University of Virginia Library

TO JAMES MONROE.

Dear Sir, The mail of saturday brought me
your favor of the 16th. The letters inclosed in it
are returned. Accept my thanks for the odd Vol:
of Congl. Journals.

As I understand the case presented in the other
paper inclosed, it turns on the simple question,
whether the Senate have a right in their advice &
consent to vary the date at which, according to the
nomination of the President, an appointment to
office is to take effect.

The subject continues to appear to me in the light
which I believe I formerly intimated. The power
of appointment, when not otherwise provided by
the Constitution is vested in the President & the
Senate. Both must concur in the act, but the act
must originate with the President. He is to nominate,
and their advice & consent are to make the
nomination an appointment. They cannot give
their advice & consent without his nomination, nor
of course, differently from it. In so doing they

would originate or nominate, so far as the difference
extended, and it would be his, not their advice &
consent which consummated the appointment. If
the President shd. nominate A, to be an officer from
the 1st day of May, and the Senate shd. advise that
he be an officer from the 1st day of Jany preceding,
it is evident that for the period not embraced by the
nomination of the P. the nomination wd. originate
with the Senate, and would require his subsequent
sanction to make it a joint act. During that period
therefore it would be an appt. made by the nomination
of the Senate with the advice & consent of the
President; not of the President with the advice &
consent of the Senate.

The case is not essentially changed by supposing
the Presidt. to nominate A to be an officer from the
1st day of Jany, and the Senate to confirm it from
the 1st day of May following. Here also the nomination
of the P. would not be pursued; and the Constitutional
order of appt. would be transposed. Its
intention would be violated, and he would not be
bound by his nomination to give effect to the advice
& consent of the Senate. The proceeding would
be a nullity. Nor wd. this result from pure informality.
The P. might have as just objections to a
postponement of the date of an appt. for three months
as good reasons for its immediate commencement.
The change in the date might have an essential
bearing on the public service; and a collateral or
consequential one on the rights or pretensions of
others in the public service. In fact, if the Senate

in disregard of the nomination of the P. would
postpone the commencement of an appt. for a single
day, it could do it for any period however remote,
& whatever might be the intermediate change of
things. The date may be as material a part of the
nomination, as the person named in it.

We are still suffering under the intense drought
of which you witnessed its increasing effects. Ten
weeks have now passed since we had any rain of
sensible value. On some of our farms it may be
sd. there has been none at all. Our crops of Corn,
notwithstanding, they were forward were so favored
by the early part of the season, as to promise support,
until the next summer harvest. The Tobo. crop
is in a sad plight, and no weather now can repair it.
Your neighborhood, in Albemarle, I understand,
has fared much better.