APPOINTING POWER, Military. It has been contended by advocates of executive discretion that army appointments are embraced in the power granted to the President in the section of the Constitution, to nominate and, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, appoint °all other officers of the United States whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for and which may be es tablished by law. But the Congress may, by law, vest the appointment of such inferior offi cers as they think proper in the President alone, in the courts of law, or in the heads of de partments.° If due regard, however, be paid to the words, °whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for,'" the pretension set up in favor of executive power will receive no support from the terms of the Constitution. The powers granted to Congress to raise and support armies, and to make all rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces, are necessarily so comprehensive in character as to embrace all means which Congress according to circumstances may deem proper and necessary in order to raise armies, and to govern them when raised. Rules of appointment to office, rules of promotion another form of appointment — and all rules whatever in relation to the land and naval forces, save the appointment of the commander in-chief of those •united forces, who is desig nated by the Constitution, are hence within competency of Congress. It is true that this
great power vested in Congress has been exercised, in most cases, by giving to the President a large discretion in appointments and other matters connected with the army. But the principle itself — that supreme com mand is vested in Congress—has been often asserted in military legislation. Contempora neously with the foundation of the government, laws have been passed giving to general and other officers the right of appointment to cer tain offices; in other cases the President has been confined in his selection to classes desig nated by law; again, rules have been made by Congress for the promotion of officers, and in 1846, an army of volunteers was raised by Congress, the officers of which Congress di rected should be appointed according to the laws of the States in which the troops were raised, excepting the general officers, who were to be appointed by the President and the Senate —a clear recognition that the troops thus raised were United States troops and not militia.