page_title: Officer of the United States
section_title: Origin and definition
hierarchical_section_title: Officer of the United States / Background / Establishment / Origin and definition
caption_attribution_description: President Barack Obama signs Elena Kagan's commission in the Oval Office, before a reception in the East Room celebrating her confirmation to the Supreme Court, Aug. 6, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza) This official White House photograph is in the public domain from a copyright perspective, so while restrictions such as personality or privacy rights may apply, in general, manipulations are allowed.
context_page_description: An officer of the United States is a functionary of the executive or judicial branches of the federal government of the United States to whom is delegated some part of the country's sovereign power. The term "officer of the United States" is not a title, but a term of classification for a certain type of official.
  With a limited number of exceptions, all officers of the United States are appointed by the President and are subject to the approval of the Senate unless it chooses not to require such approval. Civilian officers of the United States are entitled to preface their names with the honorific style "the Honorable" for life; though in practice, this rarely occurs. Officers of the United States should not be confused with employees of the United States; the latter are more numerous and lack the special legal authority of the former.
context_section_description: The Appointments Clause of the Constitution (Article II, section 2, clause 2), empowers the President of the United States to appoint "Officers of the United States" with the "advice and consent" of the United States Senate. The same clause also allows lower-level officials to be appointed without the advice and consent process.
  ...  he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.
  The Framers of the U.S. Constitution understood the role of high officers specially imbued with certain authority to act on behalf of the head of state within the context of their earlier experience with the British Crown. Day-to-day administration of the British Government was based on persons "holding sovereign authority delegated from the King that enabled them in conducting the affairs of government to affect the people." This was an extension of the general common-law rule that "where one man hath to do with another's affairs against his will, and without his leave, that this is an office, and he who is in it, is an officer."
  According to an April 2007 memorandum opinion by the United States Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel, addressed to the general counsels of the executive branch, defined "officer of the United States" as:
  a position to which is delegated by legal authority a portion of the sovereign power of the federal government and that is 'continuing' in a federal office subject to the Constitution's Appointment Clause. A person who would hold such a position must be properly made an 'officer of the United States' by being appointed pursuant to the procedures specified in the Appointments Clause.
  The difference between an "Officer of the United States" and a mere "Employee of the United States," therefore, ultimately rests on whether the office held has been explicitly delegated part of the "sovereign power of the United States". Delegation of "sovereign power" means possession of the authority to commit the federal government of the United States to some legal obligation, such as by signing a contract, executing a treaty, interpreting a law, or issuing military orders. A federal judge, for instance, has been delegated part of the "sovereign power" of the United States to exercise; while a letter carrier for the United States Postal Service has not. Some very prominent title-holders, including the White House Chief of Staff, the White House Press Secretary and most other high-profile presidential staff assistants, are only employees of the United States as they have no authority to exercise the sovereign power of the federal government.
caption: Barack Obama signs the commission document investing Elena Kagan as an officer of the United States in 2010, specifically as a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.
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