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legislation gradually arose. In many States more power was given to the governor and less to the legislature. The gubernatorial term of office was lengthened while it was provided that the legislature should sit less frequently than once a year as had been the general practice before, and shorter sessions were demanded. More attention was paid to constitutional revisions and to the enactment of laws by constitutional amendments voted by the people at large, rather than by enactments of the legislature. It was found that much legislation was hasty, local, and prompted by special and political interests; and provisions prohibiting such legislation were placed in many State constitutions. As the Twentieth century opened, the disposition to put more responsibility upon the executive, upon heads of departments, boards of commissioners, and other executive officials who could be held directly amenable to public opinion, was markedly on the increase. The new political policies of the initiative, the referendum, the recall, and city government by commission, adopted

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in many States, was a further indication of a popular distrust of executive and legislator and a popular determination to exercise a closer and firmer control over governmental affairs.*

Congressional Globe (Washington, 1865-73)'s' E. B. Andrews, History of the Last Quarter. Century in the United States (2 vols., New York, 1895); James Bryce, The American Commonwealth (2 vols., New York, 1893); M. P. Follet, The Speaker of the House of Representatives (New York, 1896); L. G. McConachie, Congressional Committees: A Study of the Origin and Development of Our National and Local Legislative Methods (New York, 1898); Woodrow Wilson, Congressional Government: A Study in American Politics (Boston, 1885); John Sherman, Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet (2 vols., New York, 1895); J. G. Blaine, Twenty Years of Congress (2 vols., Norwich, Conn., 1884-86); S. S. Cox, Three Decades of Federal Legislation (Providence, 1885); F. N. Thorpe, Constitutional History of the United States (3 vols., Chicago, 1901); Congres sional Record (Washington, 1873, to date); The Public Statutes-at-Large (1865, to date); Henry Wilson, Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in the United States (3 vols., Boston, 1872-77); J. J. Lalor (ed.), Cyclopedia of Political Science, Political Economy and of the Political History of the United States (3 vols., Chicago, 1884); A Biographical Congressional Directory, 1774–1903 (Washington, 1903); Charles Lanman, Biographical Annals of the Civil Government of the United States During Its First Century (New York, 1876); George S. Boutwell, Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs (2 vols., New York, 1902).

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EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS.

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CHAPTER II.

1865-1912.

THE NATIONAL EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS.

The organization and work of the Department of Agriculture - Bureaus of the State Department - Additions to the Treasury Department - Receipts and expenditures of the Government - Prominent incumbents of the office of Attorney-General — Changes in the Postal service — Work of the Post-Office Department Scope of the Department of the Interior Establishment of the Department of Commerce and Labor The Presidential succession.

At the close of the Civil War, the State, Treasury, Army, Navy, PostOffice and Interior Departments of the National Government-six in all— were in existence. There was a Department of Agriculture, but it was not on a footing with the other departments. Originally connected with the Patent Office, it became independent in 1862, with a commissioner at its head. In 1889 the department was raised in rank, its head becoming Secretary of Agriculture and a member of the President's Cabinet. The first Secretary was Norman J. Coleman, and his successors have been Jeremiah M. Black, J. Sterling Morton, and James Wilson. Regarded with slight favor at the time of its creation, the department has become one of the most useful branches of the Government and one of the greatest scientific establishments of its kind anywhere in the world. In 1884 a Bureau of Animal Industry was created in the department, and in 1888 the Office of Experiment Stations. Since then there has been added the Weather Bureau in 1891, transferred

from the War Department, and bureaus of Plant Industry, Soils, Forestry and Chemistry in 1901. There are now also divisions of biology and entomology. The department issues a year book, farmers' bulletins, periodicals, pamphlets and books, to the annual number of over 600.

After an assistant Secretary was provided for the Department of State, no additions were made to the official personnel of that department until 1866, when the office of second assistant was created, and 1874, when a third assistant secretary was added. The business of the department is handled by seven bureaus - the diplomatic, consular, indexes and archives, accounts, rolls and library, foreign commerce, and appointments. Since the incumbency of William H. Seward as Secretary (1861-1869) there have been 15 Secretaries, including such statesmen as Hamilton Fish, William M. Evarts, F. T. Frelinghuysen, T. F. Bayard, James G. Blaine, John Sherman, John Hay, Elihu Root, and P. C. Knox. There have been 39 Secretaries during our National existence.

Since the close of the Civil War, the activities of the Treasury Department have been expanded in some directions and curtailed in others. It still has general supervision of the revenues and disbursements of the Government, but several of its bureaus have been removed to other departments, particularly to that of the Interior. The office of the Director of the Mint, created in 1792, became a bureau of the Treasury Department in 1873, the reorganized Marine Hospital Service in 1870, and the Life Saving Service in 1878. In 1862 the Government began to print its own notes and securities, and in 1874 the Bureau of Printing and Engraving was organized. With the institution of the National bank system in 1863, the office of Comptroller of the Currency was created to have supervision thereof.

cept as national expansion has added to its duties. After the Civil War a Provost Marshal Generals Bureau and the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands were established to handle certain phases of the reconstruction work in the Southern States. After the war with Spain and the acquisition of the Philippines, the Bureau of Insular Affairs was established to have oversight of the work of establishing civil government in those islands.

There was an Attorney-General as early as 1789, Edmund Randolph being the first. Among his most distinguished successors were Charles Lee, John Breckinridge, William Pinkney, Richard Rush, Roger B. Taney, Benjamin F. Butler, J. J. Crittenden, John Y. Mason, Reverdy Johnson, Caleb Cushing, Edwin M. Stanton, William M. Evarts and Ebenezer R. Hoar. The office was not created into a department until 1870 and Amos T. Ackerman was the first Attorney-General to sit in the Cabinet of the President. From that time the AttorneyGenerals have been 16 in number, including Alphonso Taft, Wayne McVeagh, Richard Olney, Judson Harmon, Joseph McKenna, William H. 789,318,771 763,103,908 Moody, C. J. Bonaparte, and George W. Wickersham. To assist the Attorney-General, are a solicitor-general, assistant attorney-generals, and other law officers.

The following table gives the gross annual receipts and expenditures of the Government from all sources including postal revenues for 1900for 19001910.*

1900.

1901

1902

1903

1904

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1906 1907

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1909

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Receipts. Expenditures. $686,953,491 $663,915,277 712,203,099 690,987,355 717,064,085 683,391,489 720,378.141 694,111,489 710,167,679 776,802,225 719,994,021 746,568,098

909,913,238 818,541,147
897,676,792 924.566,889
883,507,121 1,002,303,040
997,587,000 964,086,000

In the War Department there has been little administrative change, ex

* See the annual Statistical Abstract of the United States.

During the administration of President Johnson (1865-1869) important advances were made in the Post

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