When Jackson became President and referred to the need of attending to the business of reorganizing the attorney-general's office and of placing that officer 'on the same footing in all respects as the heads of the other departments," he found a Congress ready to heed his suggestions. Originally, as has been shown, the office had left its incumbent ample time for private practice. By Jackson's day it was reckoned "one of daily duty." It was important to Jackson that the attorney-general should not be called away from the seat of government. With—a fair increase in salary and a residence requirement, the officer could be charged with the general superintendence of the government's legal concerns.[1]
In the spring of 1830 a bill bearing on the subject was introduced into the Senate. Its objects were to reorganize the office of the attorney-general in such a way as to erect it into an executive department; to transfer to it from the state department the work of the patent office; to give to the attorney-general the superintendence of the collection of debts due the government; and to raise the salary of the attorney-general to six thousand dollars—exactly the salary then provided for each of the four secretaries. Such arrangements, it was argued, would do away with the need, at any rate for some time to come, of organizing a home department. The plan, it was assumed, would shut out the attorney-general from practice other than what he would be called on to conduct on behalf of the government in the supreme court. But the anomalous position of an attorney-general so burdened was at once apparent. In particular the plan seemed to ignore the essential fact that the attorney-general was primarily a law officer. And so it was easily defeated.[2]
Daniel Webster opposed this bill. He had no faith in the attempt thus to forestall a home department. Moreover, he wished the attorney-general still to continue in private practice without too much restriction. The old salary ($3,500) was relatively low for the position, but not too low, it was urged,
