American Society Author:George Makepeace Towle Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. The Cabinet And Public Departments : The inatic and Consular Service—The Treasury—The Army and Navy—The Interior—Agriculture—The Post - office... more » — The Attorney - General — The Public Edifices—The Cabinet in Society. The Cabinet consists of seven members; they are, the Secretaries of State, of the Treasury, of the Interior, of War, and of the Navy, the Postmaster-General, and the Attorney-General. Each presides, under the general supervision of the President, over the department from which he derives his title; and each receives a salary of eight thousand dollars a-year. They are nominated to the national Senate by the President, and if that body confirms the nominations, they receive from the President their commissions. The President may at any time suspend them from their functions; but they cannot, under the existing law, be permanently removed, excepting by and with the consent of the Senate. They have the selection of the inferior officers employed in their respective departments, and may appoint and remove them at will; being responsible to the President for the efficient conduct of the public service, it is but just that they should have control over their assistants. They perform the double THE SECRETARY OF STATE. 85 function of administrating the departments and of acting as the intimate advisers of the President on matters of general policy. The members of the Cabinet do not sit in either house of Congress; all, excepting the Secretary of the Treasury, make their annual reports to the President; the Secretary of the Treasury makes his directly to Congress. The office of SecreTary Of State corresponds in many respects with that of the English Secretary for Foreign Affairs. He is charged with the conduct of all negotiations and communications wit...« less