Two-fold Significance of Detached Services. Of the several independent or detached administrative agencies created prior to 1860, which can be said to have possessed any degree of permanence, two were later placed under the jurisdiction of an existing department, one was abolished in 1836, and the remainder continued as separate administrative services. The establishment of these independent agencies possesses a two-fold significance. In the first place, Congress was led to deviate from the departmental system of administrative organization, in providing for the discharge of duties which did not logically fall under the jurisdiction of any existing department, or which were considered of such importance as to require the immediate supervision of the President or of Congress itself. In so doing, Congress established a precedent for the creation of administrative services independent of any of the executive departments-a precedent which has been followed to a marked degree during the present century. In the second place, the exercise of joint supervision and direction over the work of these detached services by Congress and the President, and the representation of all the branches of government-legislative, executive, and judicial—in the personnel of several of these independent boards and commissions, serve to substantiate the observation made in the introduction to this monograph, namely, that governmental departments do not correspond exactly to governmental functions. Congress, which is chiefly concerned with the function of legislation, has imposed upon itself the direction and supervision of purely administrative services, and has associated its own representatives with those of the other major organs of government in the creation of boards and commissions charged with the performance of duties of an administrative character.

CHAPTER IX

THE DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

Proposals for a Home Department. The establishment of a "Home Department" or a "Department of Domestic Affairs " was definitely proposed in the Constitutional Convention of 1787. Gouverneur Morris, in his plan for a Council of State, provided for a Secretary of Domestic Affairs, whose business it should be to "attend to matters of general policy, the state of agriculture and manufactures, the opening of roads and navigations and the facilitating communications through the United States." Charles Pinckney, in his "Observations," emphasized the necessity which existed at that time, and which must every day increase, "of appointing a Secretary for the Home Department."

Proposals for such a department were also made outside of the convention. As early as 1783, Pelatiah Webster, in his pamphlet entitled A Dissertation on the Political Union and Constitution of the Thirteen United States of North-America, proposed a scheme of government which included a Secretary of State-an official who "takes knowledge of the general policy and internal government. . . . I mention a Secretary of State," he added, “because all other nations have one. . . . The multiplicity of affairs which naturally fall into his office will grow so fast, that I imagine we shall soon be under necessity of appointing one." The plan of John Paul Jones for the proper organization of the executive establishment, of which mention was made in a preceding chapter, included a "Ministry of Home Affairs."*

In the course of the debates in the first Congress on the question of the proper number and arrangement of administrative departments, Mr. Vining of Delaware proposed, on several occasions, the establishment of a Home Department. Although the majority

'Farrand, Records of the federal convention, II, 342.

'Ibid., III, III.

Webster, Political essays, 213-14.

*Supra, 89.

in Congress were not convinced of the necessity of creating an independent department for the administration of internal affairs, provision was made for a combination of the duties of a Home Department with those of Foreign Affairs in the act of September 15, 1790, creating the Department of State. In considering the organization of the State Department, mention was made of the two divisions created in that department by Secretary Jefferson, namely, the " Home Office" and the "Foreign Office."

On April 20, 1812, President Madison addressed a special message to Congress in which he called attention to the rapid accumulation of duties in the several departments of the government which had been necessarily augmented "in consequence of the peculiar state of our foreign relations, and the connection of these with our internal administration." Although this message was especially directed toward the creation of two subordinate officers in the War Department, the suggestion which it contained led Congress to consider certain improvements in other departments. Thus on June 12, 1812, in a report submitted to the House of Representatives by a special committee appointed to inquire into the state and condition of the Patent Office, a subdivision of the Department of State, this definite proposal was made: "Your committee, without entering into any detailed reasoning on the subject, offer, for the consideration of the Legislature, the propriety and necessity of authorizing a Home Department, distinct from the departments already established by law. Such departments are known to other Governments, and their benefits have been recognized in territories far less extensive than those of the United States." No action was taken by Congress, however, on this suggestion made by the committee relative to the establishment of a Home Department.

A resolution was introduced and adopted in the Senate on April 20, 1816, which directed the secretaries of the departments to report jointly to the Senate, at the next session of Congress, a plan to insure the annual settlement of the public accounts, and a more certain accountability of the public expenditure, in their respective departments. In obedience to this resolution, the heads of the

1 Stat. L., 68. Cf. Supra, 90, 93, 98.

12 Cong. I sess. (1811-12), Annals of Congress, Pt. 1, 209.

7

'14 Cong. I sess. (1815-16), Annals of Congress, 331-32.

four executive departments submitted a joint report to the Senate on December 9, 1816, in which they not only made important suggestions for the proper settlement of the public accounts, but also definitely proposed the establishment of another executive department. Commenting upon the administration of Indian affairs, the secretaries said: "It is obvious to the mind of every reflecting man that the duties imposed upon the Secretary of War in relation to the Indian Department have no rational connection with the administration of the military establishment. From the view which has been presented, it is conceived that the public interest requires that the Secretary of War should be relieved from further attention to these duties. It then becomes necessary to inquire whether those duties can, consistently with the public interest, be assigned to either of the other Departments. An examination into the duties required of those Departments, it is confidently believed, cannot fail to produce the most decided conviction that no additional duties ought to be imposed upon them under their present organization. On the other hand, there is good reason to believe that the public interest would be promoted by relieving those Departments of several branches of the public service at present committed to their respective charges. The retrenchments which, with great advantage to the public interest, might be made in the duties now imposed upon the Secretaries of the respective Departments and the General Post Office, would furnish ample employment for the head of another independent Department.'

99 10

In accordance with these observations, it was proposed that another executive department be organized, to be denominated the "Home Department," and that the Secretary of this department should execute the orders of the President in relation to: (1) The territorial governments; (2) the national highways and canals; (3) the General Post Office; (4) the Patent Office; and (5) the Indian Department. The concrete plan thus submitted for the establishment of a Home Department, which was in essence a "Cabinet" proposal, no doubt was the basis for the recommendation made by President Madison in his last annual message of December 3, 1816, presented six days prior to the communication of the above report to the Senate, when he declared that "the extent and

10

14 Cong. 2 sess. (1816-17), Annals of Congress, 26-28. Cf. American State Papers, Misc., II, 397-98.

variety of Executive business. . . call for an additional department, to be charged with duties now overburdening other departments and with such as have not been annexed to any department.'

99 11

A committee of the House of Representatives appointed to consider the above recommendation made by President Madison, addressed a letter to the heads of departments on December 22, asking among other questions whether the accountability of public officers might not be sufficiently served without the establishment of a new department." In reply to this particular query, the Secretaries said: Although provision may be made for the settlement of all the public accounts without the institution of a new Department, we have no doubt that the just principles of accountability would be better preserved, and economy promoted, by the adoption of that measure. Equally satisfied are we that other essential advantages would result from it." "

On January 6, 1817, a bill was introduced in the Senate calling for the establishment of a Home Department. The bill followed the proposal made by the heads of the departments the preceding year, except that the District of Columbia was introduced as a subdivision of the department, and the division of National Highways and Canals was omitted. The bill was opposed by Senator King of New York, who contended that "no more security would be afforded by creating two Departments of State in the room of one, which he believed was sufficient to despatch all the business now confided to it; most of which, being matter of detail only, required little more than the signature of the Secretary of State. . . . He could not see the necessity for creating a new department, the head of which would have a place in the Cabinet, and be one of the President's counsellors." The bill was defeated on January 29."

The subject of a Home Department does not seem to have been taken up again in Congress until March 3, 1825, when a resolution was introduced in the House of Representatives proposing the establishment of such a department for the promotion of agriculture, manufactures, science and the arts, and trade between the

13 Ibid., 699. Cf. American State Papers, Misc., II, 418.

14

14 Cong. 2 sess., Annals of Congress, 47, 59-60, 70, 74-75, 88.