Executive department

“ The Executive Department shall consist of a Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of State, Auditor, Treasurer, Attorney General and Superintendent of Public Instruction, who shall be chosen by the electors of the State at the time and place of voting for members of the Legislature, and shall hold their offices for the term of two years from the second Monday in January, next after the election, and until their successors are elected and qualified. ”

“ The District Courts are held in judicial districts, and the Court of Claims, at Washington.
The Executive Department executes the laws, and consists of the President, aided by the heads of departments with their under-officials. Attached to this branch of the government are the Departments of State, Treasury, War, Navy, Post-Office, Justice, and Interior. The seven officials who head these departments constitute the cabinet, a name given to the body of men whom the President appoints as his executive officers and advisers. ”

“ Secondly, the Executive Department, which is responsible for the administration of public business, must, in making appointments or nominations to the Senate, remain independent of the dictation of Congressmen, many if not most of whom want to use the offices for the promotion of their own political ends. Thirdly, the qualifications of candidates for office must, whenever possible, be ascertained according to well regulated public methods, either by officers of the Departments themselves, or through competent men appointed for that purpose. ”

“ The Executive Director may also, with the consent of any board, commission, independent establishment, or executive department of the Government, including any field service thereof, avail himself of the services of the officials, employees, and the facilities thereof and, with the consent of the State or municipality concerned, may utilize such State and local officials and employees as he may deem necessary. ”

“ The heads of executive departments and agencies shall assist and provide information to the Task Force, consistent with applicable law, as may be necessary to carry out the functions of the Task Force. Each executive department and agency shall bear its own expense for participating in the Task Force. ”

“ A reorganization plan may not provide for, and a reorganization under this chapter may not have the effect of—
(1) creating a new executive department or renaming an existing executive department, abolishing or transferring an executive department or independent regulatory agency, or all the functions thereof, or consolidating two or more executive departments or two or more independent regulatory agencies, or all the functions thereof ”

“ The purpose of the executive department Centers will be to coordinate department efforts to eliminate regulatory, contracting, and other programmatic obstacles to the participation of faithbased and other community organizations in the provision of social services. ”

“ Each executive department has certain public functions and duties, the performance of which is absolutely necessary to the existence of the government, but it may temporarily, at least, operate with seeming harshness upon individuals. ”

“ The Government officials that there are at the present moment, will be under the control of that Executive Department or in other words, every office and the government itself will be responsible to the people of this country. ”

“ Each head of the nine executive departments in Washington is a line officer running his own department. At the President’s cabinet table he becomes a staff officer deliberating upon the problems of all. ”

“ They are mere employés, without any authority at all, except of superintendence. "The executive department is official, and is subordinate to the legislative as the body is to the mind." The chief of these official departments is the judicial. In appointing officials the most important rule is, "never to invest any individual with extraordinary power ”

“ The head of each Federal department or agency shall, when so requested by the Director, designate a senior official to have primary and continuing responsibility for the participation and cooperation of that department or agency in matters concerning voluntary action. (c) The head of each Federal department or agency, or his designated representative, shall keep the Director informed of all proposed budgets, plans, and programs of his department or agency affecting the voluntary action program. ”

“ 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 President and heads of departments appoint all officers in the executive departments. It is manifestly impossible for them to base their appointments upon personal knowledge. Hence has arisen the custom of filling almost all offices not controlled by the Civil Service Commission upon the recommendation of congressmen, each of whom controls for the most part the patronage of his own district. Only the Secretaries, Assistant Secretaries, Commissioners, and other chief officials are really appointees of the President on his own responsibility. ”

“ The clause we have cited is to be found in the article relating to the Executive, and the word as there used has reference to the subdivision of the power of the Executive into departments, for the more convenient exercise of that power. One of the definitions of the word given by Worcester is, 'a part or division of the executive government, as the Department of State, or of the Treasury.' Congress recognized this in the act creating these subdivisions of the executive branch by giving to each of them the name of a department. ”

“ The military establishment of this country is divided by the general laws of the United States into the army and the navy, and over each of these one of the great heads of departments, called 'secretaries,' is appointed to preside, to manage and to administer its affairs. The administrative functions of the executive are mostly under the president, distributed and allotted among the seven great departments, at the head of each of which is a minister for that department. Such is the theory of the distribution of executive administration established by the statutes of the United States. ”

“ The executive power cannot make any law, even provisionally, but only proclamations in conformity with the laws to order or call to mind the execution of them.
Section II. Of the internal administration.
1. In each department there is a superior administration, and in each district a subordinate administration.
2. The administrators do not have any representative character.
They are agents elected at stated times by the people to exercise, under the surveillance and authority of the king, the administrative functions. ”

“ The extent and variety of executive business also accumulating with the progress of our country and its growing population call for an additional department, to be charged with duties now overburdening other departments and with such as have not been annexed to any department. ”

“ The members of the executive and judiciary departments are few in number, and can be personally known to a small part only of the people. The latter, by the mode of their appointment, as well as by the nature and permanency of it, are too far removed from the people to share much in their prepossessions. The former are generally the objects of jealousy, and their administration is always liable to be discolored and rendered unpopular. The members of the legislative department, on the other hand, are numerous. They are distributed and dwell among the people at large. ”

“ And, Honorable Judges, the whole experience of government proves the absolute necessity for a separate legislative department. Look where you will, and in each case there is an executive cabinet, based upon appointment, untrammelled by the burdens of legislation, and subjected to the criticism and control of a reviewing body. In Europe, the city councils are elected by the people, and the administrative departments are made up through a process of selection and appointment, together with the assurance of reasonable permanence of tenure, responsibility, and adequate support. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It will be time enough to determine the question when the President shall remove an officer in this way, I conceive it can properly be brought before that tribunal; the officer will have a right to a mandamus to be restored to his office; and the judges would determine whether the President exercised a constitutional authority or not.
Some gentlemen think the Constitution takes no notice of this officer, as the head of a department. They suppose him an inferior officer in aid of the executive. ”

“ Government departments and officials would be multiplied in order to cope with the necessary increase of routine work, the executive and judicial functions would be carefully separated, and the individual civil servant would become a mere member or mouthpiece of a single department, instead of uniting in his own person—as he does at present—half a dozen different executive functions and wide discretionary powers with regard to general administration. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It shall be the duty of each director of personnel to act as liaison officer in personnel matters between his department or establishment and the Civil Service Commission, and to make recommendations to the departmental budget officer with respect to estimates and expenditures for personnel. ”

“ The head of each department in the executive branch of the Government shall be personally responsible for an effective program to insure that fair employment policies are fully observed in all personnel actions within his department. ”