Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/19-1434_ancf.pdf
Page Number: 66.0

Cite as:  594 U. S. ____ (2021) 

19 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

“[w]hether the heads of departments are inferior officers in 
the  sense  of  the  constitution,  was  much  discussed,  in  the 
debate on the organization of the department of foreign af-
fairs, in 1789.”  3 Commentaries on the Constitution of the 
United  States  386,  n. 1  (1833)  (emphasis  added).    Propo-
nents  of  this  understanding  argued  that  the  Secretary  of 
State should be an inferior officer because he was inferior 
to the President, “the Executive head of the department.”  1 
Annals of Cong. 509.  In other words, inferior officers would 
encompass  all  executive  officers  inferior  to  the  President, 
other than those specifically identified in the Constitution:
“Ambassadors,  other  public  Ministers  and  Consuls.” 
Art. II, §2.

The constitutional text and history provide some support
for this rationale.  By using the adjective “such” before “in-
ferior Officers,” the Clause about inferior officers could be 
understood to refer back to “all other Officers of the United 
States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise pro-
vided  for,  and  which  shall  be  established  by  Law.”  Ibid.; 
see also 2 S. Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language
(6th  ed.  1785)  (defining  “such”  to  mean  “[c]omprehended 
under the term premised, like what has been said”).  And to 
be “inferiour” means simply to be “[l]ower in place”; “[l]ower 
in station or rank of life” and “[s]ubordinate” to another of-
ficer.  1 ibid.  Department heads are officers, and they are
lower in rank and subordinate to the President.  See U. S. 
Const., Art. II, §1.

But others disagreed, contending this went “too far; be-
cause the Constitution” elsewhere specifies “ ‘the principal
officer in each of the Executive departments.’ ”  1 Annals of 
Cong. 459.  These Framers endorsed a third understanding, 
which distinguished just between inferior and principal of-
ficers.  See id., at 518 (“We are to have a Secretary for For-
eign Affairs, another for War, and another for the Treasury;
now,  are  not  these  the  principal  officers  in  those  depart-
ments”).  A single officer could not simultaneously be both.