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Executive Department

that branch of government whose duty it is to enforce or execute the law. According to the accepted canon of political science, there are three departments of government: the legislative or law-making body, the judicial branch, which interprets the law, and the executive. In the Federal Government of the United States the President is the chief executive, assisted by the various heads of departments. In the State governments the governor heads the executive department. The department. heads of the executive departments, that is, the secretaries of State, War, Navy, Treasury, Interior, Commerce, Agriculture, and Labor, with the Attorney General and Postmaster- General, constitute the President's advisers or Cabinet. This was not provided for in the Constitution, the Constitution , which vests the entire executive power in the President's hands, but the Cabinet has grown up as a matter of necessity.