Faithful execution had a distinctive meaning in Anglo-American law at the time of the founding: It limited executive officers to acting only in the public interest and never for their own personal interest; it required subordination to law (which was most often legislation); and it mandated honest and diligent performance. Together, this cluster of duties constrains the president with something similar to fiduciary duties.

The “faithful execution” clause thus indicates that the president is already bound to remove someone only for good-faith reasons, in the public interest. So it must be constitutional for Congress to say out loud in a statute what is already commanded by the Constitution: Removal authority must be constrained because a president is never allowed to fire officers in bad faith.

The argument for unconstrained removal authority also relies on a series of arguments James Madison made not in the Constitutional Convention or in the Federalist Papers but in 1789, after the adoption of the Constitution, in the House of Representatives. Madison was most focused on showing that removal had to inhere in the executive rather than being subject to Senate consent or the impeachment process. A modest constraint on removal that is already required by the faithful execution clauses still can vindicate Madison’s preference to give the president the right to be the one to fire agency heads.

One might argue that “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office” arguably goes beyond a constitutional good-faith requirement. A policy disagreement might be the basis of good-faith removal, but is it sufficient to meet the statutory terms of “inefficiency” or “neglect”?

Congress sometimes is permitted to draw the bounds of “faithfulness” more specifically. First, the history of “faithful execution” and other parts of Article II indicate general deference to Congress’s law-giving authority and judgment. Within reasonable limits, Congress can animate the concept of “faithful execution” as a limit on a president’s removal discretion. Second, everyone knows “good faith” is vague; allowing Congress room to be more specific or to tailor protections for particular offices is not a remarkable exception. Congress should have latitude to specify that “faithful execution” in some agencies dealing with especially sensitive matters or special expertise may require extra insulation, even from removal for policy disagreements, to guard against self-interested presidential pressure and manipulation. Third, the limits Congress creates for independent agencies still leave the president with broad discretion to remove officials, retaining the Constitution’s basic unitary structure.

Some self-professed textualists and originalists suggest that the Constitution requires a president to have unlimited discretion over removal. But the text on which they rely shows the opposite: The Constitution’s “faithful execution” clauses impose a duty of good faith. For generations, Congress has simply articulated a version of how that duty constrains the president’s power to fire a special set of agency heads.

The political and practical stakes are enormous not just for the Trump era, but for whether presidential power can be exercised only in good faith. That bedrock principle of good faith — which was true at the founding and binds the president in all of his actions — remains essential to good government and to an independent and professional administrative state.