The evidence in the case showed no conspiracy with Thomas to do anything, and no orders to him to use any force in what he was authorized to do, and no attempt to induce General Emory to violate any law or any orders received from or through the General of the Army or any other legal authority. The case, thus, rested chiefly upon the question as to whether the President had violated the Tenure-of-Office Act; and the transactions of the President in regard to this subject were matters of record. [Sidenote: The argument.] When one, at this lapse of time from the events, peruses the calm, dignified, convincing and masterful arguments of the President's counsel, and compares {182} them with the passionate, partisan harangues of the managers, it is very difficult to understand how the latter could have made any serious impression at all. There was only a single point upon the law seemingly involved in the case in regard to which they held the better reason. That was the claim on their part that the President had no right to violate an act of Congress for the purpose of testing its validity before the United States courts, or for any other purpose. They argued with much force that to allow the President the power to violate an act of Congress, or to omit to execute an act of Congress, in order to make up an issue before the courts upon the question of its constitutionality, would be virtually to attribute to the President the once hated royal power of suspending the law at the pleasure of the Executive. They contended that the veto power was placed in the hands of the President for the purpose of allowing him to be heard at the proper time, and to act at the proper time, in regard to the passage of any law, and that no other power was given him in relation to the subject; that after he had exhausted this power, he was bound to execute the legislation of Congress, and could not suspend it or violate it for any purpose whatsoever; and that the constitutionality of any of the acts of Congress could be raised before the courts only by persons not charged with the execution of the law and having such interests affected by the act in question as would warrant a judicial procedure.