in dividing power we divide
and weaken responsibility. To this point I have already alluded as
illustrated in our state governments.[20]

[Footnote 20: The English method, however, would probably not work
well in this country, and might prove to be a source of great and
complicated dangers. See above, p. 169.]

[Sidenote: Executive departments]
[Sidenote: The cabinet]
The Constitution made no specific provisions for the creation of
executive departments, but left the matter to Congress. At the
beginning of Washington's administration three secretaryships were
created,--those of state, treasury, and war; and an attorney-general
was appointed. Afterward the department of the navy was separated
from that of war, the postmaster-general was made a member of the
administration, and as lately as 1849 the department of the interior
was organized. The heads of these departments are the president's
advisers, but they have as a body no recognized legal existence or
authority. They hold their meetings in a room at the president's
executive mansion, the White House, but no record is kept of their
proceedings and the president is not bound to heed their advice. This
body has always been called the "Cabinet," after the English usage. It
is like the English cabinet in being composed of heads of executive
departments and in being, as a body, unknown to the law; in other
respects the difference is very great. The English cabinet is the
executive committee of the House of Commons, and exercises a guiding
and directing influence upon legislation. The position of the president is
not at all like that of the prime minister; it is more like that of
the English sovereign, though the latter has not nearly so much power
as the president; and the American cabinet in some respects resembles
the English privy council, though it cannot make ordinances.

[Sidenote: The secretary of state.]
The secretary of state ranks first among our cabinet officers. He is
often called our prime minister or "premier," but there could not be
a more absurd use of language. In order to make an American personage
corresponding to the English prime minister we must first go to the
House of Representatives, take its committee of ways and means and
its committee on appropriations, and unite them into one committee of
finance; then we must take the chairman of this committee, give him
the power of dissolving the House and ordering a new election, and
make him master of