I apply the remark to them individually, because Chief Justice Marshall was the principal, and seemingly the sole actor, in the proceedings on the part of the court, and because the retention of the commissions--the grievance those proceedings were designed to redress--was not merely an executive act, but one committed in pursuance of the specific direction of President Jefferson. This was always avowed by the latter, and the guarded manner in which the replies of Mr. Madison are stated in the report of the case is, to my mind at least, sufficient proof that the President was throughout considered and treated by the Chief Justice as the actual offender in the matter. In respect to the soundness of the volunteer opinion of the court it would be superfluous, considering the fate that awaited it, to do more than to restate the question. This may certainly be done with more brevity and perhaps with equal distinctness. It will not be denied that President Jefferson had the same power over the subject on the 4th March that Mr. Adams would have possessed if his term of office had not expired on the 3d. The President under our system, like the king in a monarchy, never dies. Let us then suppose that Mr. Adams, after he had signed the commission and caused the seal to be affixed to it, but before it had been recorded or delivered, had discovered that the appointee was a felon, or for any reason an obviously improper person to be made a conservator of the public peace, was he not authorized to withhold it? The appointment is made by the Constitution to consist of three acts--the nomination, the approval by the Senate, and the commissioning. The first and last devolve on the President. The signatures to them must necessarily be his own act; but Congress supplies him with a Secretary of State subject to his own directions, to do whatever else is necessary, viz.: to affix the seal to the commission; to record it; and to cause it to be delivered or transmitted to the appointee. The President is apprised of the impropriety of the appointment,--an act which the Constitution had devolved on him alone,--the commission is yet in his possession, for the office of Secretary of State is, for all such purposes, his office, and the question would not have been changed if the seal had been affixed at the President's House; can it be for a moment supposed that the Constitution intended that his power over the commission ceased the moment he attached his signature, or the Secretary the public seal, and that after that he had no right to arrest further proceedings, however strong his reasons for so doing? Can it be presumed that its framers intended to invest the President in the discharge of his responsible duty to "commission all the officers of the United States" with an authority so precise and technical? It is on all sides conceded that he is not bound to commission after the Senate has approved, but has still