nd through officers and
agents subordinate to them. Most important among the powers expressly
conferred upon the Emperor, and indirectly exercised by him, are: (1)
the appointment and dismissal of ministers; (2) the naming of all
public officials whose appointment is not otherwise by law provided
for; (3) supreme command of the armed forces, with the power of (p. 464)
declaring war and concluding peace; (4) the conferring of titles,
orders, and other public distinctions, including the appointment of
life peers; (5) the granting of pardons and of amnesty; (6) the
summoning, adjourning, and dissolving of the various legislative
bodies; (7) the issuing of ordinances with the provisional force of
law, and (8) the concluding of treaties, with the limitation that the
consent of the Reichsrath is essential to the validity of treaties of
commerce and political treaties which impose obligations upon the
Empire, upon any part thereof, or upon any of its citizens. Further
than this, the right to coin money is exercised under the authority of
the Emperor; and the laws are promulgated, and all judicial power is
exercised, in his name. Before assuming the throne, the Emperor is
required to take a solemn oath in the presence of the two houses of
the Reichsrath "to maintain inviolable the fundamental laws of the
kingdoms and countries represented in the Reichsrath, and to govern in
conformity with them, and in conformity with the laws in
general."[661] The present Emperor-King has a civil list of 22,600,000
crowns, half of which is derived from the revenues of Austria and half
from those of Hungary. The Imperial residence in Vienna, the Hofburg,
has been the seat of the princes of Austria since the thirteenth
century.

[Footnote 661: Law concerning the Exercise of
Administrative and Executive Power, December 21,
1867, Sec. 8. Dodd, Modern Constitutions, I., 88.]

*515. The Ministers: Responsibility.*--The Austrian ministry comprises
portfolios as follows: Finance, the Interior, Railways, National
Defense, Agriculture, Justice, Commerce, Labor, and Instruction and
Worship. Three important departments--those of War, Finance, and
Foreign Affairs and the Imperial and Royal House--are maintained by
the affiliated monarchies in common.[662] And there are usually from
one to four ministerial representatives of leading racial elements
without portfolio, there being in the present ca