SECTION 2. Other powers and duties. 1. Act as Commander in Chief. Reprieves, pardons. 2. To make treaties, how. Appointments. 3. To fill vacancies. SECTION 3. Messages to, and power of assembling and adjourning Congress. SECTION 4. Removal of officers on impeachment. SECTION 1. Executive. 1. The executive power shall be vested in a President Powers of of the United States of America. He shall hold his office during the term of four years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same term, be elected as follows: 2. Each State shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a number of Electors equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress; but no Senator or Representative, or person holding an office of trust or profit under the United States shall be appointed an Elector. 3. The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by ballot for two persons, of whom one at least shall not be an inhabitant of the same State with themselves. And they shall make a list of all the persons voted for, and of the number of votes for each; which list they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates, and the votes shall then be counted. The person having the greatest number of votes shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if there be more than one who have such majority, and have an equal number of votes, then the House of Repre Powers of sentatives shall immediately choose by ballot one of them for President; and if no person have a majority, then from the five highest on the list the said House shall, in like manner, choose the President. But, in choosing the President, the vote shall be taken by States, the representation from each State having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two thirds of the States, and a majority of all the States shall be necessary to a choice. In every case, after the choice of the President, the person having the greatest number of votes of the Electors shall be the Vice President. But if there should remain two or more who have equal votes, the Senate shall choose from them by ballot the Vice President. NOTE. This clause has been superseded by the twelfth amendment to the Constitution. 4. The Congress may determine the time of choosing the Electors, and the day on which they shall give their votes; which day shall be the same throughout the United States. 5. No person except a natural-born citizen, or a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained the age of thirty-five years, and been fourteen years a resident within the United States. 6. In case of the removal of the President from office, or of his death, resignation, or inability to discharge the powers and duties of the said office, the same shall devolve on the Vice President, and the Congress may, by law, provide for the case of removal, death, resignation, or inability, both of the President and Vice President, declaring what officer shall then act as President, and such officer shall act accordingly, until the disability, be removed, or a President shall be elected. 7. The President shall, at stated times, receive for his services a compensation, which shall neither be increased nor diminished during the period for which he shall have been elected, and he shall not receive within that period any other emolument from the United States or any of them. 8. Before he enters on the execution of his office, he shall take the following oath or affirmation: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States." SECTION 2. duties. 1. The President shall be Commander in Chief of Other powers and the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual service of the United States; he may require the opinion, in writing, of the principal officer in each of the executive departments, upon any subject relating to the duties of their respective offices, and he shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment. 2. He shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for and which shall be established by law; but the Congress may by law vest the appointment of such inferior officers as they think proper in the President alone, in the Courts of law, or in the heads of Departments. 3. The President shall have power to fill up all vacancies that may happen during the recess of the Senate, by granting commissions, which shall expire at the end of their next session. NOTE.-The President as the Commander in Chief. If a foreign nation should invade the territory of the United States, the President's duty requires him not only to resist the invasion, but to invade the enemy's country.-Trials of Smith and Ogden, p. 85. The Amy Warwick, 2 Spr., p. 123; s. c., 2 Bl., p. 635. If war exists, the President, without an Act of Congress, has a belligerent right to declare a blockade.-The Tropic Wind, 24 Law Rep., p. 144; Act of 13th July, 1861; Constitutional; The Ned, Bl. Cr. Cas., p. 119. The President may arrest mischievous persons who impede or endanger military operations in time of civil war.-Ex Parte Vallandigham, 5 West., L. Mo., p. 37. Private property may be taken by a military commander to prevent it from falling into the hands of the enemy, or for the purpose of converting it to the use of the public, if the danger is immediate and impending, and the necessity urgent.-Mitchell vs. Harmony, 13 Howard, p. 115. But the officer cannot take possession of private property for the purpose of insuring the success of a distant expedition, upon which he is about to march.-Id. When martial law has been declared in a State, an officer may lawfully arrest any one who he has reason to believe is engaged in the insurrection, or order a house to be forcibly entered.-Luther vs. Borden, 7 Howard, p. 1. EXECUTIVE AUTHORITY.-The President may make and repeal rules and regulations for the compensation of extra services of army officers when Congress has not legislated thereon. The Secretary of War promulgates them.-U. S. vs. Eliason, 16 Pet., p. 291; also, U. S. vs. Webster, Dav., p. 38. Executive construction of laws, when carrying them into effect, binding on the judiciary when private rights are not affected.— U. S. vs. Lytle, 5 McL., p. 9. The heads of departments are the media through which the Executive does many acts, hence their acts are presumed by the Courts to be done by his direction.-Wilcox vs. Jackson, 13 Pet., p. 498; U. S. vs. Cutter, 2 Court, p. 617. These departments must necessarily do many things not expressly authorized by law but essential to the proper action of the Government, though they are limited in the exercise of their powers.-U. S. vs. Macdaniel, 7 Pet., p. 2. Prohibiting an act, except under the special direction of the President, does not require his personal performance of the act. It must be done through the agency of the proper department.-Williams vs. U. S., 1 H., p. 290; s. c., 5 Cr. C. C., p. 619. Official acts of the President, and the record of the same, are kept in the respective departments.-Lockington vs. Smith, Pet. C. C., p. 466. President may remove all officers, at his discretion, civil or military, except those in the judicial department or where Congress has given some other duration.-Gratiot vs. U. S., 1 N. & H., p. 258. Power to grant pardons unlimited, except in impeachment, and not subject to control of Congress.-Ex Parte Garland, 4 Wall., p. 334. May grant conditional pardon.-Ex Parte Wells, 18 H., p. 307. President cannot dispense with the execution of a statute nor control it, nor authorize that which the law forbids to be done by another (U. S. vs. Smith, Trials of Smith and Ogden, pp. 84, 237; Kendall vs. U. S., 12 Pet., p. 525; s. c., 5 Cr. C. C., p. 163), nor authorize Secretary of State to omit the performance of an act required by law.-Marbury vs. Madison, 1 Cr., p. 137. All his instructions not supported by law are illegal, and not obligatory on inferior officers.-Gilchrist vs. The Coll. of Charleston, 1 Hall L. J., p. 429; also, Otis vs. Bacon, 7 Cr., p. 589; Tracy vs. Swartwout, 10 Pet., p. 80; Kendall vs. U. S., 12 Pet., p. 525; same case, 5 Cr. C. C., p. 163. In obeying President's instructions commander of a public vessel acts at his peril and is responsible in damages to party injured if instructions are not in accordance with the law. Little vs. Barreme, 2 Cr., p. 170. Neither will illegal instructions of the Secretary of the Treasury justify illegal acts of a Collector.-Tracy vs. Swartwout, 10 Pet., p. 80; Gray vs. Lawrence, 3 Bl. C. C., p. 117; Foster vs. Peaslee, 21 Law Rep., p. 341; Magruder vs. U. S., Dev. C. C., p. 21. An Act expired is not revived by proclamation of the President.-The Orono, 1 Gall., p. 137. When President's order would be a justification in law, the inferior must obey it, and only then.-U. S. vs. Kendall, 5 Cr. C. C., p. 163; same case, 12 Pet., p. 524. He cannot further interfere in a public prosecution than to end it and discharge defendant.-U. S. vs. Corril, 23 Law Rep., p. 145. Nor can he suspend the writ of habeas corpus, without an Act of Congress authorizing it.-McCall vs. McDowell, 1 Pac. Law Mag., p. 360; Ex Parte Merryman, 9 Am. L. R., p. 524. The proclamation of September 24th, 1862, held to be without authority and void as a defense of an officer's acts under it.-Id. The seizure and condemnation of enemy's property found in our ports not authorized by President's proclamation on breaking out of war.Brown vs. U. S., 8 Cr., p. 110. The Constitution does not forbid the issuing of a Treasury distress warrant, it being an executive and not a judicial act.-Murray vs. Hob. Land and Imp. Co., 18 H., p. 272. When injustice is wrought thereby, the Courts will review regula 43-VOL. II.-POL. |