Recess Appointments

[William Mayton]

  As regards whether G. Washington was looking to a long recess when he appointed Rutledge:  For the first ten sessions of Congress inter-session recesses averaged seven months in length.  The anticipation of those long recesses seems to have been the motivation for the recess appointments clause.  At the constutional convention and immediately after agreement respecting the appointments clause and its advice and consent proviso was reached, Richard Dobbs Spaight moved that the recess appts clause be added.  That motion was agreed to without recorded debate.    
  After the convention, in Fed. 67 and in what seems the only significant public comment on the recess apts clause, A. Hamilton noted that it "as vacancies might happen during their recess, which it might be necessary for the public service to fill up without delay, the succeeding clause is evidently intended to authorize the President, singly, to make temporary appointments."  

Bill Mayton