Washington and His Colleagues | Page 7

owing to practical experience and not to the language of the Constitution that the President was soon repelled from using the Senate as his privy council and was thrown back upon the aid of the heads of the executive departments, who were thus drawn close to him as his Cabinet.[Footnote: In this formative process the Postmaster-General was left outside in Washington's time, since his functions were purely of a business nature, not directly affected by the issues on which Washington desired advice. The Postmaster-General did not become a member of the Cabinet until 1829.]
The inchoate character of the Cabinet for a considerable period explains what might otherwise seem to be an anomaly,--the delay of Jefferson in occupying his post. He did not arrive until March 21, 1790, when Washington had been in office nearly a year. But this situation occasioned no remark. The notion that the heads of the departments formed a cabinet, taking office with the President and reflecting his personal choice as his advisers, was not developed until long after Washington's administration, although the Cabinet itself, as a distinct feature of the system of government, dates from his first term. The importance which the Cabinet soon acquired is evidence that, even under a written constitution, institutions owe more to circumstances than to intentions. The Constitution of the United States is no exception to the rule that the true constitution of a country is the actual distribution of power, written provisions being efficacious only in the way and to the extent that they affect such distribution in practice. Hence results may differ widely from the expectations with which those provisions are introduced. A constitution is essentially a growth and never merely a contrivance.
CHAPTER II
GREAT DECISIONS
While Washington was bearing with military fortitude the rigors and annoyances of the imitation court in which he was confined, Congress reached decisions that had a vast effect in determining the actual character of the government. The first business in order of course was the raising of revenue, for the treasury was empty, and payments of interest due on the French and Spanish loans were years behind. Madison attacked this problem before Washington arrived in New York to take the oath of office. On April 8 he introduced in the House a resolution which aimed only at giving immediate effect to a scheme of duties and imposts that had been approved generally by the States in 1783. On the very next day debate upon this resolution began in the committee of the whole, for there was then no system of standing committees to intervene between the House and its business. The debate soon broadened out far beyond the lines of the original scheme, and in it the student finds lucidly presented the issues of public policy that have accompanied tariff debates ever since.
Madison laid down the general principle that "commerce ought to be free, and labor and industry left at large to find its proper object," but suggested that it would be unwise to apply this principle without regard to particular circumstances. "Although interest will, in general, operate effectually to produce political good, yet there are causes in which certain factitious circumstances may divert it from its natural channel, or throw or retain it in an artificial one." In language which now reads like prophecy he referred to cases "where cities, companies, or opulent individuals engross the business from others, by having had an uninterrupted possession of it, or by the extent of their capitals being able to destroy a competition." The same situation could occur between nations, and had to be considered. There was some truth, he also thought, in the opinion "that each nation should have within itself the means of defense, independent of foreign supplies," but he considered that this argument had been urged beyond reason, as "there is good reason to believe that, when it becomes necessary, we may obtain supplies abroad as readily as any other nation whatsoever." He instanced as a cogent reason in favor of protective duties that, as the States had formerly the power of making regulations of trade to cherish their domestic interests, it must be presumed that, when they put the exercise of this power into other hands by adopting the Constitution, "they must have done this with the expectation that those interests would not be neglected" by Congress.
Actuated by such views, and doubtless also influenced by the great need for revenue, Madison was on the whole favorable to amendments extending the list of dutiable articles. Though there were conflicts between members from manufacturing districts and those from agricultural constituencies, and though the salt protectionists of New York had some difficulty in carrying their point, the contention did not follow sectional lines. Coal was added to the list on the motion of a member from