Another act of Congress of February 13th, 1795, empowered the President, in case of vacancy from any cause in the offices of Secretary of State, Secretary of the Treasury, or Secretary of War, happening either during a recess or a session of the Senate, "to authorize any person or persons, at his discretion, to perform the duties of the said respective offices until a successor be appointed or such vacancy be filled," provided, however, that no one vacancy should be supplied in that manner for a longer time than six months.
It will be seen that neither of these statutes provided for the temporary filling of vacancies in any of the Departments, except those of State, the Treasury, and War. In practice, however, the Presidents have followed the analogies of the law of 1795, when it became necessary, in their opinion, to make a temporary designation in the other Departments. On the 22d of September, 1862, President Lincoln appointed J. B. L. Skinner Postmaster-General _ad interim_. It was Mr. Lincoln himself { 187} who called the attention of Congress to the fact that he had no literal legal authority for this, and who on January 2d, 1863, asked Congress to extend the Act of May 8th, 1792, so as to cover the cases of the other Departments, and empower the President to make _ad interim_ appointments to fill vacancies in these Departments happening on account of death, sickness, or absence from the seat of government. Why the President did not ask for the extension of the Act of February 13th, 1795, which covered all vacancies happening from whatever cause, instead of the Act of 1792, which covered those only which might happen from death, sickness, or absence from the seat of government, we do not know. We only know that in January, 1863, both the President and Congress were greatly pressed by the exigencies of the war, and did things generally in haste and without much consideration. In answer to the President's suggestion, Congress passed the Act of February 20th, 1863, extending the Act of 1792 so as to cover all the executive Departments in the cases of vacancy provided for in that Act, viz., by cause of death, sickness, or absence from the seat of Government--adding resignation--and limiting the President, however, in these appointments to persons already officers in one or the other of the Departments, and providing that no one vacancy should be so supplied for a longer period than six months. The vacancies which might happen from expiration of term or by removal were not at all provided for by the Act of 1863; and as the Act of 1863 did not expressly repeal the Act of 1795, but only declared that "all acts and parts of acts inconsistent with this act are hereby repealed," the Act of 1795 remained in force as to all vacancies caused by expiration of term or by removal, whether happening during a recess or a session of the Senate.