If these appointees were "bad men," why, it was pertinently and forcibly asked by the aggrieved, did not Mr.Edmunds submit proof of that fact to his Republican associates and procure their rejection?
He knew, the accused men declared, as much about their character when their names were before the Senate, as he knew now when he sought, behind the protection of his privilege, to brand them with infamy.

To permit them to be confirmed in the silence and confidence of an executive session, and then in open Senate, when their places were wanted for others, to describe them as "bad men," seemed to them a procedure not to be explained on the broad principles of statesmanship, or even on the common law of fair dealing.
Mr.Schurz was as anxious as Mr.Edmunds to give the President full power to remove the office-holders.

He declared that he "would be the last man to hamper the President in the good work of cleaning out the Augean stable, which he is now about to undertake." He was sure that "the rings must be broken up," that "the thieves must be driven out of the public service." He eulogized President Grant as especially fit for the work.

"We have," said he, "a President who is willing to do what we and the country desire him to do." Mr.Schurz expressed at the same time his "heartfelt concern" regarding a rumor that the President was very sensitive touching the proposition reported by the Judiciary Committee, and that "he will make no removals unless the civil-tenure bill be repealed instead of being suspended." Mr.Schurz was sure that "on all the great questions of policy the President and Congress heartily agree," and he condemned "the attempts made to sow the seeds of distrust and discord." It is somewhat amusing as well as instructive to recall that in a little more than two years from that time, when nearly all the appointees of President Johnson had been turned out of office, Mr.Schurz began work again at "the Augean stable," now locating it in the Grant administration, and demanding that it should be cleansed, that "the rings" should be broken up, that "the thieves must be driven out of the public service." He imputed to President Grant's administration even greater corruption than he had charged upon the administration of his predecessor, and from his ever-teeming storehouse lavished abuse with even a more generous hand upon the one that he had upon the other.
The amendment of the Judiciary Committee providing for a suspension of the law until Congress should meet again--a period of about eight months--was so objectionable that it won no substantial support from senators.

There was something so baldly and shamelessly partisan in the proposition to suspend the Act just long enough to permit President Grant, without obstruction or encumbrance, to remove the Democrats whom President Johnson had appointed to office, that the common instinct of justice, and even of public decency, revolted.