Trump v. Slaughter · ¶87

That is why no one at the time saw the First Congress as having endorsed merely a “default” “Presidential removal power” (if such a thing is not a contradiction in terms). Post, at 13, 21 (opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J.). Madison, in fact, said just the opposite. Because “the Executive power” vested in the President includes the power “to remov[e] . . . from office,” he explained, “the Legislature has no right to diminish or modify” that power. 1 Annals of Cong. 463. Chief Justice Marshall agreed, explaining that the Decision of 1789 viewed the President’s “power of removal” as “fixed in the constitution” and thus free from “legislative instability.” 5 Marshall 200. The same was true for Justice Story, who said that the decision “expressed the sense of the legislature, that the power of removal by the executive [of principal officers] could not be abridged by the legislature.” 3 Story §1531,…

slip opinion, revised 7/07/26
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