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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

States is a party. Besides the Attorney-General, the officers of the Department are the Solicitor-General, four Assistant Attorney-Generals, two Solicitors of the Treasury, a Solicitor of Internal Revenue, a Naval Solicitor, and an Examiner of Claims for the Department of State. The District Attorneys of the several judicial districts are also subject to the direction of the Attorney-General.

518. Post-Office Department.-The Post-Office Department is the oldest Executive Department of the Government. In July, 1775, nearly a year before independence was declared, the Continental Congress created a general post-office, and chose Dr. Franklin Postmaster-General. The Articles of Confederation intrusted the establishing and regulating of the post-office from one State to another throughout the United States to Congress. On the organization of the new Government in 1789, the post-office was continued, and it was not until 1794 that Congress created the present Department. Its head is the Postmaster-General, who controls a larger patronage than any other executive officer of the Government.

The operations of the Department are shown by their distribution among the four Assistant Postmasters-General.

The First Assistant has charge of the miscellaneous correspondence, the money order system, the postal-money order system, including the International money order correspondence, the deadletter office, and the divisions of free delivery and post-office supplies.

The Second Assistant has the arrangement of the mail service and placing the same under contract, embracing frequency of trips, mode of conveyance, times of arrivals and departures of mails, etc.

The Third Assistant is charged with the financial business of the department. He has oversight also of the division of postage stamps, etc., and the special delivery system.

The Fourth Assistant is charged with preparing cases for the establishment, discontinuance, and change of name of post-offices, the appointment of postmasters, the filing of bonds and oaths, the issuing of commissions, and oversight of post-office inspectors and mail depredations.1

519. Department of the Navy.-Under the Confederation, the management of the navy was given to the War Office, which also controlled it for some time under the Constitution. Congress created the present Department April 30, 1798. The Secretary of the Navy is required to 1 See U. S. Official Postal Guide for 1896, pp. 871-878.

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