Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-2026
Abstract
During oral argument in Slaughter last month, Solicitor General John Sauer argued that there were three textual sources for an illimitable presidential removal power: the Vesting Clause, the Take Care Clause, and the Appointments Clause. Why the Appointments Clause? Because, he explained, “the power to remove flows to the power to appoint.” According to Sauer, a run of nineteenth century cases, including Ex Parte Hennen, supports this proposition.
Sauer’s contention is not new: Chief Justice Taft in Myers v. U.S. also claimed that in the First Congress, “the express recognition of the power of appointment in [Article II] enforced this view [of exclusive presidential removal power] on the well approved principle of constitutional and statutory construction that the power of removal of executive officers was incident to the power of appointment.”
Disciplines
Administrative Law | Law
Recommended Citation
Jane Manners & Lev Menand,
Slaughter, the Symmetry Rule, and What The Decision of 1789 Actually Decided,
Yale J. on Reg. Notice & Comment, January 15, 2026
(2026).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/faculty_scholarship/4793