Cabinet

• Author: Louis W. Koenig
• Pages: 287-289

Page 287

Whether or not the President should have a cabinet or council was a leading issue at the CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION. Such bodies were prevalent in the colonial governments and in the states that succeeded them. Another key element of the cabinet that also crystallized in the preconstitutional period was the concept of the department. Under the ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION, Congress established four executive offices in 1781: a secretary of FOREIGN AFFAIRS, a secretary of war, a superintendent of finance, and a secretary of marine.

At the Philadelphia Convention, GOUVERNEUR MORRIS proposed that there be a Council of State, consisting of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and the heads of departments or secretaries, of which there should be five, appointed by the President and holding office at his pleasure. The President should be empowered to submit any matter to the council for discussion and to require the written opinion of any one or more of its members. The President would be free to exercise his own judgment, regardless of the counsel he received. Morris's proposal was rejected in the late-hour efforts of the Committee of Eleven to complete the draft of the Constitution. Instead, the Committee made two principal provisions for advice for the President. Its draft specified that "The President, by and with the ADVICE AND CONSENT of the Senate, shall appoint ambassadors, and other public ministers, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States, whose appointments are not herein provided for." This provision is attributed to the New York state constitution in which the governor shared the appointment power with the Senate. The draft by the Committee of Eleven also provided that the President "may require the opinion, in writing, of the principal officer of each of the Executive Departments upon any subject relating to the duties of their respective offices."

GEORGE MASON resisted this plan, declaring that omission of a council for the President was an experiment that even the most despotic government would not undertake. Mason proposed an executive council composed of six members, two from the eastern, two from the middle, and two from the southern states. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN seconded the proposal, observing that a council would check a bad President and be a relief to a good one. Gouverneur Morris objected that the President might induce such a council to acquiesce in his wrong measures and thereby provide protection for them. Morris's view prevailed and Mason's plan was defeated. Doubtless a potent factor in the outcome was the expectation that the venerated GEORGE WASHINGTON would become the first President and that a council of some power might impede his functioning. CHARLES PINCKNEY, who once had advocated a council, now argued that it might "thwart" the President.

With the Constitution's prescriptions so sparse, it remained for Washington's presidency to amplify the concept of the cabinet. Congress in 1789 created three departments (State, War, and Treasury) and an attorney general who was not endowed with a department. Washington's appointees?THOMAS JEFFERSON as secretary of state, ALEXANDER HAMILTON as secretary of treasury, Major

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General Henry Knox as secretary of war, and EDMUND RANDOLPH as attorney general?reflected Mason's emphasis on geographic representation, for they were drawn from the three principal sections of the country. Washington frequently requested the written opinions of his secretaries on important issues and asked them for suggestions for the annual address to Congress.

In 1793, the diplomatic...