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The History of the Department of State: VII

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 May 2017

Gaillard Hunt
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Extract

Having considered in former numbers of this Journal the sometime and occasional duties of the Department, including among them certain contingent duties which it has never been called upon to perform, we may now advance to a consideration of its habitual functions.

The organic act of the Department prescribed that the Secretary of State should keep “ the seal of the United States.” It is the mark of the supreme authority of the United States, and before the government went into operation under the Constitution, was in the custody of the Secretary of Congress, being used to verify all important acts, whether executive or legislative; but the debate on executive departments in the first constitutional congress indicated that Congress did not contemplate keeping the seal any longer, and thought it would necessarily pass to the custody of the Executive. The President did, in fact, take it under his control as soon as he assumed office and before legal provision had been made for it.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Journal of International Law , Volume 5 , Issue 2 , April 1911 , pp. 414 - 432
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of International Law 1911

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References

1 See the History of the Seal of the United States (Hunt), Washington, Department of State, 1909.

2 23 Stat. 194.

3 32 Stat. 552.

4 32 Stat. 1032.

5 1 Cranch 156.

6 18 Stat. 23.

7 18 Stat. 420.

8 25 Stat. 387.

9 Bureau of Appointments, blank forms and record books.

10 Bureau of Indexes and Archives, Letters of Credence.

11 12 Stat. 326.

12 23 Stat. 22.

13 See Calendar of Applications and Recommendations for Office During the Presidency of George Washington (Hunt), Government Printing Office, 1901.

14 Works of John Adams, IX, 577; Writings of Jefferson (Ford), IX, 313.