And he cites in his note “Rawle on the Constitution, ch. 22, p. 216,”[92] being the very passage that I have just read. Here is the first appearance of this reason, which is now made to play so important a part, being treated even as a text of the Constitution itself. At least I have not been able to meet it at an earlier day. If you repair to the contemporary authorities, including the original debates, you will find no such reason assigned,--nothing like it,--not even any suggestion of it. On the contrary, you will find Mr. Madison, in the Virginia Convention, making a statement which explains in the most satisfactory manner the requirement of the Constitution.[93] No better authority could be cited. Any reason supplied by him anterior to the adoption of the Constitution must be of more weight than any _ex post facto_ imagination or invention of learned commentators. If we trust to the lights of history, the reason for the introduction of this clause in the Constitution was because the framers of the Constitution contemplated the possibility of the suspension of the President from the exercise of his powers, in which event the Vice-President could not be in your chair, Sir. If the President were suspended, the Vice-President would be in his place. The reports will verify what I say. If you refer to the debates of the National Convention, under the date of Friday, September 14, 1787, you will find the following entry, which I read now by way of introduction to what follows at a later date, on the authority of Mr. Madison himself. “Mr. Rutledge and Mr. Gouverneur Morris moved ‘that persons impeached be suspended from their offices until they be tried and acquitted.’ “MR. MADISON. The President is made too dependent already on the Legislature by the power of one branch to try him in consequence of an impeachment by the other. This intermediate suspension will put him in the power of one branch only. They can at any moment, in order to make way for the functions of another who will be more favorable to their views, vote a temporary removal of the existing magistrate. “Mr. King concurred in the opposition to the amendment.”[94]