The Cabinet is an advisory body composed of the heads of 15 executive departments of the United States government. Its creation was George Washington’s first major decision as president and a lasting legacy of his vision for the nation. A discussion with Lindsay Chervinsky, White House Historical Association historian and author of The Cabinet: George Washington and the Birth of an American Institution.

A cabinet is an advisory council in which ministers, who are the heads of department, advise a monarch or head of state on matters within their purview. It is a concept rooted in European royal practices that developed with the spread of constitutional government in the 19th century, when monarchs became accountable to elected parliaments for budgetary decisions and legislative acts. The practice later spread to parliamentary systems of government in continental Europe, and is now the norm for all countries that use the Westminster system (or variations thereof), including those in the Commonwealth.

While the Cabinet does not have a formal role in the Constitution, the framers debated whether the president should exercise his executive authority alone or collaboratively with a group of advisers. They ultimately opted for a system in which the president would obtain advice during Senate hearings and through documented written opinions from his department secretaries, and the cabinet was born. A competent Cabinet can greatly enhance a presidency, but it is also possible for the president to give his advisers too much leeway and lose control of the executive branch. Andrew Jackson engineered three overhauls of his cabinet before settling on a group of yes-men, and Warren Harding’s friendship with his Ohio cabinet members allowed him to create an elaborate ring that looted the government at taxpayer expense.