The Cabinet in Perspective

Abstract

Article II of the Constitution covers the powers and duties of the president in barely one thousand words. The first 15 words contain one significant fact — the result of a crucial decision taken by the members of the Constitutional Convention that began its deliberations in Philadelphia in May 1787. This decision was that the executive power of the United States should be vested in one man, not in a council, or committee, or cabinet, but in a president. Support for a unitary executive was by no means unanimous. Some of the delegates at Philadelphia had specifically proposed a plural executive. The Virginia Plan, drafted by James Madison, had been ambiguous on this matter, calling for a ‘national executive’; but the plan put forward by New Jersey lawyer William Paterson called for ‘an executive of more than one person’ to be elected by Congress. When a single executive was first openly proposed at the Convention there was, according to Madison, ‘a considerable pause of apprehension’.1 Those against a unitary executive, such as Edmund Randolph of Virginia, saw it as ‘the foetus of monarchy’. To them, a unitary executive conjured up visions of Great Britain, of royal governors whose power could not easily be checked, of crowns, ermine and sceptres. But the proponents of the unitary executive, such as James Wilson of Pennsylvania, saw it rather as ‘the best safeguard against tyranny’. Furthermore, it would, in his view, give the ‘most energy, dispatch and responsibility to the office’. Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts favoured a single chief executive but also the ‘annexing of a Council in order to give weight and inspire confidence’. After all, even the King of England had a Council. But Gerry and many others saw a plural executive as being unworkable. ‘It would be extremely inconvenient in many instances, particularly in military matters,’ he stated. ‘It would be a general with three heads.’KeywordsExecutive PowerConstitutional ConventionAmerican Political SystemUnitary ExecutivePrincipal OfficerThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.