Anne's reign. The Post Office Department under the present government
was established in 1789, but the Postmaster-General did not become a
Cabinet officer until 1829. The Interior Department was created in 1849
by grouping together in one department several branches of the
government service, which had formerly been distributed among the other
departments. As early as 1839 the Patent Office, under the Interior
Department, was intrusted with various duties concerning the
agricultural interests of the country, among the chief of which was the
distribution of seeds. In 1862 a separate Department of Agriculture was
established, and these duties transferred to it. In 1889 the head of the
Department became Secretary of the Department of Agriculture and a
Cabinet officer. A Bureau of Labor under the Interior Department was
created in 1884. In 1888 Congress constituted it a separate department,
but did not make its head a Secretary, and therefore not a Cabinet
officer.

The heads of the first eight of these departments together form a
council of eight, called the "Cabinet," whose duty it is, in addition to
the management of the departments, to advise the President on matters of
importance. For this purpose regular meetings are held, at which the
affairs of government are discussed, and lines of action decided upon.
The cabinet is neither the creation of the constitution, nor strictly of
law. The existence of a cabinet, however, was always taken for granted
in the discussion and formation of the constitution. It is a creation of
custom and has no powers other than of advice and counsel to the
President. The growth of executive and administrative business is not
fully indicated by the increase in the number of departments. The growth
within each department has been much greater. Separate bureaus and
divisions have been created, which in some cases are, for all practical
purposes, as independent and important as the departments themselves.