United States Cabinet

“ The President of the United States has an even wider range of choice in the selection of his cabinet. He is not bound to choose a group of men who control a majority in either branch of Congress. His cabinet may be as large or as small as he chooses to make it. By usage, however, the American cabinet consists of the heads of the national administrative departments, these departments having been at various times established by law. ”

“ The existence of a cabinet, however, was always taken for granted in the discussion and formation of the constitution. It is a creation of custom and has no powers other than of advice and counsel to the President. The growth of executive and administrative business is not fully indicated by the increase in the number of departments. The growth within each department has been much greater. ”

“ The English cabinet is the executive committee of the House of Commons, and exercises a guiding and directing influence upon legislation. The position of the president is not at all like that of the prime minister; it is more like that of the English sovereign, though the latter has not nearly so much power as the president; and the American cabinet in some respects resembles the English privy council, though it cannot make ordinances. ”

“ Washington, January 11, 1861. My Dear Sir:—
Without referring to any recent political question, your favor of yesterday has afforded me the highest degree of satisfaction. You know that for many years I have entertained a warm regard for you, and this has been greatly increased by our official and personal intercourse since you became a member of my cabinet. No man could have more ably, honestly, and efficiently performed the various and complicated duties of the Interior Department than yourself, and it has always been my pride and pleasure to express this opinion on all suitable occasions. ”

“ In other countries, the prime minister or president is less involved with economic issues and the responsible cabinet member has a political standing and legitimacy in his own right. In the United States, the cabinet is in the last analysis an advisory and management body while all true decision-making authority of the executive branch is vested in the president. ”

“ It is true, he had strong predilections in favor of individuals before he left Tennessee, but I do not think I hazard much in saying, that had these been indulged, his administration would not have occupied so high a place as it is destined to do in the history of his country.
One opinion I must not fail to express; and this is that the cabinet ought to be a unit. I may say that this is not merely an opinion of mine, but a strong and deep conviction. It is as clear to my mind as any mathematical demonstration. Without unity no cabinet can be successful. ”

“ In 1801, and throughout Jefferson’s Administration, the Cabinet consisted of five heads of department,—the Secretaries of State, of the Treasury, of the Army, and of the Navy, with the Attorney-General. The law business of the government being light, the Attorney-General was frequently absent, and, indeed, was not required to reside permanently at Washington. Rather the official counsel of government than a head of department, he had no clerks or office-room, and his salary was lower than that of his colleagues. ”

“ There is the able Cabinet who surround him, with all the officers appointed under them: the post-masters under the Post-office Department, the treasury agents under the Treasury Department, and almost two hundred thousand men under the control of the War Department, in every part of this 'disaffected' region, who can bring to the President information from every quarter of all the transactions that exist there. That the President of the United States will be sustained, in the views which he takes in his message, by the people of this country, is as certain as the revolutions of the earth ”

“ For ten years it has been the doctrine of our courts, that the common law was in force, and yet can gentlemen say, that there has been a victim who has suffered under it? Many have experienced its protection, none can complain of its oppression.
In order to demonstrate the aspiring ambition of this body politic, the Judiciary, the honorable gentleman stated with much emphasis and feeling that the judges had been hardy enough to send their mandate into the Executive cabinet. Was the gentleman, sir, acquainted with the fact when he made this statement? ”

“ Should the revolution stated actually take place in the Cabinet, it will subject our affairs there to new calculations. On one hand the principles and dispositions of the new Ministry portend the most unfriendly course. On the other hand, their feeble and tottering situation and the force of their ousted rivals, who will probably be more explicit in maintaining the value of a good understanding with this country, cannot fail to inspire caution. ”

“ President, it was the custom in our cabinet meetings of President Harrison that he should preside over them. All measures relating to the administration were to be brought before the cabinet and their settlement was to be decided by the majority of votes, each member of the cabinet and the president having but one vote.’
“My father was always courteous, but he was also firm. He rose to his feet, and looking about the cabinet apartment he said: ‘Gentlemen, I am very proud to have in my cabinet such able statesmen as you have proved yourselves to be. ”

“ Hardly was the Navy Department thus bestowed, and the new Cabinet, toward the middle of July, completely organized for the work that was still to be defined, when another annoyance distracted the President’s attention from the main objects of his policy. The government had been, for eight years, in the hands of Federalist partisans. If, as Jefferson declared in his Inaugural Address, “we are all Republicans, [Pg 224] we are all Federalists;” ”

“ Cabinet has been imitated by all strong Presidents since. America does not take kindly to a President who shirks personal responsibility or hides behind his Ministers. Nothing helped Lincoln's popularity more than the story—apocryphal or no—of his taking the vote of his Cabinet on a proposition of his own and then remarking: "Ayes one; Noes six. The Ayes have it." Even the "Spoils System," whatever its evils, tended to strengthen the Elect of the People. It made the power of an American President more directly personal than that of the most despotic rulers of Continental Europe ”

“ The importance which the Cabinet soon acquired is evidence that, even under a written constitution, institutions owe more to circumstances than to intentions. The Constitution of the United States is no exception to the rule that the true constitution of a country is the actual distribution of power, written provisions being efficacious only in the way and to the extent that they affect such distribution in practice. ”

“ James Buchanan. In all that related to this cabinet crisis of December 29th, I can see nothing but the prompt action of a wise statesman and a patriotic President, in preventing a disruption of his cabinet upon a draft of a State paper, in which expressions had been used that might have given rise to inferences which the President never intended should be drawn. ”

“ His first cabinet meeting was held on the day succeeding the death of President Harrison and it was perhaps the most remarkable cabinet meeting in history. When all the members were present and the doors were closed Daniel Webster, the secretary of state, arose and addressed my father, saying: ‘Mr. President, I suppose you intend to carry out the ideas and customs of your predecessor, and that this administration, inaugurated by President Harrison, will continue in the same line of policy on which it has begun. ”

“ Secretary, whether it is not better, in your opinion, that the Congress of the United States should prescribe the duties of executive officers, so that they can act in pursuance of law, rather than the executive officer should be acting on his own notions of what is best? ”

“ The acting President must, on taking office, convene Congress, if not at the time in session, in extraordinary session, giving 20 days' notice. This act applies only to such Cabinet officers as shall have been appointed by the advice and consent of the Senate and are eligible under the Constitution to the presidency. Following is a list of the Presidents, Vice-Presidents, and Cabinet officers since the inauguration of the Government:
The Postmaster-General was not considered a Cabinet officer until 1829. ”

“ Briefly, it is quite clear that in the United States there can be no ministerial crises, since the President’s chief duty under the Constitution is to see that the laws are faithfully executed, and the members of his Cabinet do not introduce bills, even for finance or supplies, but act as his aids. ”

“ John H. Eaton, of Tennessee, secretary of war; John Branch, of North Carolina, secretary of the navy; John M. Berrien, of Georgia, attorney-general; William T. Barry, of Kentucky, postmaster-general. As compared with earlier cabinets—not merely with such men as Hamilton, Madison, or Gallatin, but with Pickering, Wolcott, Monroe, or even Crawford—these were obscure names. The innovation in the personal character of the cabinet was even more marked than the innovation in the presidency. The autocratic Jackson employed his secretaries as clerks. ”

“ In these meetings is frequently discussed whether or not the whole party shall vote for or against this or that important bill, and thus its fate is decided before it has even come up for debate in Congress.
CHAPTER X. The Cabinet and Executive Departments.
We have seen that the functions of government are divided into three distinct classes, the legislative, the judicial, and the executive. The Constitution provides as to the methods for the exercise of the first two, but none for the third. The only reference in the constitution to executive departments is in Art. ”

“ Senator Douglas is of world-wide renown. All the anxious politicians of his party, or who have been of his party for years past, have been looking upon him as certainly, at no distant day, to be the President of the United States. They have seen in his round, jolly, fruitful face post-offices, land-offices, marshalships, and cabinet appointments, charge-ships and foreign missions bursting and sprouting out in wonderful exuberance, ready to be laid hold of by their greedy hands. ”

“ Neither in the Constitution nor in the statutes of Congress is there provision for a Cabinet, but as the result of custom which has been formulating since Washington's second term the heads of the Federal executive departments have come to constitute, in their collective capacity, the President's Cabinet. ”

“ Committee Government in Congress owes its existence to no provision of the constitution. The only mention made in the constitution of the Speaker of the House, to-day the most powerful officer in the legislature, is where it is provided that "The House of Representatives shall choose their speaker and other officers." All executive departments—the State, War, Navy, Treasury, Post Office, Interior, Justice, Agriculture, and Labor—have been created from time to time by act of Congress. ”

“ He had lived a soldier's life until elected President, and had never heard the voice of detraction, or his name mentioned except for praise, until he was forced into the political arena.
A lady friend of mine told me that she had a room at the hotel adjoining the General's reception room, and thus involuntarily heard much wrangling about the formation of his cabinet. Delegations of politicians from different States would go so far as to demand that certain men should be members of his cabinet as the price of loyalty to the party and support of his administration. ”

“ It was not in the power of the Legislature to reverse the decision of the lowest court, and should it then be said that they could judge over the head of the Executive? This remark was applicable to all the departments. No one department was a favorite of the constitution. Every act of a department ought to be considered as well done. This being the case, whenever the President had appointed a Minister, and done it constitutionally, when he informed the Legislature thereof, they might do any thing and every thing but doubt the propriety of establishing the Minister. ”

“ If we consider the influence of the Government in its Executive Department, there is no less reason to conclude that it ought to be placed in the centre of the Union. It ought to be in a situation to command information relative to every part of the Union, to watch every conjuncture, to seize every circumstance that can be improved. The Executive eye ought to be placed where it can best see the dangers which may threaten, and the Executive arm, whence it may be extended most effectually to the protection of every part. ”

“ Well, again, thank you all for coming together to form this historic Cabinet. This is the first in American history that the Cabinet looks like America. That’s what we promised we were going to do, and we’ve done it.
I’m grateful that the Senate acted in a bipartisan way, at a modern record speed, to get the Cabinet confirmed. It’s hard to believe, but we are among the quickest formed of all the Cabinet members being — being put in place. ”