Definition
To remove, in law, means to displace, transfer, or take away a person, thing, or proceeding from one position, place, or jurisdiction to another. The term carries distinct legal weight in at least three major contexts:
1. Removal of a person from office. To terminate or displace an officeholder from their position, either with or without cause. The scope of the removing authority's power — whether it may act "at pleasure" or only "for cause" — is frequently a constitutional or statutory question of first importance.
2. Removal of a civil action. To transfer a pending case from one court to another — most commonly from a state court to a federal court — pursuant to statutory authority. This procedural mechanism shifts jurisdiction over the case without requiring the parties to re-file.
3. Removal from the country (immigration). In immigration law, the formal process by which a non-citizen is ordered to leave the United States. This meaning has largely displaced the older term "deportation" in federal statutory usage.
A fourth, narrower usage appears in property law: removal of fixtures or improvements, meaning the physical detachment of an item from real property in a manner affecting ownership or liability.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): To move something from one place to another; to take away; to delete; to depart or change one's residence.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): To move away from the position occupied; to cause to change place; to displace; to cause to cease to be; to banish; to destroy; to put an end to.
The ordinary meaning tracks the legal meaning in physical displacement. The gap is significant in two respects. First, "removal" in the office-holding context is a legal act with procedural and constitutional constraints — it is not merely a physical or voluntary departure but a formal exercise of authority that courts scrutinize carefully. Second, "removal" in civil procedure is a term of art that has nothing to do with physical movement: it is a jurisdictional transfer achieved by filing a notice, not by moving anything.
Common Confusion
Three distinct legal uses of "remove" and "removal" are routinely conflated in historical sources and, sometimes, in modern practice:
— Removal from office vs. removal from the country. Both describe displacing a person, but the legal frameworks, constitutional sources, and procedural protections are entirely different. Immigration removal is governed by federal statute and administrative process; removal from office implicates appointment and removal doctrines under separation-of-powers principles.
— Removal (civil procedure) vs. transfer or change of venue. Both move a case between courts, but removal shifts the case from state to federal court (or, in rare instances, between federal courts), while transfer and change of venue operate within a single court system. Confusing these in historical research will send the reader to the wrong body of doctrine.
— "Remove at pleasure" vs. "remove for cause." Bouvier flags this distinction directly: the right to remove at pleasure is categorically different from removal for cause. The two carry different procedural requirements, different remedies for the affected party, and different constitutional implications. Older authorities sometimes blur this line.
Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES
Removal at pleasure: Removal of an officeholder without stated cause, at the discretion of the removing authority. The validity of such power depends on the nature of the office and the governing statute or constitutional provision.
Removal for cause: Removal that requires a stated reason meeting a defined standard — typically misconduct, neglect of duty, or incapacity. Procedural protections such as notice and hearing usually attach.
Removal of a case (civil procedure): Statutory transfer of a pending civil action from state court to federal court, governed primarily by 28 U.S.C. §§ 1441–1455.
Removal proceedings (immigration): The administrative and judicial process for determining whether a non-citizen must leave the United States, conducted before immigration courts within the Executive Office for Immigration Review.
Why It Matters in Research
The term "remove" is a research trap precisely because it looks like an ordinary word while functioning as a term of art in multiple unrelated doctrinal areas. A researcher following citations involving "removal" must establish the context immediately — failure to do so leads to conflated doctrine and misdirected source searches.
In historical sources, the civil procedure meaning of removal is largely absent before federal removal statutes developed in the mid-nineteenth century. Pre-Civil War authorities using "removal" almost always mean either displacement from office or a change of domicile. Burrill's entry leans heavily on the domicile sense: one "removes" when changing domicile, a usage that has largely fallen out of modern legal writing but persists in older property and conflict-of-laws materials.
The "remove at pleasure" doctrine is an area of continuing constitutional significance. Bouvier's entry correctly identifies that "remove at pleasure" and "remove for cause" are legally distinct, but historical sources are inconsistent about which standard applies to which offices. Researchers tracing the removal power doctrine — particularly in the context of independent agencies or inferior officers — will find that historical dictionary definitions are a starting point only; the case law and constitutional commentary must be tracked separately.
In immigration research, the shift from "deportation" to "removal" in federal statutes (reflecting the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996) means that pre-1996 sources will use "deportation" where modern sources use "removal." Treating the two as interchangeable for research purposes is generally acceptable, but researchers should verify whether the procedural rules in question predate or postdate the statutory terminology shift.
For premises liability researchers, the physical removal of snow and ice is governed by a distinct and jurisdiction-specific body of tort law that shares the word "removal" but has no meaningful connection to the other legal uses of the term.
Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier provides the most substantive entry, distinguishing two core physical senses — moving from a position occupied (citing Kentucky authority) and changing place in any manner (citing Connecticut authority) — before pivoting to the more legally significant "remove at pleasure" doctrine. Bouvier's signal that the phrase has a "well defined legal meaning" is accurate and useful; the underlying doctrine, however, requires consultation beyond the dictionary entry itself.
Burrill focuses almost entirely on the domicile sense, quoting a judicial statement that one "removes" when changing domicile and that the word does not mean merely leaving a country. This is the narrowest and most historically specific usage. Burrill's entry also gestures toward property law (defeasible estates), though the connection to "remove" in that passage is oblique and reflects the structural limitations of nineteenth-century dictionary organization.
Anderson's entry for "remove" as reproduced here is fragmentary — the surviving text concerns remedies rather than removal — and contributes little to the synthesis. Researchers should not rely on Anderson's for this term without accessing a complete edition.
None of the three historical dictionaries addresses removal in the civil procedure sense in any sustained way, and none addresses immigration removal at all. These silences are expected given the publication dates but must be noted: the historical entries are partial maps, useful for domicile, office-holding, and property senses, but not for the procedural and immigration uses that dominate modern legal research.
Jurisdictional Note
The civil procedure removal right is exclusively a creature of federal statute and applies uniformly in federal courts, though state courts have no equivalent mechanism for removing cases to federal court. Immigration removal is entirely federal. Removal from office, however, is heavily jurisdiction-dependent: state law governs removal of state and local officers, and the applicable standards, procedures, and remedies vary significantly by state constitution and statute.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Removal Proceedings — Procedure, Burden of Proof, and Relief from Removal (The Law Mind Administrative Law & Government Encyclopedia) [admin_123]
Removal — The One-Year Limit, Bad Faith Exception, and Snap Removal (The Law Mind Civil Procedure & Evidence Encyclopedia) [civpro_8]