and no appointee shall be absolutely appointed until he has served a probation of six months. This act does not include any appointment that requires the confirmation of the Senate, or many others in which it is unnecessary. However, the later Presidents have extended the Merit System, as it is called, to many classes of officers and employes that the law does not specifically embrace. This has been done by executive order.1

501. Tenure of Office Act of 1867.-President Johnson became involved in a bitter controversy with the Republican party, which had elected him to power and which controlled both Houses of Congress. He removed many officers that were obnoxious to him. The Senate while in session could partially prevent such removals by refusing to confirm his nominees, but it had no check on removals made in the recess. So Congress passed, over the veto, the Tenure of Office Act, containing these provisions: That the President might suspend an officer in the recess of Congress; that he should report each suspension to the Senate, together with his reasons for making it, within twenty days after the subsequent assembling of the Senate; that if the Senate should concur with the President, the President might then remove the officer and appoint another one in the usual way; that if the Senate did not concur, the suspended officer should resume his duties. The President's disregard of this law in removing Secretary Stanton was the main cause of his impeachment by the House of Representatives. Soon after the inauguration of President Grant, in 1869, the principal features of this law were repealed, and, in 1887, the remaining ones also.

502.

Present Rule of Removals. In the session of the Senate, the President can remove an officer by nominating, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, appointing his successor. The appointee does not receive his commission, or the incumbent vacate his office, until the nomination has been confirmed. In the recess, the President can remove an officer by appointing a successor, who at once receives his commission and enters upon the duties of the office. If the Senate refuses at its next session to confirm the nomination, the President makes a second one; but in either event the removal is final and

1 of the nearly 200,000 officers and employes belonging to the civil service, 69,000 are postmasters, 40,000 serve in other capacities in the postal service, and 22,000 are laborers or workmen. The remainder are employed in the several departments of the Government. About one-fourth of the total number, or 45,868, belong to what is called the Classified Service, or the service places in which are filled by examination under the rules.-Tenth Report of the United States Civil Jervice Commission, 1892-93.

absolute. In the case of vacancies that occur in the recess of Congress, the procedure is the same as in the case of removals made in the recess. If the Senate fails to act upon a nomination before its final adjournment, the commission expires, and the President must reappoint the incumbent or appoint some other person. All such offices are vacancies in the sense of the Constitution. The power of the President over the civil service is therefore greater in the recess than in the session of the Senate.

503. Public Ministers.--The term ministers includes ambassadors, envoys extraordinary, or ministers plenipotentiary, ministers-resident, commissioners, and charges d'affaires. The rank of a minister is determined by various considerations, as the rank of the power to which he is sent. The United States first appointed and received members of the rank of ambassador in President Cleveland's second administration. This was the result of arrangements entered into between the United States and Great Britain, Germany, France, and Italy. Envoys extraordinary, or ministers plenipotentiary, are sent to some inferior powers, and ministers-resident to less important ones. Commissioners are not now often appointed, unless to negotiate special treaties. The salaries of ministers range from $10,000 to $17,500, the latter being paid to those at London, Paris, Berlin, and St. Petersburg. Ministers-resident receive from $5,000 to $7,500. Several of the ministers are furnished with secretaries called Secretaries of Legation.

504. The Army and the Navy.-The army and the navy also fall within the scope of the appointing power. Unless otherwise ordered by law, all military and naval officers are nominated by the President, and appointed by him by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. Here abuses of the appointing power have been comparatively infrequent. Congress enacted in 1866: "No officer in the military or naval service shall, in time of peace, be dismissed from service except upon, and in pur

suance of, the sentence of a court-martial to that effect, or in commutation thereof.”

505. Consuls.-The functions of consuls are determined by treaties and by the laws of the land appointing them. Besides "general watchfulness over the commercial interests of their nation, and aid to their countrymen in securing their commercial rights," Dr. Woolsey enumerates the following duties belonging to them: Legalizing by their seal, for use within their own country, acts of judicial or other tribunals, and authenticating marriages, births, and deaths among their countrymen within their consular districts; receiving the protests of masters of vessels, granting passports, and acting as depositaries of ships' papers; reclaiming deserters from vessels, providing for destitute sailors, and discharging such as have been cruelly treated; acting in behalf of the owners of stranded vessels, and administering on personal property left within their districts by deceased persons, when no legal representative is at hand. Although consuls are not ranked as ministers, they are sometimes charged with diplomatic duties. The President appoints some thirty consuls-general, and about 300 consuls and consular agents. A consul-general exercises a general supervision over all the consuls of his government within the country to which he is sent. Consuls at minor posts receive their compensation in consular fees; those at the important posts receive regular salaries, ranging from $1,000 to $6,000, and pay the fees over to the Treasury.

506. President's Relation to Foreign Affairs.-The Constitution empowers the President to nominate, and by and with the consent of the Senate, to appoint, ambassadors, other public ministers, and consuls. He need not wait until Congress shall by law create these offices. Still, there are two effective checks upon this power: The Senate must consent to the appointment, and Congress must vote the salary. This power has been the subject of controversy between the Executive and Congress, as in the administrations of Presidents Jackson and Grant. In the latter case, General Garfield and others argued in the House of Representatives that the Constitution creates 1 International Law, p. 154 (6th Edition).

diplomatic offices, and that the President can appoint as many men to fill them as he sees fit, subject, of course, to the foregoing limitations.

V. MISCELLANEOUS POWERS.

Section 3.—He shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the state of the Union, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and, in case of disagreement between them with respect to the time of adjournment, he may adjourn them to such time as he shall think proper; he shall receive ambassadors and other public ministers; he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed, and shall commission all the officers of the United States.

507. The President's Message.-The message delivered at the opening of the annual session of Congress presents an outline history of the Government for the year, with the President's views and recommendations, and is accompanied by the annual reports of the heads of Departments and other papers collectively known as the Executive Documents. Special messages relate to special questions. The communications in which the President nominates officers, and in which he gives the reasons why he refuses to sign bills, are also called special messages.

Presidents Washington and Adams delivered their annual addresses in person to the two Houses in joint assembly, and each House made a formal reply. This procedure was in imitation of the ceremony attending the opening of Parliament. President Jefferson adopted the simpler expedient, which his successors have followed, of sending to each House a copy of a written message to be read by the clerk or secretary. President Washington sometimes met the Senate in person to confer upon executive business; and it was the original expectation that the relations of the Executive and the Upper House would be more intimate than they have proved to be in practice. Even now, however, one of the standing rules of the Senate provides that "when the President of the United State shall meet the Senate in the Senate Chamber for the consideration of executive business, he shall have a seat on the right of the Presiding Officer."

508. Special Sessions.—Presidents John Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Van Buren, W. H. Harrison, Pierce, Lincoln, Hayes, and Cleveland have found it necessary to call such sessions. The Senate has often been called in special session to transact executive business,

but the House of Representatives has never been called alone. It is now the custom for a President, a few days before he retires from office, to issue a proclamation calling the Senate together immediately following the inauguration of his successor. This gives the Senate an opportunity to elect a President pro tempore, and the President an opportunity to nominate his Cabinet and other officers. No President has ever had occasion to adjourn Congress.1

509. Reception of Ministers.-The reception of a minister is a formal acknowledgment of the country that he comes from as belonging to the family of nations. This is the practical effect of the President's reception, but Congress can no doubt reverse such recognition. No nation is obliged to receive as a minister any man whom another nation may choose to send to it; the man himself must be an acceptable person (persona grata.) A minister, on arriving in Washington, sends his papers to the State Department, and in due time it is signified to him that he will or will not be received. In the former case, he visits the White House, accompanied by the Secretary of State, who introduces him to the President. He delivers an address to the President, and receives from him a reply. He thus becomes the accredited representative of his country to the United States.

510. The Right of Dismissal.—A minister may be dismissed for various reasons. The two governments may no longer have a good understanding, the government to which the minister has been sent may no longer consider the country from which the minister comes, a nation, or the minister may become an unacceptable person (persona non grata). For a government to send a minister his papers, is considered equivalent to a declaration of war.

1 Parliament does not convene at a time fixed by law, or adjourn of its own motion. It is convened and prorogued by the Crown. However, the law requires that there shall be at least one session every year, and this commonly begins in February. The legal limit of a parliament is seven years, but this is rarely reached. The Crown has power to dissolve, as well as to convoke and prorogue Parliament, and this it does almost invariably before the legal limit has expired. In such cases, writs of elections for a new House of Commons must issue within forty days of the dissolution. The average life of a parliament in this century has been less than four years.