l v," «l® . HP wmu THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE SECRETARYSHIP OF THE INTERIOR WITH THE COMPLIMENTS OF HENRY BARRETT LEARNED 50 Cold Spring Street NEW HAVEN, CONN. BY HENRY B. LEARNED REPRINTED FROM THE §mmican §jftst 1 9 Statutes at Large, 395 ff., March 3, 1849. v # 2 Essays (Philadelphia, 1791), pp. 2 13-2 14. First printed at Philadelphia and published February 16, 1783. (75i) 752 H. B. Learned facilitating communications through the United States ”. 3 Likewise in his plan of government for France drawn up a few years after 1787, Morris made provision for a “ Minister of the Interior ”. 4 In fact the conception of some such administrative official, however crudely or variously expressed, was perfectly familiar to the epoch. Charles Pinckney’s Observations contained references to a Home Department. Pinckney expressed himself as convinced of “ the necessity which exists at present, and which must every day increase, of appointing a Secretary for the Home Department”, and appar- ently he meant that such an officer should be made a member of the Cabinet council. 5 Madison was popularly considered in the autumn of 1788 as the right sort of man to be placed in charge of a Home Department under the Constitution should Congress decide to pro- vide for such an organization. 6 And in the early summer of 1789, during the course of the debates on the proper number and arrange- ment of departments, Representative John Vining of Delaware was the leading figure to propose and urge the establishment of a “ Do- mestic ” department. 7 Congress was not inclined to establish an independent Home Department, but it could not escape altogether the force of sentiment and the arguments in favor of the suggested department, and accord- ingly provided a combination of the duties of a Home Department with those of Foreign Afifairs. In other words it substituted a Department and Secretary of State in place of its first intention, a Department and Secretary of Foreign Affairs. In the winter of 1789-1790 while Jefferson was hesitating about accepting the appointment as Secretary of State, he gave as one reason for hesitation his objection to having domestic as well as foreign business to attend to. Jefferson confided the first hint of his objection to his friend, William Short, in a letter of December 14, 1789. 8 The next day Jefferson put his thought in these words addressed to President Washington: “ But when I contemplate the extent of that office, embracing as it does the principal mass of domestic administration, together with the foreign, I cannot be insen- sible to my inequality to it.” 9 On the following January 4 Madison, who had recently seen Jefferson at Monticello, made Jefferson’s 3 Elliot, Debates, V. 446. 4 Sparks, Life of Gouverneur Morris, III. 481 ff. 6 Charles Pinckney, Observations on the Plan of Government submitted to the Federal Convention, pp. 10— 11. 6 D. Humphreys to Jefferson, writing from Mount Vernon, November 29, 1788 ; Bancroft, History of the Constitution, II. 485. 7 Annals of Congress, I. 385-386, 412, 692-695, passim . 8 Jefferson, Writings (ed. Ford), V. 139. 9 Ibid., p. 140. The Secretaryship of the Interior 753 objection quite clear to Washington. “I was sorry to find him ”, wrote Madison, “ so little biassed in favor of the domestic service allotted to him, but was glad that his difficulties seemed to result chiefly from what I take to be an erroneous view of the kind and quantity of business annexed to . . . the foreign department. He apprehends ”, added Madison, “ that it will far exceed the latter which has of itself no terrors to him.” 10 The theoretical stage of the problem was concluded when Jeffer- son took office in March, 1790, and began to administer the business of the Department of State. Within a few months of that time he sent to his colleague, Secretary Hamilton, an estimate of department expenses, reckoning them from April, 1790, for one year. It should be observed that Jefferson divided the expenses on the basis of the “ Home Office” ($1836) and the “ Foreign Office” ($2625). The figures are enough to indicate that the domestic functions of the Sec- retary of State were almost certain to be extensive. 11 III. Moreover the next twenty years were to determine unmistakably that the Secre- tary of State was to be overburdened with his manifold duties. In truth by the spring of 1812 all the administrative departments were so pressed with work that President Madison addressed a special message to both House and Senate on the subject. 12 II. Madison’s brief word written in the face of impending war sounded a note of warning that could not easily be overlooked. Some minor changes, it is true, had already been accomplished, revealing the fact that Congress had not been quite heedless of the need of reforms and alterations in the departmental organizations. 13 But they were not fundamental enough to afford relief. On June 12, exactly six days before the formal declaration of war with England, we come upon the first clear recommendation of a Home Department arising from a Congressional source after 1789. The incident is worth a moment’s attention. Near the beginning of a report read to the House of Representa- tives on that day — a report chiefly concerned with conditions that had prevailed for many years in the Patent Office as a subordinate division in the State Department — there occurred this definite sug- gestion : “Your committee, without entering into any detailed rea- 10 H. S. Randall, Life of Thomas Jefferson (1858), I. 557, note 1. 11 Gaillard Hunt in American Journal of International Law (January, 1909), III. 148. Washington placed the Mint under Jefferson’s charge. Ibid., p. 145. 12 Messages and Papers, I. 499, April 20. 13 Annals of Congress, 10 Cong., 2 sess. (1808-1809), pp. 347 ff., 352, 387-388, 437, 443, 450-452, 461, 1546, 1549, 1553, 1559-1560, 1575, 1833-1835 (text of act). 754 H. B. Learned soning on the subject, offer for the consideration of the Legislature, the propriety and necessity of authorizing a Home Department , dis- tinct from the departments already established by law. Such depart- ments ”, continued the record, “ are known to other Governments, and their benefits have been recognized in territories far less exten- sive than those of the United States.” 14 This came from a com- mittee of which Adam Seybert of Pennsylvania was chairman which had been appointed to examine into the organization and workings of the Patent Establishment. 15 On May 25 Seybert had addressed a letter to Monroe, the Secretary of State, asking for his observa- tions on the subject, saying at the same time that the occasion might afford Monroe an opportunity to outline a plan for separating the Patent Establishment from the State Department. 16 Monroe was harassed with work. However he gave the matter some attention, and answered Seybert’s letter on June 10. In general Monroe was opposed to all inferior independent departments. The Patent Office, he thought, might as well remain in charge of the State Department. He admitted, however, that foreign affairs constituted in themselves a sufficient trust for the person at the head of the Department of State. “ They are ”, he reflected, “ very extensive, complicated and important, and are becoming more so daily.” 17 There was an ominous tone to Monroe’s reply which could not have escaped attentive ears. At any rate Seybert’s committee felt free to broach the subject of a new department to the House, declar- ing that foreign relations were essentially distinct “ from many objects in the interior of our country”. The report was printed. No action, however, was taken on its special suggestion of a Home Department, for the country was soon experiencing the stress and strain of war. By 1815 serious weaknesses extending down from the principal offices through all the national administrative organizations had become more real and were more evident than ever. Arrangements within the War Department were most unsatisfactory. Within this department Indian affairs had proved to be peculiarly troublesome. On March 2, 1815, the Senate passed a resolution requesting Presi- dent Madison to instruct the Secretary of War to make a report on Indian affairs chiefly for the purpose, it would seem, of obtaining a sound basis of information on which to reorganize that subordinate branch of administration. There was already some disposition to place Indian affairs in a department quite by themselves. 18 14 Annals of Congress, 12 Cong. (1812-1813), pt. II., p. 2179. 15 Ibid., p. 1435. 16 Ibid., pp. 2190 ff. 37 Ibid., p. 2192. 18 Ibid., 13 Cong. (1814—1815), III. 287-288. The Secretaryship of the Interior 755 At the moment the headship of the War Department was in a state of transition, consequently more than a year elapsed before the Senate’s request was answered. Then came a report on Indian affairs from Secretary William H. Crawford; it was dated March 13, 1816, and was communicated to the Senate on the following day. It was a long and well-considered document. From certain casual statements one gathers a clear impression that Crawford was aware of the burdens to which most of the secretaries in the separate de- partments had long been subjected. He merely hinted at “the creation of a separate and independent department ” without giving any details of a plan. But he was sure that if a new department were established “ much of the miscellaneous duties now belonging to the Department of State, ought to be transferred to it ”. 19 Rather more than a month later — on April 20 — Macon of North Carolina presented to the Senate a resolution that was passed and yielded some unforeseen results. The resolution follows : Resolved , That the Secretaries of the Departments be directed to report jointly to the Senate, in the first week of 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. 20 The peculiar merit of the resolution was that it brought the prin- cipal officers together on the subject of the general organization of administrative work. By the following December these officers in consultation with the President had formulated a careful report. This report, after reviewing the principles on which the several departments were organized, dwelling with marked stress on the burdens of the Secretary of War, and commenting on the notable incongruity in having Indian affairs managed in connection with the military establishment, proceeded to outline on the grounds of actual experience the first clear plan for a Home Department in our his- tory. This was the plan which lay behind the recommendation of Madison made in his last annual message of December 3, 1816, where he remarked on “ the expediency ... of an additional depart- ment in the executive branch of the Government ... to be charged with duties now overburdening other departments and with such as have not been annexed to any department ”. 21 Although the inspiration for it may have come in part from the Senate resolution, this first plan for a Home Department signed 19 American State Papers, Indian Affairs, II. 26-88. 20 Annals of Congress, 14 Cong., 1 sess. (1815—1816), pp. 331-332. 21 Messages and Papers, I. 577; Annals of Congress, 14 Cong., 2 sess. (1816- 1817), pp. 23—30. The report appeared in the National Intelligencer of Saturday, December 21, 1816, and in Niles’s Register of that date. AM. HIST. REV., VOL. XVI. — 49. 756 H. B. Learned by all the principal officers except Attorney-General Rush may be truly termed a Cabinet measure. It provided for a secretary whose duty it should be to execute the orders of the President in so far as they concerned the following five administrative divisions: (i) Ter- ritorial Governments; (2) National Highways and Canals; (3) Gen- eral Post-Office; (4) Patent Office; and (5) Indian Department. The plan was communicated to the Senate by Madison on December 9. Meantime steps had been taken in both the Senate and the House to consider that portion of the message which related to the possible establishment of an additional executive department. William Lowndes of South Carolina, chairman of the committee of seven in the House chosen to consider the subject, addressed a letter to the secretaries on December 22 asking among other questions whether the accountability of public officers might not be sufficiently served without a new executive department. 22 The secretaries answered the letter carefully on December 31. Their conclusion in response to Lowndes’s particular query was this : “ we have no doubt that the just principles of accountability would be better preserved, and economy promoted, by the adoption of that measure. Equally satis- fied are we ”, they added, “ that other essential advantages would result from it.” 23 On January 6, 1817, a bill for the purpose of establishing a Home Department was reported to the Senate by Senator Nathan Sanford of New York. The bill was similar in most respects to the “ cabinet plan ” ; but it introduced the “ District of Columbia ” as a division of administration in the new department and omitted the division of “ National Highways and Canals ”. Among minor readjustments it placed the Mint under the supervision of the Secretary of the Treasury. It ran a brief course in the Senate. On January 29, by a vote of 23 to 11, the Senate refused to listen to a third reading. Two senators of distinction opposed the measure, Rufus King of New York and Nathaniel Macon of North Carolina, the latter a member of the special Senate committee which had introduced the bill. King recalled the discussions of 1789 on a similar project, dwelling at length upon the opposition at that time. He admitted that times had changed, yet he failed, he said, to find much reason for multiplying departments or for having — as he expressed it — two Departments of State. A new department implied that the Secre- tary “would have a place in the Cabinet, and be one of the Presi- dent’s counsellors”. The bill reached the House on January 20. The next day Lowndes read his correspondence with the secretaries. 22 Annals, 14 Cong., 2 sess., pp. 697-698. 23 Ibid., p. 699. The Secretaryship of the Interior 757 Although the reply of the secretaries of December 31 was judicious, it could hardly have helped the progress of the bill, for it was in no way compelling or conclusive of the need of a new department. 24 The failure to establish a Home Department in 1817 calls for a brief comment. President, secretaries, certain senators and repre- sentatives, and doubtless many of the more thoughtful citizens at all well informed about government administration were inclined to favor the measure. Yet when the measure came to the point of actual construction and enactment, it was halted and in the end cast out. To the reader of Congressional and newspaper evidence cov- ering the years 1816-1817, two questions will be frequently sug- gested. It is impossible, moreover, to escape the belief that both questions were occasionally before the minds of men living in those days. (1) Could a Home Department be organized and adminis- tered with a view to economy? (2) Would its creation be a consti- tutional measure? It should be remembered that the plan of a Home Department, while enforced by the growing burdens of administration — some of these burdens doubtless the direct result of the war, and others of much longer standing — originated in an effort to bring all the exist- ing departments into clear accountability for their expenditures. Without more definite principles of accountability than had hitherto existed, any additional department would tend not only to increase the financial burdens of the government but to render the solution of the basic problem more difficult. From the standpoint of im- proved administration a Home Department would seem to have been amply justified by 1817. From the standpoint of national economy — a subject of special moment for the next decade — it was a measure of doubtful consequences and might, in view of other needs, be indefinitely postponed. There was doubt about the constitutionality of a Home Depart- ment. This was plainly revealed by an anonymous writer in the National Intelligencer who printed his reflections on the organiza- tion of executive departments on February 20 and 22, 1817. 25 Among other things this writer proposed to obtain a “general enact- ment for the construction of the departments ” in the shape of an 24 Ibid., pp. 18-19, 23-30, 33, 47, 52, 59, 60, 70, 74— 75, 88, 234-235, 697-699. 25 The writer, whoever he was, showed some ingenuity. He favored four principal departments: (1) Revenue; (2) Domestic Affairs; (3) Foreign Affairs; (4) War. “ Domestic Affairs ”, he wrote, “ naturally claim attention anterior to foreign affairs.” The War Department he divided into two divisions — army and navy. The heads or “ conductors ” of these two divisions were to constitute a “ Board of War ”. Domestic affairs he placed in five divisions, including Indian Affairs, the Post-Office, the Land Office, the Patent Office, and the Mint. Were these articles written by Judge A. B. Woodward? 758 H. B. Learned amendment to the Constitution. Belief in the absence of constitu- tional power undoubtedly made certain minds in 1817 peculiarly sensitive to and critical of what Jackson characterized many years later as the “ supposed tendency to increase . . . the . . . bias of the federal system toward the exercise of authority not delegated to it”. 26 In this connection it should certainly be noted that the project of a Home Department was inevitably entangled with that series of speculations which marked the entire movement for internal im- provements — a movement which had its sources in the fundamental question of the proper disposition of the nation’s money. There was apprehension lest the establishment of a Home Department would be used as an argument for enlarging the sphere of domestic legisla- tion by the general government. III. In 1824 new light is shed upon the path of the investigator bent upon reaching the establishment of the Department of the Interior in 1849. Clay could declare in 1824 with conviction that “a new world has come into being since the Constitution was adopted ”. 27 Already three years before this utterance in the House of Repre- sentatives, John Quincy Adams, forced by what he characterized as “ the increase of the inquisitive spirit in Congress ” to make investi- gations into his own department, recorded these comparisons and contrasts : The foreign correspondence . . . remained much the same now as it was in 1800. . . . But the interior correspondence then was with sixteen States ; it is now with twenty-four. It was then with a population of less than five, and now of more than nine millions. ... At that time there were in Congress about one hundred and thirty members ; there are now upwards of two hundred and thirty. Then two or three octavo and one folio volume constituted all the documents printed at a session. Now there are from fifteen to twenty volumes published every year. There are assuredly five calls from Congress for information and documents from the Departments for one that there was then. Every call requires a report. 28 It was clear from these facts that the Secretary of State, unless he were robust and capable, might find his post burdensome in the extreme. There appeared in the National Journal of 1824 — a paper estab- lished in Washington and edited by Peter Force — various articles written by Judge Augustus B. Woodward. The first of these articles 26 December 8, 1829. Messages and Papers, II. 461—462. 27 January 30, 1824. 28 Memoirs of J. Q. Adams, V. 239— 240, January 19, 1821. The Secretaryship of the Interior 759 that concerns this inquiry was entitled “ On the Necessity and Im- portance of a Department of Domestic Affairs, in the Government of the United States ”. Appearing on April 24, it was followed at irregular intervals by others which touched upon the subject of ad- ministrative organization or gave detailed consideration to different historical aspects of the presidency. Judge Woodward had been a student of the American executive for years. Whatever he wrote on his favorite theme was likely to be read by statesmen and other careful observers of public affairs. On friendly terms with John Quincy Adams, he is occasionally mentioned in Adams’s Memoirs . Under date of July 24, 1824, Adams wrote of Woodward’s articles on the presidency which were then appearing with some regularity. “ They are ”, remarked Adams, “ speculative and historical, referring to past events, but bearing so much upon those of the present time that I told him he was treading close upon warm ashes.” 29 Elaboration was the most notable feature of Judge Woodward’s plan for a Department of Domestic Affairs. Under the secretary for such a department he would have included eight commissioners to be charged with the oversight of the following bureaux or admin- istrative divisions : Science and Art, Public Economy, Posts, Public Lands, Mint, Patents, Indian Affairs, and Justice. He included in the bureau of Public Economy the superintendence and execution of internal improvements such as roads and canals, and such other matters as the care of unsettled public lands, the conservation of forests, slavery, mines, fisheries, and general police. The scheme attracted wide-spread notice and gained favorable comment here and there. But it lacked simplicity and failed to impress men high in administrative circles with its feasibility. 30 In the autumn of 1824 President Monroe contemplated recom- mending to Congress a Department of the Interior. His reason for not doing so was recorded by John Quincy Adams under date of April 25, 1825. According to Adams, Monroe, having determined to recommend an increase in the number of the judges of the Su- preme Court, was apprehensive lest “ it would have too much the appearance of a projecting spirit to recommend also additions to the Executive Department”. 31 Nevertheless just at the close of the second session of the Eighteenth Congress, on March 3, 1825, a member of the House offered a resolution in favor of the establish- 29 Ibid., VI. 401—402. See note i at the end of this article. 30 National Joiirnal, April 24, May 29, 1824. The same articles were reprinted about a year later in the National Intelligencer of April 23, 26, and 28, 1825. Woodward communicated some of his ideas to Madison. Writings of Madison (ed. Hunt), IX. 206 ff. 31 Memoirs, VI. 532-533. j6o H. B. Learned ment of a Home Department for the purpose of promoting agricul- ture, manufactures, science and the arts, and trade between the states by roads and canals. The resolution was promptly voted down — stamped at once with the disapprobation of the House. 32 Such Washington papers as the National Intelligencer and the National Journal persisted in keeping track of the general project. As late as November io, 1825 — not many weeks before the assem- bling of the Nineteenth Congress — the National Journal copied a series of “Remarks’’ on the subject of a Home Department which had appeared in the American Athenaeum. “We shall feel grate- ful ”, concluded the writer in the Athenaeum, “ if any gentlemen will favour us with a paper on this subject, writing in a truly national spirit, and tending to elucidate the advantages or disadvantages that may be expected to result from the establishment of a Home De- partment for the United States.” John Quincy Adams was the first president after Madison to call public attention to the need of an additional executive department. Under the obligation of an “ indispensable duty ”, he did so in his first annual message of December 6. Remarking that “ the Depart- ments of Foreign Affairs and of the Interior, which early after the formation of the Government had been united in one, continue so united to this time, to the unquestionable detriment of the public service ”, he went on to refer deferentially to Madison’s suggestion and said : The exigencies of the public service and its unavoidable deficiencies . . . have added yearly cumulative weight to the considerations presented by him as persuasive to the measure, and in recommending it to your deliberations I am happy to have the influence of his high authority in aid of the undoubting convictions of my own experience. 33 Both Madison and Adams could speak with all the more authority on the subject because they had each had eight years of experience as Secretaries of State before they entered upon the work of the presidency. This recommendation of President Adams had been carefully discussed by the Cabinet before it was made public, as we know from the record of the Memoirs N Rush of the Treasury Department urged the immediate communication of the recommendation in the message. Clay, Secretary of State, while admitting that a new executive department “ was of most urgent necessity ”, was inclined to believe that Congress could not be persuaded to take any action in the matter. Nevertheless the House promptly sought light on the 32 Register op Debates, 18 Cong., 2 sess. (1824-1825), I. 740. 33 Messages and Papers, II. 315. 34 VII. 62-63. The Secretaryship of the Interior 761 subject, appointing a special committee of which Daniel Webster was chairman. 35 Little could Webster have dreamed that his interest in the subject, first aroused in 1825, was to continue over an interval of almost a quarter of a century, and that finally he was to take a leading part in the passing of the bill of 1849 which actually estab- lished the Interior Department. On the evening of December 16 Webster called on the President for the purpose, among other things, of obtaining from Adams his ideas. The President, like Clay, was in doubt about the attitude of Congress toward any such measure. From his record of the inter- view with Webster the reader may obtain a clear impression of his thought. I said [wrote Adams], if it was possible in any manner to obtain this from Congress it must be by a very short Act, expressing in very general terms the objects committed to it — the internal correspondence, the roads and canals, the Indians and the Patent Office. I referred him to the papers of Judge Woodward on a Home Department in the National Journal, but observed that was a plan upon a scale much too large for the approbation of Congress, to begin with. I have indeed no expectation of success with this Congress for any such establishment even upon the simplest plan. 36 The interview was apparently only the starting-point in the search for information. Late in the following January Webster addressed a letter on the subject to the four heads of departments, Clay, Rush, Barbpur, and Southard. For some unknown reason Wirt, the Attorney-General, was ignored. Clay gave careful consideration to the letter, then answered it at length, approving the general plan and stating reasons why a Home Department seemed to him necessary. Rush declared himself too inexperienced in the business of the Treasury Department to have any decided opinion 'to offer. Bar- bour acknowledged that he would be glad to have pensions and Indian affairs off his shoulders as Secretary of War. Southard found his tasks as Secretary of the Navy not specially burdensome. 37 That a bill was not only contemplated, but was actually in course of formulation at the time, would appear from Adams’s reference on January 24 to “ the proposed bill for the establishment of a Home Department ”, for the President added that “ the duties to be assigned to it will be taken almost entirely from the Departments of State and of War”. 38 But the evidence after this on the progress of the matter is scant. It is certain that no definite action on the subject 35 Ibid., VII. 83; Register of Debates, 19 Cong., 1 sess. (1825-1826), p. 797. 36 Memoirs, VII. 83-84. 37 Senate Documents, 21 Cong., 1 sess. (1829-1830), vol. II., no. 109, p. 13. Here will be found the correspondence. 38 Memoirs, VII. 109. 762 H. B. Learned was taken by Congress in 1826, although on May 22, the last day of the session, a report was made to the House and was placed on file. 39 The subject seems never again during Adams’s term to have come before Congress. But Adams did not forget it, for as late as 1839, in a paper read before the New York Historical Society on “The Jubilee of the Constitution”, he then deplored the absence of a Home Department. 40 President Jackson, like his predecessor, Adams, was impressed by the justness of Madison’s plea for an additional executive depart- ment. He gave the subject brief consideration in his first annual message of December, 1829. The State Department had from an early period, as he remarked, "been overburdened with business owing to many complications in our foreign relations. These relations, moreover, had been very much extended because of large additions made to the number of independent nations. The remedy proposed, the establishment of a Home Department, had not met favorable attention from Congress “ on account of its supposed tendency to increase gradually and imperceptibly, the already too strong bias of the federal system toward the exercise of authority not delegated to it ”. Accordingly in view of the popular expression of opposition he was himself disinclined to revive the old recommendation. Ap- preciating, however, the importance of somehow relieving the Secre- tary of State of larger burdens, he ventured to call the attention of Congress to the problem. 41 Congress was inclined to respond to the suggestion. They en- deavored to reorganize the office of the Attorney-General — a matter that Jackson considered of paramount importance — and carried out some slight alterations in that office during the spring of 1830. 42 The debates on the matter in the Senate show clearly that Webster, Rowan of Kentucky, and Barton of Missouri all favored a Home Department. One thing was perfectly obvious at this time — the incongruity in having Indian affairs under the Secretary of War, the Patent Office in the State Department, and a Secretary of the Treasury who was obliged by law to consider and decide innumerable problems connected with the public lands. 43 39 Printed in Senate Documents, 21 Cong., 1 sess. (1829-1830), vol. II., no. 109. The Report omits the text of a bill in a way which leads one to think that some- how the text might have been lost before the Report was printed. 40 The Jubilee of the Constitution, A Discourse delivered at the request of the New York Historical Society, in the City of New York, on Tuesday, the 30th of April, 1839 (New York, 1839), p. 77- 41 Messages and Papers, II. 461—462. 42 See Political Science Quarterly (September, 1909), XXIV. 453“45.4- 43 Register of Debates (1829-1830), vol. VI., pt. 1., pp. 276, 323-324- A text- book of the time remarked : “ It is the opinion of many intelligent persons, that The Secretaryship of the Interior 763 Just before his retirement from the presidency Jackson put him- , self on record regarding the prosperous condition of the executive departments, referring to the ability and integrity with which these departments had been conducted. 44 Somehow Jackson’s principal officers, it would seem, got on very well without a Home Depart- ment. But the topic of a Home Department cropped up in the newspapers occasionally after Jackson’s term, for administrative burdens were constantly increasing and seemed to demand more careful differentiation than they had yet received. 45 IV. President Polk followed Jackson’s lead in more ways than one. Like Jackson he called attention in his first annual message of De- cember, 1845, to the necessity of relieving the executive departments by redistributing various duties among them. The administrative organizations seemed to him in many places to be out of joint. He commented especially on the duties of a domestic nature which rested on the shoulders of the Secretary of State, and suggested that the Patent Office might well be transferred to the office of the Attorney- General. The tone of the recommendations was not robust and strong, but sounded as though Polk himself doubted whether, under the circumstances of trouble with Mexico over the Texas situation, Congress would be inclined to undertake measures of administrative reform. 46 No such measures at any rate were undertaken, for the war with Mexico soon absorbed attention and concentrated Con- gressional effort on other matters. Yet the results of the war — par- ticularly the acquisition of territory from Mexico — and the control of the Oregon country as the outcome of the treaty of 1846, were largely responsible for the ultimate attainment of a new department in 1849. Polk’s cabinet was carefully selected. It contained several men of marked ability: James Buchanan was Secretary of State; William L. Marcy was Secretary of War; and Robert J. Walker was Secre- tary of the Treasury. It was Walker who was largely responsible for arousing Congress to an appreciation of the vital need for the act on the basis of which the Department of the Interior was organ- ized in March, 1849. the labors of conducting the government could be more easily and correctly per- formed by the establishment of a Home Department. . . William Sullivan, The Political Class Book (Boston, 1831), p. 90. 44 Messages and Papers, III. 259. 45 National Intelligencer, October 21, December 8, 1841. The Cincinnati Gazette about this time was vigorous in its approval of the project for a Home Department. 46 Messages and Papers, IV. 414. 764 H. B. Learned Born and educated in Pennsylvania Robert J. Walker, while a young man, moved to Natchez, Mississippi, and there allied himself to some extent to southern interests. A lawyer by profession, he showed from early manhood a vigorous interest in politics and gained a leading position in advocating the candidacy of Andrew Jackson for the presidency. Like Jackson he opposed nullification and the re-chartering of the United States Bank. He favored the Indepen- dent Treasury system. Although an owner of slaves, he could not approve many features of the slavery regime. Entering the national Senate from Mississippi at about the age of thirty-five, he was soon made chairman of the Senate Committee on Public Lands and en- gaged actively in the work of lawmaking. He was an indefatigable expansionist, first favoring the recognition of the independence of the Texas republic, and later, in 1844, arguing for its annexation to the United States. His fellow-citizens of Mississippi marked him as their choice for the vice-presidency in the campaign of 1844. His selection the next year by President Polk as head of the Treasury Department fostered ability already apparent and gave him new and unexpected opportunities to reveal unusual powers in constructive statesmanship. His first report as Secretary of the Treasury raised a storm of debate and led to the so-called Walker Tariff Act of 1846, of which he was in reality the framer. During his later life he acted for a brief time (1857) as governor of Kansas, then in a con- dition of turmoil. When the war broke out between the states in 1861, Walker stood loyally by Lincoln’s administration and worked for it. He was for a time employed by the federal government as financial agent and expert on business that took him to Europe where he was able to negotiate some heavy loans for the Union cause. He died in Washington, in November, 1869. 47 On December 9, 1848, after serving nearly four years at the head of the Treasury Department, Walker was moved to make cer- tain definite recommendations to Congress in his last annual report for the purpose not only of relieving the Treasury Department from burdens, but also of altering the administrative organization in such a manner as ultimately to promote — as he explained — the interests of the American people. His report was dated four days later than Polk’s last annual message. There was a patriotic note in Walker’s suggestions that could not have escaped even a casual reader. In- deed it seems fair to assume that the Secretary of the Treasury con- sidered the report as his valedictory word to the American people, 47 Democratic Review (February, 1845), XVI. 157-164; Green Bag, XV. 101- 106; American Historical Review, X. 357; Appleton, Cyclopaedia of American Biography, VI. 329; Taussig, Tariff History, fifth edition, p. 114. The Secretaryship of the Interior 765 delivered, as it was, from a position of marked prominence. His suggestions on administrative organization are worthy of careful attention, for behind them were ripe experience and association with men and measures of a momentous epoch. Inevitably they reflected the administrative deficiencies of an earlier time. At the outset of his suggestions Walker was perhaps unduly deferential to the supposed wisdom of Congress in respect to any action that that body might be inclined to take. However, he began his considerations by asserting that the Treasury organization was defective and that its deficiencies made it peculiarly burdensome to any man at its head. In his view there was real danger lest the department might be broken down by the very weight of its own machinery. Its varied and important duties [he declared], with the rapid increase of our area, business and population, can scarcely be all promptly and properly performed by any one secretary. Yet in detaching any of its duties from this department, the greatest care must be taken not to impair the unity, simplicity, and efficiency of the system . . . there are important public duties having no necessary connexion with commerce or finance, that could be most advantageously separated from the treas- ury, and devolved upon a new department. . . , 48 This comment led Walker to the presentation of a positive plan for the new department which should be placed under a “ head ” — “ to be called the Secretary of the Interior, inasmuch as his duties would be connected with those branches of the public service . . . associated with our domestic affairs. The duties of this new depart- ment . . . would be great and important, fully equal to those apper- taining to the head of any other department except the treasury ” 49 In Walker’s plan there were five definite propositions, all of which were involved later in the act of 1849. I n ^ ie new depart- ment he }vould place, first, the work of the General Land Office. Second, he would relieve the Secretary of the Treasury of sundry duties of supervision which had no necessary connection with finance, but were concerned with the expenses of the courts of the United States. Third, Indian affairs should have a place in the new department. Fourth, the Patent Office, taken from the super- vision of the State Department, should come under the Secretary off the Interior. Finally, the Pension Office, a burden to the War Department, should also find a place under the new official. On the subject of the Land Office, Walker was especially detailed and informing. “The business of the Land Office”, he wrote, 48 Executive Documents , 30 Cong., 2 sess. (1848-1849), II., Doc. 7, p. 35. 49 Ibid., p. 37 - 766 H. B. Learned “ occupies a very large portion of the time of the Secretary of the Treasury every day, and his duties connected therewith must be greatly increased by the accession of our immense domain in Oregon, New Mexico, and California, especially in connexion with their valuable mineral lands, their private land claims, and conflicting titles. From all decisions of the Commissioner . . he continued, “an appeal lies to the Secretary of the Treasury.” Then he added this comment from his own experience : I have pronounced judgment in upwards of five thousand cases, in- volving land titles, since the tenth of March, 1845. These are generally judicial questions . . . requiring often great labor and research, and having no necessary connexion with the duties of the Treasury Depart- ment. 50 Indian affairs called forth this statement : The duties now performed by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs are most numerous . . . and must be vastly increased with the great number of tribes scattered over Texas, Oregon, New Mexico, and California. . . . These duties do not necessarily appertain to war, but to peace, and to our domestic relations with those tribes. . . . This most important bureau, then, should be detached from the War Department, with which it has no necessary connexion. 51 About two months after Walker’s report was made, Samuel F. Vinton of Ohio, a leading Whig and chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means in the House, presented a bill approved by his committee for the purpose of organizing a Department of the Inte- rior. 52 Vinton promptly acknowledged that it had been prepared by the Secretary of the Treasury at the special request of the committee. “ The bill ”, he declared, “ with one or two unimportant alterations . . . was the bill as it came from the hands of the Secretary of the Treasury.” Some time during the previous month of January it appeared that Vinton had visited Walker and had then urgently requested him to prepare a bill. 53 This notable origin of the measure aroused not a word of com- ment in the debates in the House. One of the less conspicuous sena- tors, however, was moved to remark that it should have been “ a cabinet measure ”. Lack of co-operation on the part of the other principal officers tended in his opinion to condemn it. 54 The House showed some opposition to the bill. Howell Cobb of Georgia, in the lead of the hostile elements, gave three reasons for 50 Executive Documents, 30 Cong., 2 sess. (1848-1849), II., Doc. 7, p. 35. 51 Ibid., p. 36. 52 February 12, 1849. 53 Congressional Globe, 30 Cong., 2 sess. (1848—1849), XX. 514. 54 Ibid., p. 687. Allen of Ohio, March 3. The Secretaryship of the Interior 767 opposing the bill. He dwelt at some length on the fact that no pre- ceding Congress had ever been willing to sanction such a measure. He showed that a new department would increase considerably the federal patronage. Moreover it was certain to add “ another Cabinet officer to the Government ”. 55 But Cobb and his followers failed to convince. On February 15 the bill passed the House by 112 yeas to 78 nays. 56 This step had hardly been accomplished when John G. Palfrey of Massachusetts moved to amend the title by striking out “ Department of the Interior ” and substituting for it “ Home Department”. 57 This suggestion of Palfrey, truly doctrinaire in view of the fact that there was no reference in the text of the bill to anything but a Department of the Interior, fixed the title in law with an incongruity that did not escape later comment. Both Ewing and Stuart, first and third Secretaries of the Interior, referred to the matter. 58 The Senate discussions over the bill were vigorous and at times acrid, but they were confined to a single day and evening session, for the bill was not reported by Senator R. M. T. Hunter of Virginia until March 3, the last day of the Thirtieth Congress. Hunter was mild in his opposition by comparison with his colleague, Senator James M. Mason, grandson of Colonel George Mason, member of the Philadelphia Convention of 1787. Mason made quite the most bitter protest against the bill that the record of debate shows ; and he was seconded in his position by John C. Calhoun. The leaders of the small Senate majority that favored the measure were Daniel Webster of Massachusetts and Jefferson Davis of Mississippi. Both these men argued ably and well. The bill passed the Senate by a vote of 31 yeas to 25 nays. 59 The particular note sounded by the Senate opposition at different times in the course of the debate was first suggested by Hunter. 60 It was not a new note, for Jackson’s quick ear had detected it as far back as 1829, and it was probably even then well known. It was the expression of fear of any tendency that seemed likely to increase, however imperceptibly, the bias of the federal system toward author- ity not clearly delegated. The proposal in 1849 to create a new department — even though the move was really scarcely more than a readjustment of existing organization — aroused this fear in a manner not easy to understand. The fear was expressed in some variety of 55 Ibid., p. 516. 56 Ibid., p. 543. 67 Ibid., p. 544. 58 See note 2 at the end of this article. 59 Globe, 30 Cong., 2 sess., p. 680. 60 Ibid., pp. 670 ff. 768 H. B. Learned ways. “ Mr. President ”, exclaimed Calhoun, “ there is something ominous in the expression, 4 The Secretary of the Interior \ This Government . . . was made to take charge of the exterior relations of the States. And if there had been no exterior relations, the Fed- eral Government would never have existed. . . . Sir, the name 4 Inte- rior Department ’ itself indicates a great change in the public mind. . . . Everything upon the face of God’s earth will go into the Home Department .” 61 Senator Niles of Connecticut felt that 44 the whole tendency of this Government is ... to foster and enlarge the execu- tive power which is becoming a maelstrom to swallow up all the power of the Government ”. 62 To Senator Mason the bill for the new department seemed a project destined to place industrial pursuits and other interior con- cerns under the management of the general government. He could not avoid the sectional note : Are we to increase this central power? More especially are we who belong to the South — who have very little more interest in this country than to have the protection of our independence with the other States; from whom a great part of the revenue is drawn, and to whom very little of it is returned; who pay everything to Federal power, and re- ceive nothing for it. . . . A little further along he declared : We have yet some hope, although it may be impaired by the expe- rience of every day, that the State organizations will yet outlive the overshadowing influence of this Federal Government . 63 Into this confusion of thought and juggling with words there came the clearer ideas of such men as Webster and Davis. 44 Why call this the Secretary of the Interior?”, asked Webster in response to Calhoun’s rhetoric about a title. 44 The impression seems to be that we are going to carry the power of the Government further into the interior. ... I do not so understand it. Where is the power? It is only that certain powers heretofore exercised by certain agents are to be exercised by other agents. That is the whole of it .” 64 To Webster, grown old in active efforts for his country’s welfare, his mind filled with recollections of the past, the historic aspect of the measure must have been deeply significant. 44 As far back as the time of Mr. Monroe ”, he said, 44 and up to this time, persons most skilled and of the most experience in the administration of this Gov- ernment, have recommended the creation of some other department. . . . Gentlemen can remember what . . . Mr. Madison said on that subject.” Then in another vein he added: 91 Globe, 30 Cong., 2 sess., p. 672. 62 Ibid., p. 671. 63 Ibid., p. 672. 64 Ibid., p. 677. v The Secretaryship of the Interior 769 It is said, but not very conclusively, that we create offices from time to time, and make additions to salaries. . . . Well, the country is increas- ing;. the business of the Government is increasing; there is a great deal more work to be done. . . . This bill may not be perfect. . . . But the popular branch of the Legislature has passed it. It is here. It is my opinion that there is a general sense in the country that some such pro- vision is necessary . 65 Jefferson Davis was not forgetful of the force of an appeal to the past. He reminded his fellow senators that several of the great Virginian presidents were believers in the ideal of the bill. But perhaps his particular contribution to the debate was his reference in the following passage to the import of the bill to the “ new States ”, among which Mississippi was at this time reckoned. “ I feel a very peculiar interest in this measure ”, he asserted, “ as every one who comes from a new State must feel.” Then he said : We are peopling the public lands; the inhabitants of the old States are the people of commerce. The Treasury belongs to us in common. The Secretaries of the Treasury must be taken from those portions of the country where they have foreign commerce, and therefore they are men who are not so intimately connected and acquainted with the relations and interests of the public lands in the new States . 66 The implication was obvious that the interests of the new and the inland states were likely to be better guarded if the new department could be established. To several Democrats the fact that a new Cabinet officer would have to be appointed was a disturbing thought. “We are assuming that those who are to succeed us require more advisers than we have had ; we are doing that thing which they ought to do, if they think it is required.” 67 To the reader of the debates of 1849 the balance of argument seems strongly in favor of the measure. So thought the majority in both Senate and House. Late on the night of March 3 the bill was presented to President Polk for his signature. It was a long bill — too long to have received any very careful consideration from Polk during these last hours of his presidency. I had serious objections to it [wrote Polk several weeks later in his Diary'], but they were not of a constitutional character and I signed it with reluctance. I fear its consolidating tendency. I apprehend its practical operation will be to draw power from the states, where the Constitution has reserved it, and to extend the jurisdiction and power of the U. S. by construction to an unwarrantable extent. Had I been a member of Congress I would have voted against it. 65 Ibid., p. 671. 69 Ibid., pp. 669-670. 67 Ibid., p. 670. 77 o H. B. Learned In Polk’s eyes the measure was inexpedient. It is altogether prob- able that, had he had more time, he would have vetoed it. 68 But fortunately the long struggle ended as it did. Three days later, on March 6, President Taylor sent to the Senate the name of Thomas Ewing of Ohio as first Secretary of the Interior. And on March 8 Ewing, duly commissioned, entered upon his duties, taking his place as seventh member of the Cabinet. V. The plan of an Interior Department in 1848-1849 was essentially a Democratic measure in its source. It was the direct result of the pressure of administrative burdens. There is no evidence to show that general opinion outside administrative or Congressional circles had anything whatever to do with it. It was certainly not the out- come of wide-spread demand or popular pressure. The establishment of the department was mainly dependent upon a House of Representatives containing a small Whig majority (11 7 Whigs and 111 Democrats) and upon a Democratic Senate (36 Democrats and 22 Whigs). 69 Circumstances and a few clear-headed men happily combined to enforce its need. The war with Mexico was over and settled. The new regions added to the national domain during Polk’s term had increased or were likely to increase the burdens of administration to such an extent as to make the demand for a new administrative official and organization imperative. 70 The official, Secretary of the Interior Department, was conceived of as one who would naturally assume the rank and position of a Cabinet member. His department was bound to increase the range of the federal patronage. Knowledge, of these facts served inevitably in Congress to smooth the way of the measure among Whig partizans, for Taylor was about to take office as a Whig president in succes- sion to a Democratic regime. Much was to be said in favor of the intrinsic merits of the plan. It would provide, as Webster pointed out, a necessary organization. The action of the Ways and Means Committee together with the vote on the bill in the House afforded some evidence that the public was ready to approve such a readjust- ment of administrative work as would facilitate the tasks of the federal government which were growing year by year more numer- ous and more complicated. Though familiar to public men since the foundation period of the 68 The Diary of James K. Polk during his Presidency , ed. M. M. Quaife (Chicago, 1910), IV. 371-372. 69 Globe, 30 Cong., 2 sess., p. 516. 70 See note 3 at the end of this article. The Secretaryship of the Interior 77 1 Constitution and advocated more or less forcibly by such characters as Madison, Monroe, John Quincy Adams, and Andrew Jackson, the idea of a Department of the Interior was newly conceived and clearly formulated by an experienced and public-spirited Secretary of the Treasury from Mississippi. For the plan of organization Robert J. Walker has never received from any historian the credit that is his just due. 71 He voiced the need and launched the project more carefully than any statesman before him. But it must not be over- looked that his plan was skilfully and ably supported in a doubting Senate by two such leaders as Daniel Webster and Jefferson Davis. Henry Barrett Learned. Notes i. Judge Augustus B. Woodward (c. 1775-1827) had published in 1809 a pamphlet entitled Considerations on the Executive Govern- ment of the United States of America (Flatbush, N. Y., pp. 87). In 1824 he was again writing on various phases of administrative work and taking a particular interest in the project for a Home Depart- ment — a subject, it should be said, which was not even mentioned in his pamphlet of 1809. Articles of his which I have observed will be found in the files of the National Journal of Washington, D. C., as follows : April 24, 1824. “ On the Necessity and Importance of a Department of Domestic Affairs, in the Government of the United States.” May 29. “ On the Distribution of the Bureaux in a Department of Foreign Affairs: Supplementary to the discussion on the necessity and importance of a Department of Domestic Affairs. . . .” May 27 to August 31. At intervals between these dates there appeared about a dozen articles on The Presidency. These, together with the two foregoing articles, were collected and printed in the form of a pamphlet entitled: The Presidency of the United States, by A. B. Woodward (New York, 1825, pp. 88). The copyright date of this rare pamphlet was May 21, 1825. April 9, 1825. Letter from Willie Blount to Judge Woodward of Florida, dated March 14, 1825, approving Woodward’s plan of a Department of Domestic Affairs. Woodward’s reply. May 21. Letter of Major H. Lee to Judge Woodward, dated April 14. Woodward’s reply. In the National Intelligencer of Washington, D. C., of April 23, 26, and 28, 1825, Woodward’s two articles that had appeared the year before in the National Journal of April 24 and May 29 were reprinted with a brief editorial comment on April 28 in favor of his plans. In general Woodward was opposed to what he termed the “ cabinet system ”, but his -writings do not leave the impression that 71 But see Schouler, History of the United States, V. 121. 772 H. B. Learned he had any very definite or practical substitute to ofifer in its place. In 1824 he was appointed federal judge for the West District of Florida ( National Intelligencer, February 26, 1825). The probable year of his death is given as 1827 in Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, VI. 606. He appears to have been interested in science as well as government. Charles Moore has thrown some light on an earlier phase of Woodward’s career in a slight sketch entitled Governor, Judge, and Priest: Detroit, 1805-1815. A paper read before the Witenagemote on Friday evening, October the Second, 1891 (New York, pp. 24). 2. The first Secretary of the Interior, Thomas Ewing, in his Report of December 3, 1849, wrote: The department is named in the title “A Home Department ” ; but the body of the act provided that it shall be called “ The Department of the Interior The title of the act, being the part last adopted in the process of enactment, is believed to express the intention of Congress as to the name. . . . Secretary Alexander H. H. Stuart suggested in his Report of December 2, 1850, that Congress remove the ambiguity. But nothing was done until the revision of the statutes in 1873, when the depart- ment was properly entitled and characterized for the first time as an “ Executive ” department. In r’espect to the incongruity between the title and the text of the act of 1849, I venture to quote from a per- sonal letter on the point sent to me under date of April 13, 1910, by Mr. Middleton Beaman, librarian of the Law Library of Congress and the Supreme Court: So far as I know, the title of the act of 1849 is the only instance in which the title “ Home Department ” is used in legislation. Examina- tion of the indexes of the Statutes at Large from 1849 to 1873 discloses numerous instances of reference to this department as the “ Interior Department ”. . . . The title of the original act cannot govern the usage, as the body of the act expressly declared that the department should be called “ The Department of the Interior ”. By well settled rules of stat- utory construction the title of an act can have no weight except where the provisions of the act itself are ambiguous. I therefore am of opin- ion that the official designation has always been “ The Department of the Interior 3. Growth of the National Domain. The extent of the land acquisitions that were made to the United States in Polk’s adminis- tration will be easily understood by the following table : 1781-1802: Cessions by the States 1803 : Louisiana Purchase . 1805 : Oregon 1812: West Florida 1819: Florida 819,81s square miles. 877,268 225,948 9740 1 he Secretaryship of the Interior 773 1845: Texas 262,290 square miles. 1846: Region north of the Colorado River. 58,880 1848: Colorado and New Mexico 614,439 1853 : Gadsden Purchase 47,330 (Taken from Professor T. N. Carver’s article, “ History of American Agriculture ”, in L. H. Bailey’s Cyclopaedia of American Agriculture, IV. 50.) It should be noted that none of the land in Texas belonged to the public domain and that much of the land in Colorado and New Mexico had been granted to private individuals before these regions came under the jurisdiction of the United States.