At the same time occurred the effort to absorb the Indian Bureau
into the War Department, changing its character as part of the civil
service. Congress had already repudiated such an attempt;[138] but
the President, not disheartened by legislative failure, sought to
accomplish it by manipulation and indirection. First elevating a
member of his late staff to the head of the Bureau, he then, by
a military order dated May 7, 1869,[139] proceeded to detail for
the Indian service a long list of “officers left out of their
regimental organizations by the consolidation of the infantry
regiments,”--assuming to do this by authority of the Act of Congress
of June 30, 1834, which, after declaring the number of Indian agents,
and how they shall be appointed, provides that “it shall be competent
for the President to require any military officer of the United States
to execute the duties of Indian agent.”[140] Obviously this provision
had reference to some exceptional exigency, and can be no authority for
the general substitution of military officers, instead of civilians
confirmed by the Senate and bound with sureties for the faithful
discharge of their duties. And yet upward of sixty Army officers were
in this way foisted into the Indian service. The Act of Congress of
July 15, 1870, already quoted,[141] creating an incompatibility between
military and civil service, was aimed partly at this abuse, and these
officers ceased to be Indian agents. But this attempt is another
illustration of Presidential pretension.