sociations for the prevention of smuggling; and the CHAPTER revenue system was found to work much more easily, and proved more productive than had been expected.

A fourth act relating to trade and navigation provided for the registration of all American vessels engaged in foreign commerce, and the enrollment of those employed in the fisheries and coasting trade, except those under twenty tons burden, which were to have a license. This was with the view of ascertaining, not the tonnage only, but the ownership and the American character of the vessels, an authenticated copy of the register, which the vessel carried with her, serving for that purpose both at home and abroad. On every change of ownership a new register was required, without which the legal title did not pass. By the same act the coasting-trade was regulated, the vessels employed in that business being subject to restrictions in entering and clearing, and with respect to their cargoes, deemed necessary to prevent smuggling.

Another act assumed for the United States the support of all light-houses, buoys, beacons, and public piers, on condition that within one year the states within which they were respectively situated should vest in the United States not only the property in these structures, with the lands appertaining to them, but exclusive jurisdiction also within their circuit, reserving, however, the right of the state to serve civil and criminal process therein. Such cessions, under a provision in the Constitution to that effect, have ever since been uniformly required in case of all light-houses, forts, arsenals, dockyards, and other structures erected for the use of the United States.

Having thus made provision for collecting a revenue— indeed, before all these bills were perfected the House

1789.

CHAPTER turned its attention to the reorganization of the execu I. tive departments. A Department of Foreign Affairs was

1789. first established-a mere continuation of the old ContiMay 20. nental department of that name; but after the failure of repeated attempts by Vining of Delaware to establish a separate department for Home Affairs, these two services were combined; and by a subsequent act of the same session, the Department of Foreign Affairs became the Department of State, having charge not only of all foreign negotiations and of all the papers connected therewith, but the custody also, as well of all the papers and documents of the late Continental Congress, as of all en-. grossed acts and resolutions of the new government having the sanction of law; also the ensealing of all commissions for civil affairs, the seal adopted by the late Continental Congress being still continued in use. Sixty years elapsed before Vining's plan was carried out, by the transfer of Home Affairs to a separate department.

The Treasury Department was reorganized substantially on the plan adopted by the Continental Congress in 1781; but the title of its head was changed from Superintendent of Finance to Secretary of the Treasury. It was made the duty of this officer to digest plans for the improvement and management of the revenue, and for the support of the public credit; to prepare and report estimates of revenue and expenditure; to superintend the collection of the revenue; to decide upon the form of stating accounts; to execute such services relative to the sales of the public lands as might be required of him by law; to grant warrants on the treasury for all appropriations made by law; and to report in person or writing, as might be required, to either house of Congress, as to all matters referred to him or appertaining to his office.

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The secretary was allowed an assistant, to be appoint- CHAPTER ed by himself. The other subordinate officers of the department were a Controller, an Auditor, a Register, and a 1789. Treasurer. To the Controller belonged the final decision upon the legality of all claims on the government, and the superintendence of all legal proceedings to recover debts due to the United States. It was his duty also to countersign all warrants on the treasury, without which they had no validity. To the Auditor belonged the examination of vouchers; it being his duty to ascertain and certify to the formal correctness of all accounts against the government. It was the duty of the Register to preserve these vouchers; to keep an account of all receipts, expenditures, and debts, and to record all warrants on the treasury as a preliminary to their payment. The Treasurer had the custody of the moneys of the United States, and was to receive and pay them out according to the forms prescribed by law. By the regulations of the treasury, as thus organized, no public money could be paid out except under an appropriation made by Congress, and after a sanction of the claim as to its amount and validity, first by the Auditor, and then by the Controller, and on a warrant signed by the Secretary of the Treasury, countersigned by the Controller, and recorded by the Register. All receipts for money paid into the treasury, in order to be valid, must be indorsed on warrants signed by the Secretary, countersigned by the Controller, and recorded by the Register. This system, extended by the appointment of additional controllers and auditors, having charge of particular classes of accounts, and of a Solicitor of the Treasury, to superintend legal proceedings, still remains in force very much as originally established. All officers of the treasury were specially prohibited from being concerned in any commerce

CHAPTER or navigation, or the purchase of public lands or securities, state or national.

I..

1789. The Department of War was also reorganized, very much on the old footing, the secretary of that department to have the superintendence of naval as well as of military affairs. Of the old Continental navy not a vessel remained; the existing military establishment, a regiment of foot and a battalion of artillery, were continued in service upon the terms and pay fixed by the late Continental Congress, and pay and subsistence at the same rates were to be allowed to such militia as the president might call into service for defense of the frontier's. Provision was also made for the invalid pensions due under the regulations of the Continental Congress, and hitherto payable by the states.

The reorganization of the general post-office was delayed till more complete information could be obtained, the establishment being, meanwhile, continued as it then stood. Franklin, the first Continental postmaster general, had been succeeded in that office by his son-in-law Richard Bache, and he by Ebenezer Hazard, who still held it,

As introductory to the passage of these acts, the general system of the executive departments had been considered by the House in Committee of the Whole. The Department of the Treasury being under consideration, Gerry, who had acted in the earlier days of the Continental Congress as the head of the Committee on the Treasury, was very strenuous for a board of commissioners instead of a single secretary. He seemed to be jealous lest the heads of departments should outshine the Senate, make themselves necessary to the president, and establish a hateful oligarchy. Wadsworth and Boudinot, whose practical experience entitled their opin

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ions to great weight, were very positive as to the supé- CHAPTER riority of a single office over a board in all the great points of decision, promptitude, responsibility, and econo- 1789. my. They drew a very strong contrast between the administration of the Continental finances by Robert Morris and by the various treasury boards, his predecessors, whose negligence and incapacity, so Wadsworth affirmed, had doubled the public debt. According to Wadsworth, the clamor raised against Morris had chiefly originated with those whose services he had dispensed with, or whose profits out of the public he had curtailed. Gerry's scheme found but very little support; yet a good deal of jealousy was felt of the treasury, and when the bill establishing the department came to pass, special exception was taken to the clause authorizing the secretary to digest and report plans for the improvement and management of the revenue, as if it were an infringement of the exclusive power of the House to originate money bills.

A much more doubtful point was raised on a motion to declare the heads of the departments removable at the pleasure of the president. It was maintained by Smith of South Carolina and others, that, as the Constitution made no provision for removals from office except by impeach ment, all officers, unless a limit were fixed by law to the duration of their offices, would hold during good behavior. Others thought that, as the power of removal naturally belonged to the power that appointed, in all cases where the consent of the Senate was necessary for an appointment, their concurrence would also be required for removal. The power of removal in the president alone was represented as exceedingly dangerous, making him little short of a monarch, and all the public officers his mere creatures. These views were urged by Bland and