Editor's Note: Between various presidential nominations now bottled up in the U.S. Senate, and now the intense focus on a nomination to the United States Supreme Court, there have been numerous musings about presidential nominations, the advice and consent of the Senate, and the appointment of judges of the Supreme Court and other officers of the United States. This essay by constitutional scholar John McGinnis of Northwestern University School of Law considers in close detail what the Constitution actually says and means on this matter.