tice of requiring the heads of departments to appear in person and give explanations upon any desired subject during Washington’s administration, had no power to disturb such officials, and regarded them as under the executive, and of subordinate importance.1
Hamilton was not slow in applying all the skill and method of which he was master to the production of an elaborate report of the condition of the Treasury; he also unfolded his plans for the maintenance of the public credit, and on Saturday, the 2nd of January, submitted both to the President, who, after reading, and conversing for some time with the secretary on the subject, walked to Chief Justice Jay’s residence, with whom he still further discussed the important matter, remaining to drink tea informally with the chief justice and his family. Secretary Knox presented his report of the state of the frontiers to the President on the 4th, the day on which commenced the second session of the first Congress.
It is interesting to note the formalities observed by President Washington in his early intercourse with the legislative branch of the government. Following the example of the king and parliament of Great Britain, he inaugurated a custom of delivering in person his message on the opening of Congress to the two houses sitting in a joint session — which was subsequently abandoned. Arrangements having been perfected by a committee, he drove on Friday, the 8th, at eleven o’clock in the morning, to Federal Hall in Wall Street, in a coach drawn by six horses preceded (quoting his own language) “by Colonel Humphreys and Major Jackson in uniform, on my two white horses, and followed by Messrs. Lear and Nelson in my chariot, and Mr. Lewis, on horseback, following them. In their rear was the Chief Justice of the United States, and the Secretaries of the Treasury and War Departments, in their respective carriages, and in the order they are named. At the outer door I was met by the door-keepers of the Senate and House, and conducted to the door of the Senate-Chamber; and passing from thence to the chair through the Senate on the right, and the House on the left, I took my seat. The gentlemen who attended me followed and
- 1 "In the month of July the Senate ordered that the Secretary of Foreign Affairs attend the Senate to-morrow, and bring with him such papers as are requisite to give full information relative to the consular convention between France and the United States. The secretary appeared according to the resolution, and made the required explanations. The secretaries were the creatures of the law, not of the Constitution; and for that reason Mr. Jefferson was of opinion that neither branch of Congress had a right to call upon the heads of the departments for information or papers, except through the President. That practice has long since been abandoned; and all communications between the houses of Congress and the departments are by correspondence.” — Shaffner's History of America, Div. III.
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