The ordinary business of every day is done
by consultation between the President and the Head of the department
alone to which it belongs. For measures of importance or difficulty, a
consultation is held with the Heads of departments, either assembled, or
by taking their opinions separately in conversation or in writing. The
latter is most strictly in the spirit of the constitution. Because the
President, on weighing the advice of all, is left free to make up an
opinion for himself. In this way they are not brought together, and it
is not necessarily known to any what opinion the others have given. This
was General Washington's practice for the first two or three years of
his administration, till the affairs of France and England threatened
to embroil us, and rendered consideration and discussion desirable. In
these discussions, Hamilton and myself were daily pitted in the cabinet
like two cocks. We were then but four in number, and, according to the
majority, which of course was three to one, the President decided.
The pain was for Hamilton and myself, but the public experienced no
inconvenience. I practised this last method, because the harmony was so
cordial among us all, that we never failed, by a contribution of mutual
views of the subject, to form an opinion acceptable to the whole. I
think there never was one instance to the contrary, in any case of
consequence. Yet this does, in fact, transform the executive into a
directory, and I hold the other method to be more constitutional.
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