executive power of this Government? The principles implied in these
questions appear too plain to need elucidation.

But here also we have a cotemporaneous construction of the act which
shows that it was not understood as in any way changing the relations
between the President and Secretary of the Treasury, or as placing the
latter out of Executive control even in relation to the deposits of the
public money. Nor on that point are we left to any equivocal testimony.
The documents of the Treasury Department show that the Secretary of the
Treasury did apply to the President and obtained his approbation and
sanction to the original transfer of the public deposits to the present
Bank of the United States, and did carry the measure into effect in
obedience to his decision. They also show that transfers of the public
deposits from the branches of the Bank of the United States to State
banks at Chillicothe, Cincinnati, and Louisville, in 1819, were made
with the approbation of the President and by his authority. They show
that upon all important questions appertaining to his Department,
whether they related to the public deposits or other matters, it was
the constant practice of the Secretary of the Treasury to obtain for
his acts the approval and sanction of the President. These acts and the
principles on which they were founded were known to all the departments
of the Government, to Congress and the country, and until very recently
appear never to have been called in question.

Thus was it settled by the Constitution, the laws, and the whole
practice of the Government that the entire executive power is vested
in the President of the United States; that as incident to that power
the right of appointing and removing those officers who are to aid
him in the execution of the laws, with such restrictions only as the
Constitution prescribes, is vested in the President; that the Secretary