It
is like the English cabinet in being composed of heads of executive
departments and in being, as a body, unknown to the law; in other
respects the difference is very great. The English cabinet is the
executive committee of the House of Commons, and exercises a guiding
and directing influence upon legislation. The position of the president is
not at all like that of the prime minister; it is more like that of
the English sovereign, though the latter has not nearly so much power
as the president; and the American cabinet in some respects resembles
the English privy council, though it cannot make ordinances.
[Sidenote: The secretary of state.]
The secretary of state ranks first among our cabinet officers. He is
often called our prime minister or "premier," but there could not be
a more absurd use of language. In order to make an American personage
corresponding to the English prime minister we must first go to the
House of Representatives, take its committee of ways and means and
its committee on appropriations, and unite them into one committee of
finance; then we must take the chairman of this committee, give him
the power of dissolving the House and ordering a new election, and
make him master of all the executive departments, while at the
same time we strip from the president all real control over the
administration.
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