r

but the House of Representatives has never been called alone. It is now the custom for a President, a few days before he retires from office, to issue a proclamation calling the Senate together immediately following the inauguration of his successor. This gives the Senate an opportunity to elect a President pro tempore, and the President an opportunity to nominate his Cabinet and other officers. No President has ever had occasion to adjourn Congress.1

509. Reception of Ministers.-The reception of a minister is a formal acknowledgment of the country that he comes from as belonging to the family of nations. This is the practical effect of the President's reception, but Congress can no doubt reverse such recognition. No nation is obliged to receive as a minister any man whom another nation may choose to send to it; the man himself must be an acceptable person (persona grata.) A minister, on arriving in Washington, sends his papers to the State Department, and in due time it is signified to him that he will or will not be received. In the former case, he visits the White House, accompanied by the Secretary of State, who introduces him to the President. He delivers an address to the President, and receives from him a reply. He thus becomes the accredited representative of his country to the United States.

510. The Right of Dismissal.-A minister may be dismissed for various reasons. The two governments may no longer have a good understanding, the government to which the minister has been sent may no longer consider the country from which the minister comes, a nation, or the minister may become an unacceptable person (persona non grata). For a government to send a minister his papers, is considered equivalent to a declaration of war.

1 Parliament does not convene at a time fixed by law, or adjourn of its own motion. It is convened and prorogued by the Crown. However, the law requires that there shall be at least one session every year, and this commonly begins in February. The legal limit of a parliament is seven years, but this is rarely reached. The Crown has power to dissolve, as well as to convoke and prorogue Parliament, and this it does almost invariably before the legal limit has expired. In such cases, writs of elections for a new House of Commons must issue within forty days of the dissolution. The average life of a parliament in this century has been less than four years.

President Washington dismissed M. Genet, the French minister, in 1793, for meddling in political matters, and President Cleveland dismissed Lord Sackville, in 1888, for a similar offense. Several nations have recalled ministers on the request of our Government. France recalled M. Poussin, in 1849; England, Mr. Jackson, in 1809, and Sir John Crampton, in 1856; Russia, M. Catacazy, in 1872.

511. To Execute the Laws and Commission Officers.—The President must see that the laws are faithfully executed. For this purpose he is clothed with ample power. He is the head of the Executive Department of the Government; he appoints officers; he is in close relations with Congress; he is commander-in-chief of the army and navy, and on emergencies can call out the militia of the States. Moreover, there is an obvious propriety in his commissioning all officers, civil, military, and naval.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

THE EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS.

ARTICLE II.

512. Creation of Such Departments Assumed.-The first and second clauses of section 2, Article II., quoted above, are the only clauses of the Constitution that mention executive departments. The clauses assume that they will be created, and by implication confer power to create them. In fact, several such departments existed under the Confederation. The number, the names, and the functions of these departments were wisely left to the discretion of Congress. Eight have been created, and their history and organization throw much light on the growth of the Government and on the distribution of executive business. The heads of the Executive Departments receive the same salary, $8,000.

513. Department of State.-The Continental Congress took the first steps toward the creation of such a department. In 1775 it created the Committee of Foreign Correspondence, afterwards called the Committee of Foreign Affairs; in 1781 it established the Department of Foreign Affairs, which, presided over first by R. R. Livingston and then by John Jay, transacted its foreign business down to 1789. In July of that year the new Congress established a new department of the same name, but soon changed the name to Department of State, which it has since borne.

The Secretary of State's duties are not very strictly defined by law, and cannot be. Under the direction of the President, he executes duties relative to correspondence,

commissions, or instructions to or with public ministers or consuls to or from the United States. The originals of treaties, laws, and foreign correspondence, together with the seal of the United States, which he affixes to documents that require it, are in his custody. He also authenticates the President's proclamations with his signature. But his principal business is to conduct the foreign affairs of the country, under the President's direction. The Department of State is the first of the Departments in dignity, and the Secretary of State, sometimes called the Premier in imitation of the English Premier, is the head of the Cabinet.

514. Department of the Treasury. The first steps leading to this department were also taken in 1775. In 1781 a Finance Department took the place of the Board of Treasury, which in 1778 had taken the place of the Treasury Office of Accounts. Robert Morris, to whose financiering the country owed so much, was the first Superintendent of this Department. The present Department was established by Congress in September, 1789. It is the most complex and extensive of all the Executive Depart

ments.

The Secretary of the Treasury cannot be a person engaged in trade or commerce. He proposes plans for the public revenues and credit; prescribes the form of keeping the public accounts; makes reports annually of the state of the finances, and special reports from time to time as called upon, or as the exigencies of affairs require; superintends the collection of the revenue; issues warrants upon the Treasury for money appropriated by Congress for various purposes, and performs all such duties connected with the fiscal business of the Government as the law requires.

515. Bureaus in the Treasury Department.-There are in the Department the offices of the First and Second Comptrollers; of First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Auditors; of the Treasurer, Register, Commissioner of Customs, Comptroller of the Currency, Commissioner of Internal Revenue, and Directors of Statistics, of the Mint, and Bureau of Engraving and Printing. In the offices of the Auditors the accounts of the different branches of the

public service are audited, as the accounts of the Navy Department in that of the Fourth Auditor, and the accounts of the War Department in that of the Third Auditor; the two Comptrollers examine the accounts that the Auditors have passed upon, and certify them to the Register. The Register keeps all accounts of receipts and expenditures, and is the book-keeper of the Government. The Treasurer receives and keeps the moneys of the United States, and pays them out on warrants drawn by the proper officers. The Commissioner of Customs looks after the customs, the Comptroller of the Currency after the circulation of the National Banks, the Commissioner of the Internal Revenue supervises that branch of the service, while the duties of the Directors of the Bureaus of Statistics, of Engraving and Printing, and of the Mint are sufficiently indicated by their titles.

516. Department of War. This Department also antedates the Constitution. As now organized, it dates from August 7, 1789. The Secretary of War has charge of military affairs, under the President; he has the custody of all army records, the superintendence of purchases of military supplies, the direction of army transportation, the distribution of stores, the oversight of the signal service, the improvement of rivers and harbors, and the supply of arms and munitions of war.

The Department contains ten bureaus, the names of which indicate the duties of their heads, viz.: The offices of the Adjutant. Quartermaster, Commissary, Paymaster, and Surgeon-Generals; the offices of the Chief of-Engineers, the Ordnance Office, the Signal Office, and the Bureau of Military Justice. The Military Academy at West Point, established in 1802, is also under the control of the War Department.

517. The Department of Justice.-The Office of the Attorney-General was established in 1789, and was reorganized as the Department of Justice in 1870. The AttorneyGeneral is the responsible law-adviser of the President and the heads of the Executive Departments.

The law provides that no head of a Department shall employ attorneys or counsel at the expense of the United States, but that when in need of counsel or advice he shall call upon the Department of Justice to attend to the same. The officers of the Department must pass upon all titles to land purchased by the Government for forts or public buildings. They must also prosecute or defend all suits in the Supreme Court, or Court of Claims, to which the United