Trump v. Slaughter · ¶197

The majority attempts to shore up its view of the Decision of 1789 with commentary from the years that followed, but several of its own sources show its errors. The first slew of citations shows only that Senate consent was unnecessary for removal. See ante, at 11–12. The debate that was, in James Kent’s words, “firmly and definitively settled” in 1789, was not whether at-will removal was constitutionally required, as the majority suggests; it was whether “participation in [the removal] authority by the senate” was necessary or permitted. 1 Kent 289–290. Joseph Story confirmed that the decision in which “[t]he public . . . acquiesced” was Congress’s “affirm[ance] of the power of removal in the [P]resident, without any co-operation of the [S]enate.” 3 Story §§1536–1537, at 394–395. Daniel Webster, too, decried the Decision of 1789 as wrongly allowing the President to remove…

slip opinion, revised 7/07/26
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