the Constitution and laws; but there are numerous other provisions scattered through the statutes conferring upon the Executive, functions and powers and requiring duties from him as to minor details of our Indian service, of emigration, public lands, revenue, coast survey, &c., which are necessarily involved in the faithful execution of the laws regarding those titles, and in the supervision of those subjects, under the direction of the President, by the proper heads of departments respectively. 23. The acts of these heads of departments are in law the acts of the President. He acts by and through them. The executive power is vested in him. It is not necessary, generally, in order to the proper performance of duties specifically required of him by law, nor is it essential to constitute the act a valid one, that his direction of the subject-matter shall be a personal one, or that it shall appear that the act was done through his direction; but such direction on his part will, in general, be presumed as regards all official acts of the head of the proper department. (13 Peters, p. 498; 16 Id., p. 291; 1 How., p. 290; 7 Opins., p. 453.) CHAPTER II. THE EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS GENERALLY. 24. Provision is made in the statutes of the United States for seven executive departments of the General Government, namely: The Department of State. The Department of War. The Department of the Treasury. The Post Office Department. The Department of Justice. The Department of the Interior. 25. Each of these departments is directed in its operations by a head, who, upon any subject relating to the duties of his office, is constituted by the supreme law of the land an adviser of the President. The functions and duties of these high executive officers are well defined by law, in general and special provisions aiming to restrict their operations within proper and wellguarded limits, the better to promote the political and material interests of the people, and to afford security against usurpation and abuse of power. 26. Each is authorized to prescribe rules and regulations for the government of his department, the distribution and transaction of its business, and the custody, use, and preservation of the records and property appertaining to it. He is authorized to employ such a number of clerks of the several classes as is authorized by law, or as may be appropriated for by Congress. These clerks are classified by the Revised Statutes as clerks of the fourth, third, second, and first classes. In addition to these, provision is made from time to time, according to the requirements of any department, for a limited number of temporary clerks. The number of those of the four classes named, which are understood to constitute the regular or permanent clerical force of the departments, is restricted or enlarged from year to year by the appropriation acts, in accordance with the demands of the public business or with the judgment of Congress. 27. It is required by law that no person shall be appointed in either of the classes named until he shall have been examined and found qualified by a board of three examiners, to consist of the head of the bureau in which the appointment is to be made and two clerks to be selected by the head of the appropriate department. (R. S., § 164.) 28. Each department has a disbursing clerk, (the Treasury one additional,) who is required to give bond for the faithful discharge of his duties, which consist, mainly, of the payment of salaries and the contingent expenses of the department. With the exception of those in the Treasury Department, each is required to superintend the buildings occupied by his department. (R. S., § 176.) 29. Besides these, the Revised Statutes provide for and create an officer for each department, and for some of the bureaus thereof, designated as chief clerk, with well-defined and important duties and functions. He is to supervise the duties of the other clerks in his department or bureau, and to see that they are faithfully performed. He is to take care, from time to time, that the duties of the other clerks are distributed with equality and uniformity, according to the nature of the case. He is to revise such distribution from time to time, for the purpose of correcting any tendency to undue accumulation or reduction of duties, whether arising from individual negligence or incapacity, or from increase or diminution of particular kinds of business; and he is to keep his superior officers advised of any existing defect in the arrangement or dispatch of business. Such defects are to be reported monthly, and each head of a department, chief of a bureau, or other superior officer, upon receiving such a report, is required to take action as hereinafter stated. (R. S., §§ 174, 175.) The chief clerk is essentially the business officer of the department or bureau, acting in an administrative rather than in a clerical capacity. By a recent act of Congress reorganizing the Treasury` Department, the chief clerks of certain bureaus thereof were changed by designation to deputies, but the duties remain as before. Two classes of officers were at the same time created in the office of the Secretary of the Treasury, called chiefs and assistant chiefs of divisions, and in the several bureaus of that department a class also called chiefs of divisions. In some of the other departments there are such officers as chiefs of bureaus, superintendents, &c. These different classes of officers are merely referred to in this chapter in order to give a general idea of the organization of the several departments for business. The relations of those officers to their respective departments, and with the people whose business interests or necessities may bring the two into contact, will be treated of in other portions of this book under appropriate heads. Ascending still higher in the scale, it will be necessary to refer, in the proper place, to the immediate assistants to the head of each executive department, as that department is hereafter treated of separately. 30. Whenever it becomes necessary for the head of any department or office to employ special agents other than officers of the army or navy who may be charged with the disbursement of public moneys, such agents shall, before entering upon duty, give bond in such form and with such security as the head of the department or office may approve. (R. S., § 3614.) 31. From the first day of October until the first day of April in each year all the bureaus and offices in the State, War, Treasury, Navy, and Post Office Departments, and in the General Land Office, are required by law to be open for the transaction of public business at least eight hours in each day; and from the first of April until the first of October in each year at least ten hours in each day, except Sundays and days declared public holidays by law. (R. S., § 162.) It is made the duty, however, of the heads of the several executive departments, and of the respective bureaus therein, in the interests of the public service, to require of all clerks and chiefs of divisions therein such hours of labor as may be deemed necessary for the proper dispatch of the public business, not exceeding the time for which such departments are required to be opened for business. (Act June 20, 1874, Stats. 18, p. 109.) 32. The legal holidays mentioned are Sunday, Christmas Day, the fourth of July, and any day appointed by the President as a day of public fast or thanksgiving; and in the District of Columbia the 1st of January. By a recent act of January 31, 1879, the 22d of February is also, after the year 1879, made a legal holiday in that District. 33. Each head of a department, chief of a bureau, or other superior officer, is required, upon receiving the monthly report of the chief clerk, to examine the facts stated therein, and take such measures as may be neces sary and proper to amend existing defects in the arrange |