The President's Power of Appointment

Report Outline
Senate Rejections of Cabinet Appointments
Senate's Assertion of Power Over Removals
President's Power of Recess Appointment

Conflicts between the Executive and the Legislative branch in which rejections of Cabinet Appointments have been a factor.

In each of the five cases in which nominations by the President for places in the Cabinet have been rejected by the Senate in the past, the Senate's action is now seen to have been no more than an incident to a larger contest for domination between the Executive and the Legislative branch. It seems possible, therefore, that the rejection of the nomination of Charles Beecher Warren to be Attorney General, may in the future be regarded, not as a separate contest in itself, but as an incident to a renewal of this larger conflict, ever latent in the American system of government. The historian of the future may view the renewal of this conflict as dating from the opening of the Sixty Eighth Congress, instead of the rejection of the Warren nomination in the special session of the Senate of the Sixty Ninth Congress.

The Senate, in promptly confirming the nomination of John G. Sergent, followed the precedent set in each of the former cases in which a cabinet nomination has been rejected and a new nomination submitted by the President. The President's open renewal, however, of his offer of a recess appointment to Mr. Warren, after his nomination had been rejected a second time, tends in some measure to mitigate the victory signalized by the confirmation of the new nomination submitted by the President after his offer had been declined by Mr. Warren.