recommended to the Senate for adoption. Those resolutions
censured the Attorney-General and declared it to be the duty of
the Senate "to refuse its advice and consent to proposed removals
of officers" when papers relating to them "are withheld by the
Executive or any head of a department."

On the 2nd of March, a minority report was submitted, making the
point of which the cogency was obvious, that inasmuch as the
term of the official concerning whose suspension the Senate
undertook to inquire had already expired by legal limitation, the
only object in pressing for the papers in his case must be to
review an act of the President which was no longer within the
jurisdiction of the Senate, even if the constitutionality of the
Tenure of Office Act should be granted. The report also showed
that of the precedents cited in behalf of the majority's
contention, the applicability could be maintained only of those
which were supplied by cases arising since 1867, before which
time the right of the President to remove officers at his own
discretion was fully conceded.

The controversy had so far followed the ordinary lines of
partisan contention in Congress, which public opinion was
accustomed to regard with contemptuous indifference as mere
sparring for points in the electioneering game. President
Cleveland now intervened in a way which riveted the attention of
the nation upon the issue. Ever since the memorable struggle
which began when the Senate censured President Jackson and did
not end until that censure was expunged, the Senate had been
chary of a direct encounter with the President. Although the
response of the Attorney-General stated that he was acting under