Page:Life of Henry Clay (Schurz; v. 2).djvu/43

Rh gles in England against the royal pretension to hold both the sword and the purse, as well as of the revolutionary fight against taxation without representation. Thus it was not only provided in the Constitution that Congress should have the exclusive power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay debts, and to borrow money on the credit of the United States, to coin money and regulate the value thereof, but the first Congress, creating the State, War, and Treasury Departments, made a remarkable distinction between them. While the State and the War Departments were, in the language of the law, called “executive departments,” the Treasury Department received no such designation. The Secretaries of State and of War were commanded by the law “to perform and execute such duties as shall, from time to time, be enjoined on or intrusted to them by the President of the United States.” The Secretary of the Treasury was not commanded by the law to perform such duties as might be in trusted to him by the President, but was commanded to perform certain duties enumerated in the act, and to make report, not to the President, but directly to Congress.

The theory was, therefore, adhered to by many that the Secretary of the Treasury was not, like the heads of other departments, under the direction of the Executive, but that he was the agent of Congress, and that Congress substantially should control the Treasury Department. Clay held to this