A report of the Attorney General, suggesting modifications in the manner of conducting the legal business of the government. APRIL 25, 1854.—Referred to the Committee on Retrenchment, and ordered to be printed. To the Senate of the United States: I have the honor to transmit herewith a report of the Attorney General, suggesting modifications in the manner of conducting the legal business of the government, which are respectfully commended to your favorable consideration. WASHINGTON, April 24, 1854. FRANKLIN PIERCE. ATTORNEY GENERAL'S OFFICE, SIR: At the expiration of a year's experience in the discharge of my present official duties, and observation of their relation to other branches of federal administration, it seems to me not unseasonable now to lay before you some suggestions of possible improvement in the manner of conducting the legal business of the government. The Constitution of the United States provides, that "the executive power shall be vested in the President of the United States," who shall be commander-in-chief of the army and navy; who shall, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, make treaties; who shall nominate and, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, appoint, all officers of the United States, military, judicial, diplomatic, or administrative, whose appointments are not otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by law; who shall have a qualified participation in the enactment of laws, and take care that they be faithfully executed; and who shall, from time to time, give to Congress information of the state of the Union. The President is thus made the responsible depositary and chief functionary, for the time being, of the ministerial powers and administrative duties of the United States regarded as a political sovereignty. But the Constitution does not specify the subordinate, ministerial, or administrative functionaries, by whose agency or counsels the details of the public business are to be transacted. It recognises the existence of such official agents and advisers in saving, that the President "may require the opinion, in writing, of the principal officer in each of the executive departments, upon any subject relating to the duties of their respective offices;" and these officers are again recognised by the constitution in the clause which vests the appointment of certain inferior officers "in the heads of departments ;" and it leaves the number and the organization of those departments to be determined by Congress. In the execution of this duty, the constitutional Congress proceeded, at an early day of its first session, (July 27, 1789,) to establish the Department of Foreign Affairs, with "a principal officer therein," to be called the Secretary for the Department of Foreign Affairs, and to perform and execute such duties respecting foreign affairs as the President should assign to him, and to conduct the business of the department in such manner as the President should, from time to time, order or in struct. But this act, which was the commencement of the organization of executive departments under the Constitution, and a commencement in the direction of a systematic aud proper distribution of duties, gave place, after the lapse of a few months, (September 15, 1789,) to an act, which changed the name of the Department of Foreign Affairs to that of Department of State, though it in no respect changed the duties of the secretary, except to provide that he should receive, keep, and cause to be promulgated, the laws enacted by Congress; and that he should keep the seal of the United States, and affix the same to the commissions of all civil officers of the United States lawfully appointed by the President, whether with or without the advice and consent of the Senate. In changing the name of this department from Foreign Affairs to that of State, Congress did not change the main duties of the department, consisting then, as now, of the charge of the foreign relations of the government. There is no very obvious connexion between the new name given to the department, and the only important fact which accompanied the change, namely, the commitment of the seal of the United States to the secretary, and the duty of affixing it to the commissions of civil officers. If on this account, as it would seem, the designation of the secretary was changed, certainly the new title had not, according to the received previous use of the term in our mother tongue, any special relation to the new duties, it not being coupled with the custody of the great seal in England, and being applied there to the office of several of the principal secretaries. Probably it was deemed convenient, in that early period, when the public business was little in amount relatively to later times, that the head of the most important of the departments should bear a name indicative of higher, general, and political duty, and so indefinite, that much miscellaneous business might be consigned to his charge, either by act of Congress or by direction of the President. Next after establishing the Department of Foreign Affairs, Congress at the same session (August 7, 1789) established the Department of War, with a principal officer therein, to be called the Secretary for the Department of War, and required to perform such duties as might from time to time be lawfully enjoined on or entrusted to him by the President, relative to military or naval affairs; and to conduct the business of the department in such manner as the President might from time to time order or instruct. This department was also formed on proper premises of classification, even though including, as it did, the jurisdiction of Indian affairs; for the arrangement of frontier posts, and other considerations, devolved of necessity, at that period, the charge of the Indians on the Secretary of War. Next came, at the same session, (September 2, 1789,) a Department of Treasury, (not the treasury,) the head of it, however, being called the Secretary of the Treasury, and his general duty being defined to be to digest and prepare plans for the improvement and management of the revenue, and for the support of public credit; to prepare and report estimates of the public revenue and the public expenditures; to superintend the collection of the revenue; to grant warrants for money to be issued from the treasury in pursuance of appropriations by law; and to have charge of the sale of the lands belonging to the United States. In the organization of the business of this department by this act, facts, peculiar, as compared with the other two departments, are promi nent. One is, that the Secretary of the Treasury, instead of being made subject only to the direction of the President by name, is required "generally to perform all such services, relative to the finances, as he shall be directed to perform;" which phraseology is explained by the provision of the act, that he shall "make report and give information to either branch of the legislature, in person or writing, as he may be required, respecting all matters referred to him by the Senate or House of Representatives, or (and) which shall appertain to his office." Another peculiarity of the act is, that whereas, in the others, provision is made made for a chief and other clerks only, here, on the other hand, is the commencement of sub-departments, or bureaus, commonly so called, in the provision for the appointment of a comptroller, an auditor, a treasurer, and a register, among whom a portion of the business of the department is distributed permanently and upon system. At the same session of Congress, in organizing the judicial business of the United States, (September 24, 1789,) provision was made for an Attorney General, to prosecute and conduct all suits in the Supreme Court in which the United States shall be concerned, and to give his advice and opinion upon questions of law, when required by the President of the United States, or when requested by the heads of any of the departments, touching any matters which may concern their departments. By another act of the same session of Congress (September 22, 1789,) the office of Postmaster General was appointed, with an assistant, or clerk and deputies, subject, in performing the duties of his office, and in forming contracts for the transportation of the mail, to the direction of the President, but not in other respects then placed in the same high official relation to the government as at the present time. Such was the original basis of the executive organization of the |