Cotemporaneous interpretations of organic law are not always, it is true, to be regarded as conclusive, but they are entitled to the most careful and respectful consideration, and cannot be reversed with safety unless the argument therefor is unanswerable and the motive which suggests the argument altogether patriotic and unselfish.

The familiar rule laid down by Lord Coke is as pertinent to-day as when first announced: "Great regard ought, in construing a law, to be paid to the construction which the sages, who lived about the time soon after it was made, put upon it, because they were best able to judge of the intention of the makers at the time when the law was made.

_Contemporania exposito est fortissima in legem_." Against the early decision of the founders of the Government, against the ancient and safe rule of interpretation prescribed by Lord Coke, against the repeatedly expressed judgment of ex-President Madison, against the equally emphatic judgment of Chief Justice Marshall, and above all, against the unbroken practice of the Government for seventy-eight years, the Republican leaders now determined to deprive the President of the power of removing Federal officers.

Many were induced to join in the movement under the belief that it was important to test the true meaning of the Constitution in the premises, and that this could be most effectively done by directly restraining by law the power which had been so long conceded to the Executive Department.

To that end Mr.Williams of Oregon on the first Monday of December, 1866, introduced a bill "to regulate the tenure of civil offices." It was referred to the Committee on Retrenchment, and reported back with amendment by Mr.Edmunds of Vermont, who thenceforward assumed parliamentary control of the subject.
The bill came up for discussion on the 10th day of January.