Washington 1789-1796 political cabinet

POLITICAL

*The cabinet, the President’s advisors, were mentioned only briefly in the Constitution; it only mentions that the President must receive Senate approval for appointments and that they were liable to impeachment

*The first cabinet, established by Congress, consisted of four departments: state (Thomas Jefferson), treasury (Alexander Hamilton), war (Henry Knox), and an attorney general (Edmund Randolph)

*Vice President John Adams’s tie-breaking vote defeated a proposal that would have forbidden the president from dismissing cabinet officers without Senate approval (In the future this becomes an issue with the Tenure of Office Act during the Andrew Johnson administration