Cabinet

Under the U.S.. Constitution, the cabinet consists chiefly of the heads of departments in the executive branch, who are appointed by the president with the advice and consent of the Senate (see Appointment and Removal Power). They serve as both presidential advisers and subordinates who carry out the president's policies. In contrast to a parliamentary system, the American president does not have to consult the cabinet or obtain its approval for important policy decisions or actions.

The first cabinet—George Washington's—consisted of the secretary of state, Thomas Jefferson; secretary of the treasury, Alexander Hamilton; secretary of war (renamed secretary of defense in 1947), Major General Henry Knox; and attorney general, Edmund Randolph (the Department of Justice was established in 1870). The cabinet has since added the secretaries of the interior (1849), agriculture (1889), commerce (1913), labor (1913), housing and urban development (1965), transportation (1966), energy (1977), health and human services (1980), education (1980), and veterans' affairs (1989). Cabinets since Washington's administration have tended to reflect the president's management style. Harry S. Truman (1884–1972), for instance, tried to use his cabinet like a board of directors, asking for a vote on some policy issues.

The Constitution does not use the term cabinet, but it refers to the appointment of such officers and the requirement that they report to the president when requested. Article II, section 2, indicates that the president “shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint … all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law. …” Article II, section 1, notes that the president “may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices. … .”

Although the cabinet is not explicitly a constitutional body, presidents since Washington have to a greater or lesser degree met formally with their cabinet officers. The Constitution's lack of specificity about the cabinet's role may be the result of a last-minute effort at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 to reject the concept of a council of state. Proposed by Gouverneur Morris, a delegate from Pennsylvania (see Framers of the Constitution), this advisory body [Page p63]to the president would have included the chief justice and the heads of departments appointed by the president. In essay 70 of The Federalist (1787–88) (see Federalist Papers), Hamilton criticized the idea of an advisory council: “A council to a magistrate, who is himself responsible for what he does, are generally nothing better than a clog upon his good intentions; are often the instruments and accomplices of his bad [intentions], and are almost always a cloak to his faults.”

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