Here was an important provision, “that no person appointed to any office instituted by this Act shall directly or indirectly be concerned or interested in carrying on the business of trade or commerce”; and any person so offending was declared guilty of a high misdemeanor, and was to forfeit to the United States three thousand dollars, with removal from office, and forever thereafter to be incapable of holding any office under the United States.[119] From the beginning this statute had stood unquestioned, until it had acquired the character of fundamental law. And yet the President, by a special message, dated March 6, 1869, being the second day of his first service as a civilian, asked Congress to set it aside, so as to enable Mr. Stewart, of New York already nominated and confirmed as Secretary of the Treasury, to enter upon the duties of this office.[120] This gentleman was unquestionably the largest merchant who had transacted business in our country, and his imports were of such magnitude as to clog the custom-house. If the statute was anything but one of those cobwebs which catch the weak, but yield to the rich, this was the occasion for it, and the President should have yielded to no temptation against it. The indecorum of his effort stands out more painfully when it is considered that the merchant for whom he wished to set aside a time-honored safeguard was one of those from whom he had received gifts.

Such was the accommodating disposition of the Senate, that a bill exempting the Presidential benefactor from the operation of the statute was promptly introduced, and even read twice, until, as it seemed about to pass, I felt it my duty to object to its consideration, saying, according to the Globe, “I think it ought to be most profoundly considered before it is acted on by the Senate.”[121] This objection caused its postponement. The country was startled. By telegraph the general anxiety was communicated to Washington. Three days later the President sent a message requesting permission to withdraw the former message.[122] But he could not withdraw the impression produced by such open disregard of the law to promote his personal desire.

ILLEGAL MILITARY RING AT THE EXECUTIVE MANSION.

The military spirit, which failed in the effort to set aside a fundamental law as if it were a transient order, was more successful at the Executive Mansion, which at once assumed the character of military head-quarters. To the dishonor of the civil service, and in total disregard of precedent, the President surrounded himself with officers of the Army, and substituted military forms for those of civil life, detailing for this service members of his late staff. The earliest public notice of this military occupation appeared in the “Daily Morning Chronicle” of March 8, 1869, understood to be the official organ of the Administration:—

This is to be regarded not only in its strange blazonry of the Presidential pretension, but also as the first apparition of that minor military ring in which the President has lived ever since.

Thus installed, Army officers became secretaries of the President, delivering his messages to both Houses of Congress, and even authenticating Presidential acts as if they were military orders. Here, for instance, is an official communication:—

Mark the words, “By order of the President,” and then the signature, “Horace Porter, Brevet Brigadier-General, Secretary.”

The Presidential pretension which I exhibit on the simple facts, besides being of doubtful legality, to say the least, was of evil example, demoralizing alike to the military and civil service, and an undoubted reproach to republican institutions in that primary principle, announced by Jefferson in his first Inaugural Address, “the supremacy of the civil over the military authority.”[124] It seemed only to remain that the President should sign his Messages, “Commander-in-Chief of the Army of the United States.” Evidently a new order of things had arrived.

Observe the mildness of my language, when I call this Presidential pretension “of doubtful legality.” The law shall speak for itself. Obviously it was the same for our military President as for his predecessors, and it was recent also:—

It cannot be doubted that this provision was more than ample; for Congress, by Act of July 20, 1868, repealed so much as authorized a clerk of pardons, and also one of the three clerks of the fourth class.[126] Therefore there could be no necessity for a levy of soldiers to perform the duties of secretaries, and the conduct of the President can be explained only by the supposition that he preferred to be surrounded by Army officers rather than by civilians, continuing in the Executive Mansion the traditions of head-quarters: all which, though agreeable to him and illustrating his character, was an anomaly and a scandal.

In extenuation of this indefensible pretension, we have been reminded of two things: first, that according to the record Washington sent his first message by General Knox,—when in fact General Knox held no military office at that time, but was actually Secretary of War; and, secondly, that the military officers now occupying the Executive Mansion are detailed for this service without other salary than that of their grade. As the Knox precedent is moonshine, the minor military ring can be vindicated only as a “detail” for service in the Executive Mansion.

Here again the law shall speak. By Act of Congress of March 3, 1863, it is provided that “details to special service shall only be made with the consent of the commanding officer of forces in the field”;[127] but this, it will be seen, refers to a state of war. Congress, by Act of July 16, 1866, authorized the President to “detail from the Army all the officers and agents of this Bureau” [for the Relief of Freedmen and Refugees];[128] also, by Act of July 28, 1866, to “detail” officers of the Army, not exceeding twenty at any time, “to act as president, superintendent, or professor” in certain colleges.[129] And then again, by Act of July 15, 1870, it provided that “any retired officer may, on his own application, be detailed to serve as professor in any college.”[130] As there is no other statute authorizing details, this exceptional transfer of Army officers to the Executive Mansion can be maintained only on some undefined prerogative.

The Presidential pretension, which is continued to the present time, is the more unnatural when it is considered that there are at least three different statutes in which Congress has shown its purpose to limit the employment of military officers in civil service. As long ago as July 5, 1838, it was positively provided that no Army officers should be separated from their regiments and corps “for employment on civil works of internal improvement, or be allowed to engage in the service of incorporated companies”; nor any line officer to be acting paymaster or disbursing agent for the Indian Department, “if such extra employment require that he be separated from his regiment or company, or otherwise interfere with the performance of the military duties proper.”[131] Obviously the will of Congress is here declared, that officers should not be allowed to leave their posts for any service which might interfere with the performance of the military duties proper. This language is explicit. Then came the Act of March 30, 1868, which provides that “any officer of the Army or Navy of the United States, who shall, after the passage of this Act, accept or hold any appointment in the diplomatic or consular service of the Government, shall be considered as having resigned his said office, and the place held by him in the military or naval service shall be deemed and taken to be vacant.”[132] To a considerate and circumspect President, who recognized the law in its spirit as well as its letter, this provision, especially when reinforced by the earlier statute, would have been a rule of action in analogous cases, and therefore an insurmountable obstacle to a pretension which takes Army officers from their proper duties and makes them Presidential secretaries. A later statute adds to the obstacle. By Act of Congress of July 15, 1870, it is provided:—