Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-5wvtr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-18T18:26:42.419Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Cabinet and Congress: An Historical Inquiry

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 October 2013

Mary L. Hinsdale*
Affiliation:
Radcliffe College
Get access

Extract

A noted writer on political subjects, Woodrow Wilson, says in his Congressional Government: “Before the Republican reaction which followed the supremacy of the Federalists, the heads of the departments appeared in person before the Houses to impart desired information, and to make what suggestions they might have to venture, just as the President appeared in person to read his ‘address.’” This statement is one of a large number afloat, which assume that executive officers at one time enjoyed the privilege of speaking on the floors of Congress. Inasmuch as the basis of this impression is a few occurrences indistinctly recorded and still more vaguely cited, it may be worth while to discover from the sources whether they bear out any such view of the early practices of the government.

The occurrences which give color to such an impression may be divided into two groups. Into the first fall three transactions, in which there is no doubt that certain high Executive officers participated in person. The second includes a class of events, of which there are at least twenty, where the real significance of the thing that happened is not so clear on the surface.

Type
Papers and Discussions
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1906

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Page 257.

2 Executive Journal of the Senate, vol. 1, p. 6 Google Scholar. Journal of William Maclay, p. 78.

3 Executive Journal of the Senate, vol. 1, p. 7 Google Scholar.

4 Executive Journal of the Senate, vol. 1, pp. 20, 23 Google Scholar.

5 Journal of William Maclay, pp. 128-132.

6 Executive Journal of the Senate, vol. 1, p. 55 Google Scholar.

7 See list at close.

8 Journal of William Maclay, p. 21.

9 Journal of William Maclay, p. 127.

10 Annals of Congress, vol. 1, p. 684 Google Scholar.

11 Annals of Congress, vol. 1, p. 689 Google Scholar.

12 Journal of the House of Representatives, First Session, p. 92.

13 Journal of the House of Representatives, First Session, p. 96.

14 Journal of William Maclay, p. 272.

15 Works, vol. 1, p. 372 (ed. 1900)Google ScholarPubMed.

16 Works, vol. 1, p. 56 Google ScholarPubMed.

17 Annals, vol. 1, p. 904 Google Scholar.

18 Annals, vol. 1, pp. 10431045 Google Scholar.

19 Annals of Congress, vol. 3, pp. 673–694, 696–701, 703–708, 711712 Google Scholar.

20 Works, vol. 6, p. 143 (ed. 1892)Google ScholarPubMed.

21 Adams, , Life of Albert Gallatin, p. 157 Google Scholar.

22 Executive Journal of the Senate, vol. 1, pp. 384385 Google Scholar.

23 Annals of Congress, vol. 15, p. 984 Google Scholar.

24 Works, vol. 9, p. 272 Google ScholarPubMed.

25 Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, vol. 4, p. 457 Google Scholar.

26 Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, sec. 869.

27 Journal of the Congress of the Confederate States of America, vol. 1, p. 182 Google Scholar.

28 Constitution of the Confederate States of America, Art. I, section 6, clause 2.

29 Journal of the Congress of the Confederate States of America, vol. 1, p. 863 Google Scholar.

30 Stephens, , War between the States, vol. 2, p. 338 Google Scholar.

31 House Report 43, Thirty-eighth Congress, First Session.

32 Senate Report 837, Forty-sixth Congress, Third Session.

33 Hart, , Practical Essays on American Government, p. 5 Google Scholar.

34 Taylor, Hannis, North American Review, 1894, 08 Google Scholar.

35 Hoar, George F., North American Review, 1879, 02 Google Scholar; Reed, Thomas B., Illustrated American, 1897, 07 Google Scholar.

page 148 note * By the courtesy of the New England Genealogical Society.