Executive branch

“ It is good to be back in the People's House. But this cannot be a real homecoming. Under the Constitution, I now belong to the executive branch. The Supreme Court has even ruled that I am the executive branch—head, heart, and hand. ”

“ It is the policy of the Federal Government to ensure that each executive branch agency can perform its essential functions and remain an effectively functioning part of the Federal Government under all conditions. Accordingly, each agency shall take all appropriate actions to establish, maintain, and, as necessary, revise an order of succession, or to propose presidential action to establish or revise an order of succession. ”

“ Based on a long and intensive study with the aid of the best advice obtainable, I have concluded that a sweeping reorganization of the executive branch is needed if the Government is to keep up with the times and with the needs of the people. ”

“ The Executive Branch is traditionally free to handle its internal problems of administration in its own way. The legality of judicial review of such intra-executive operations as this is, for me, not completely free from doubt. ”

“ The Constitution has not only made a general delegation of the legislative power to one branch of the Government, of the executive to another, and of the judicial to the third, but it has specifically defined the general powers and duties of each of those departments. ”

“ Is there no danger that an officer, when he is appointed by the concurrence of the Senate and has friends in that body, may choose rather to risk his establishment on the favor of that branch than rest it upon the discharge of his duties to the satisfaction of the executive branch, which is constitutionally authorized to inspect and control his conduct? ”

“ The executive is a coordinate and independent branch of the Government equally with the Senate, and I have yet to learn under what constitutional authority that branch of the Legislature has a right to require of me an account of any communication, either verbally or in writing, made to the heads of Departments acting as a Cabinet council. ”

“ Nor must the President have unfettered authority to remove all Executive Branch officials involved in the execution of the laws. The Constitution establishes that Congress has legislative authority to structure the Executive Branch by authorizing Congress to create executive departments and officer positions and to specify how inferior officers are appointed. ”

“ The Chair shall oversee the activities of agencies to assure that their systems operate smoothly through the year 2000, act as chief spokesperson on this issue for the executive branch in national and international fora, provide policy coordination of executive branch activities with State, local, and tribal governments on the Y2K problem, and promote appropriate Federal roles with respect to private sector activities in this area. ”

“ It is equally important that the constitutional checks of the Executive upon the legislative branch should be preserved.
If it be said that the Representatives in the popular branch of Congress are chosen directly by the people, it is answered, the people elect the President. If both Houses represent the States and the people, so does the President. The President represents in the executive department the whole people of the United States, as each member of the legislative department represents portions of them. ”

“ But the power of appointment to other offices and the revisionary check on legislation were no sooner annexed to the executive office, than it was perceived that some provision must be made for obviating the effects of its dependence on the legislative branch. An executive chosen by the legislature must be to a great extent the creature of those from whom his appointment was derived. ”

“ He observed, that, in some of the states, one branch of the legislature was composed of men already removed from the people by an intervening body of electors; that, if the first branch of the general legislature should be elected by the state legislatures, the second branch elected by the first, the executive by the second together with the first, and other appointments again made for subordinate purposes by the executive, the people would be lost sight of altogether, and the necessary sympathy between them and their rulers and officers too little felt. ”

“ ELLSWORTH would prefer a negative in the executive on a nomination by the second branch, the negative to be overruled by a concurrence of two thirds of the second branch, to the mode proposed by the motion, but preferred an absolute appointment by the second branch to either. The executive will be regarded by the people with a jealous eye. Every power for augmenting unnecessarily his influence will be disliked. ”

“ Assuring that each Agency of the Executive Branch designates its respective positions for which non-public reports will be required from employees holding such positions; and (c) Assuring that implementing regulations issued by the agencies of the Executive Branch are properly administered. ́ ́
Sec. ”

“ All America have at length concurred in the propriety of establishing a distinct executive department. The principle is embraced in every state constitution; and it seems now to be assumed among us, as a fundamental maxim of government, that the legislative, executive, and judicial departments ought to be separate, and the powers of one ought not to be exercised by either of the others. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Economy and sound business policy require that all existing independent bureaus and commissions should be placed under the jurisdiction of appropriate executive departments. It is unwise from every standpoint, and results only in mischief, to have any executive work done save by the purely executive bodies, under the control of the President; and each such executive body should be under the immediate supervision of a Cabinet Minister. ”

“ Coming as you do, for the most part, immediately from the people and the States by election, and possessing the fullest opportunity to know their sentiments, the present Congress will be sincerely solicitous to carry into full and fair effect the will of their constituents in regard to this institution. It will be for those in whose behalf we all act to decide whether the executive department of the Government, in the steps which it has taken on this subject, has been found in the line of its duty. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But with us there is no such intimate relationship between legislative and executive service. From experience in state administration to trial in the larger sphere of federal administration is the only natural order of promotion. We ought, therefore, to hail the recognition of this fact as in keeping with the general plan of the federal Constitution. The business of the President, occasionally great, is usually not much above routine. Most of the time it is mere administration, mere obedience of directions from the masters of policy, the Standing Committees. ”

“ If we consider the matter under the act of Congress only, the President has authority only to name the commissioners, and to approve or disapprove certain proceedings of theirs. They have the whole executive power, and stand between the President and the subordinate agents. ”

“ In order to form some balance, the departments of government were separated, and as a necessary check, the legislative body was composed of two branches. Steadiness and wisdom are better insured when there is a second branch, to balance and check the first The stability of the laws will be greater when the popular branch, which might be influenced by local views, or the violence of party, is checked by another, whose longer continuance in office will render them more experienced, more temperate, and more competent to decide rightly. ”

“ Subordinate departments have distributed the executive functions in their various relations to foreign affairs, to the revenue and expenditures, and to the military force of the Union by land and sea. A coordinate department of the judiciary has expounded the Constitution and the laws, settling in harmonious coincidence with the legislative will numerous weighty questions of construction which the imperfection of human language had rendered unavoidable. ”

“ Nine years have elapsed since a predecessor in this office, now not the last, the citizen who, perhaps, of all others throughout the Union contributed most to the formation and establishment of our Constitution, in his valedictory address to Congress, immediately preceding his retirement from public life, urgently recommended the revision of the judiciary and the establishment of an additional executive department. ”

“ The letter to congress having come from the committee of safety, which, under the revolutionary system, was the department that was charged with foreign intercourse; and a constitution having been afterwards adopted in France, by which an executive directory was established, to which all the foreign relations of the government were confided, an attempt was made to amend this resolution, by substituting the directory for the representatives of the people. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He could not see why the great requisites for the executive department,—vigor, despatch, and responsibility,—could not be found in three men, as well as in one man. The executive ought to be independent. ”

“ In the federal constitution, the judiciary powers are separated from the others; but the legislative and executive are both exercised by Congress. A means of amending this defect has been thought of. Congress having a power to establish what committees of their own body they please, and to arrange among them the distribution of their business, they might, on the first day of their annual meeting, appoint an executive committee, consisting of a member from each State, and refer to them all executive business which should occur during their session ”