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CABINET

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 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 crisis arising from the war between Britain and France caused the cabinet to take firmer shape as an institution. Washington and his secretaries gathered in a series of meetings, including a notable one of April 19 at which the issuance of the PROCLAMATION OF NEUTRALITY was agreed upon. Jefferson recorded that the meetings occurred "almost every day." Because the crisis persisted throughout 1793, the collegial character of the cabinet became well established. Jefferson, Randolph, and Madison referred to the assembled secretaries as the "cabinet," but Washington did not employ the term. Although "cabinet" was long employed in congressional discussion, it did not appear in statutes until the General Appropriation Act of 1907.

The Constitution's meager provisions left Washington largely free to tailor the cabinet to his own preferences. He selected his secretaries on the basis of their individual talents, without regard to their political or policy predispositions. This procedure proved costly, leading to continuous dispute between Hamilton and Jefferson that required a remaking of the cabinet. Washington then resolved not to recruit appointees strongly opposed to his policies. Presidents have applied this principle in constituting their cabinets ever since.

Washington did not consider himself limited by the Constitution to seeking advice only from his department heads. Congressman JAMES MADISON was a frequent adviser on Anglo-American diplomatic issues, on executive appointments, and on the President's reply to the formal addresses of the two houses of Congress. Chief Justice JOHN JAY provided counsel on diplomatic questions, addresses to Congress, and on the political aspects of a presidential tour of the New England states.

Washington was less successful in seeking counsel from the Senate and the Supreme Court. He visited the Senate to discuss issues arising from an Indian treaty under negotiation, and was rebuffed when legislators made clear that his presence constrained their deliberations. The SUPREME COURT, equally self-protective, declined to render ADVISORY OPINIONS.

Washington set the pattern for future presidencies in reaffirming the constitutional arrangement of a strong, independent, single executive, and in rejecting any division of responsibility between the President and the cabinet. Ever since, the view has prevailed that the Constitution confers upon the President the ultimate executive authority and responsibility, which he does not share with the department heads individually or collectively.

Like the President, the cabinet is subject to such basic principles as SEPARATION OF POWERS and CHECKS AND BALANCES, on which the Constitution was constructed. Consequently, both the cabinet and the President are susceptible to the influence of the other two branches. The paucity of constitutional provision and the circumstances of the cabinet's beginning in Washington's administration, together with its continuous presence in all succeeding administrations, cause the cabinet's institutional status to rest upon custom. Since its founding in 1793, the cabinet, as Richard F. Fenno, Jr., has written, has continued to be "an extra-legal creation, functioning in the interstices of the law, surviving in accordance with tradition, and institutionalized by usage alone." Its influence and, to a large degree, its form rest on the will of the President of the moment.

Not surprisingly, given its acute dependence on the President, the cabinet has varied widely in its functions and its importance. Jefferson recruited a cabinet of supportive fellow partisans, but JOHN QUINCY ADAMS drew into his cabinet representatives of his party's great factions who had contested his rise to the Presidency. JAMES MONROE used his cabinet for the arduous crafting of the MONROE DOCTRINE, but ABRAHAM LINCOLN is one of many Presidents who used his cabinet sparingly. ANDREW JACKSON preferred the counsel of his "kitchen cabinet," an informal, unofficial body of friends who did not hold high position. JOHN TYLER rejected the request of his Whig cabinet that matters be decided by majority vote, with each secretary and the President having but one vote. ANDREW JOHNSON added fuel to the flames of his IMPEACHMENT when he removed Secretary of War EDWIN M. STANTON. Johnson's congressional foes contended that he violated the TENURE OF OFFICE ACT of 1867, which purported to deny the President the right to remove civil officials, including members of his cabinet, without senatorial consent.

The twentieth century, too, has seen wide variation in the demeanors of Presidents toward their cabinets, from WARREN G. HARDING, who considered it his duty to build a cabinet comprised of the "best minds" in the nation, to WOODROW WILSON and JOHN F. KENNEDY, who used their cabinets little and chafed under extended group discussion. DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER endeavored to make the cabinet a central force in his administration through innovations to enhance its operating effectiveness. He created the post of secretary of the cabinet, empowered to arrange an agenda for cabinet meetings and to oversee the preparation of "cabinet papers" by the departments and agencies presenting proposals for cabinet deliberation and presidential decision. The results of cabinet discussions were recorded, responsibilities for implementation were allotted among the departments and agencies, and a system of follow-up was installed to check on accomplishment.

RICHARD M. NIXON designated four members of his cabinet counselors to the President and empowered them to supervise clusters of activity in several or more departments and agencies. With his popularity dropping and an election looming, JIMMY CARTER reshuffled his administration on an unprecedented scale in 1979 by ejecting discordant cabinet secretaries and replacing them with more supportive appointees. RONALD REAGAN instituted a structure of cabinet councils for broad policy areas with memberships of department secretaries and White House staff, supported by subcabinet working groups.

The cabinet's lack of specific delineation in the Constitution contributes to its weakness in coordinating the farflung activities of the executive branch and in producing innovative policy on the scale and at the pace the President requires. These shortcomings have caused the cabinet to be overshadowed by more recent institutions of the modern presidency that assist in policy development and coordination. These are largely concentrated in the Executive Office of the President, which includes, among other units, the White House Office, the OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET, the National Security Council, and the Council of Economic Advisers.

The cabinet's frail constitutional base has made the development of the departments susceptible to forces inimical to the cohesiveness that the concept of a "cabinet" implies. Often departments, such as Labor, Agriculture, and Commerce, were brought into being more by the pressures of their client groups than by the President's preference, and without a clear concept of what a department should be. Frequently alliances are formed between the client groups, the department's bureaus, and congressional committees with jurisdiction over the department. These alliances' combined strength has often exceeded the President's and frustrated his will. Even department heads have sometimes proved more responsive to their alliances than to the President.

Because the doctrines of separation of powers and checks and balances bring the cabinet and its departments within reach of the courts and Congress, those branches too have shaped those executive institutions. The Supreme Court, for example, in Kendall v. United States (1838), circumscribed the President's discretionary power over the department head when it upheld a lower court decision ordering the postmaster general to pay a complainant money owed by the United States. The payment was a MINISTERIAL ACT which gave the President "no other control over the officer than to see that he acts honestly, with proper motives." Despite the silence of the Constitution concerning the power of removal, Presidents have long removed department heads for any cause they see fit, and in MYERS V. UNITED STATES (1926) the Court upheld an order of the postmaster general to remove a first-class postmaster despite a statute requiring that the removal be by the advice and consent of the Senate.

The cabinet departments depend on Congress for money, personnel, and other resources necessary to function. In effect, department secretaries look to Congress for the means of survival, sometimes straining their ties with the President. Much of the substance of cabinet rank is provided by Congress: salary, title, membership in bodies such as the National Security Council, place in the line of presidential succession. Members of Congress often assert that department heads, notwithstanding their relation with the President, have responsibilities to the legislators. The powers and functions of the department head are conferred by acts of Congress. Although Congress respects the cabinet secretary's advisory role to the President, he is not solely the President's aide in his extra-cabinet functions, but performs in a shadow area of joint executive-legislative responsibility, and struggles with the resulting dilemmas. It is virtually indispensable that a department secretary attract the confidence of Congress as well as that of the President.

The cabinet's few moorings in the Constitution make its relationships with the POLITICAL PARTIES uncertain and fluctuating. Wilson once conceived of the cabinet as a potential link between the President and his party in Congress. He subsequently abandoned this view and like many other Presidents emphasized loyalty and competence in cabinet selection. JOHN QUINCY ADAMS, Warren G. Harding, HARRY S. TRUMAN, and other Presidents used the cabinet to diminish intraparty factionalism, chiefly by appointing their rivals for the presidential nomination to cabinet posts. Eisenhower allotted several posts to persons with ties to his rival, ROBERT A. TAFT. Parties, however, have considerably less influence on the cabinet than the chief executive or Congress.