A Kitchen Cabinet is a group of unofficial or private advisers to a political leader. [1] The term was originally used by political opponents of President of the United States Andrew Jackson to describe his ginger group, the collection of unofficial advisors he consulted in parallel to the United States Cabinet (the "parlor cabinet") following his purge of the cabinet at the end of the Eaton affair and his break with Vice President John C. Calhoun in 1831. [2] [3]
The Oxford English Dictionary says that the term is "In early use depreciative, with the implication that the group wields undue influence". Its illustrative quotations show the term in use in American sources from 1832, in a British source referring to American politics in 1952, in relation to British politics in 1969, and in an American source discussing Israeli politics in 2006. [4]
Secretary of State Martin Van Buren was a widower, and since he had no wife to become involved in the Eaton controversy, he managed to avoid becoming entangled himself. In 1831 he resigned his cabinet post, as did Secretary of War John Eaton, in order to give Jackson a reason to re-order his cabinet and dismiss Calhoun allies. Jackson then dismissed Calhounites Samuel D. Ingham, John Branch, and John M. Berrien. Van Buren, whom Jackson had already indicated he wanted to run for vice president in 1832, remained in Washington as a member of the Kitchen Cabinet until he was appointed as Minister to Great Britain. Eaton was subsequently appointed Governor of Florida Territory.
Jackson's Kitchen Cabinet included his longtime political allies Martin Van Buren, Francis Preston Blair, Amos Kendall, William B. Lewis, Andrew Jackson Donelson, John Overton, Isaac Hill, and Roger B. Taney. As newspapermen, Blair and Kendall were given particular notice by rival papers. [3] [5] [6]
Blair was Kendall's successor as editor of the Jacksonian Argus of Western America , the prominent pro-New Court newspaper of Kentucky. Jackson brought Blair to Washington, D.C. to counter Calhounite Duff Green, editor of The United States Telegraph , with a new paper, the Globe. Lewis had been quartermaster under Jackson during the War of 1812; Andrew Donelson was Jackson's adoptive son and private secretary; and Overton was Andrew Jackson's friend and business partner since the 1790s. [5] [7]
The first known appearance of the term is in correspondence by Bank of the United States head Nicholas Biddle, who wrote of the presidential advisors that "the kitchen ... predominate[s] over the Parlor." The first appearance in publication was by Mississippi Senator George Poindexter in an article in the Calhounite Telegraph of March 13, 1832, defending his vote against Van Buren as minister to Great Britain:
The President's press, edited under his own eye, by a 'pair of deserters from the Clay party' [Kendall and Blair] and a few others, familiarly known by the appellation of the 'Kitchen Cabinet,' is made the common reservoir of all the petty slanders which find a place in the most degraded prints of the Union. [3]
Former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's reliance on a kitchen cabinet (Treasurer Wayne Swan, Rudd's successor Julia Gillard and Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner) was a factor in his removal as PM.[ citation needed ]
Starting February 2012, Kitchen Cabinet is a TV entertainment series hosted by political commentator Annabel Crabb, in which she interviews notable Australian politicians while preparing and sharing meals with them. [8]
During the negotiations preceding the 1982 patriation of the Constitution of Canada, the crucial agreement to create the notwithstanding clause was reached during a meeting between one federal and two provincial justice ministers in the actual kitchen of the Government Conference Centre in Ottawa. That agreement became known as the Kitchen Accord and its authors, Jean Chrétien from the federal government, Roy Romanow from Saskatchewan, and Roy McMurtry from Ontario, became known as the Kitchen Cabinet.
In India, the quasi-governmental body formerly headed by Sonia Gandhi, called the National Advisory Council, was often referred to as a "Kitchen Cabinet" by the media and general public, although the government at that time was headed by Manmohan Singh as Prime Minister. [9]
In Israel, the term "kitchen cabinet" is commonly used to translate the Hebrew term המטבחון (HaMitbahon or HaMitbachon), which more literally translates to "the kitchenette". The term refers to a subset of the Security Cabinet of Israel comprising the Prime Minister's most trusted advisors and derives from former Prime Minister Golda Meir's habit of hosting meetings of her inner circle of ministers at home over cake she had baked personally. While subsequent Prime Ministers have not generally maintained the tradition of literally cooking for their ministers, the sense of an intimate group of trusted advisors has remained current since Meir's premiership.
The term was introduced to British politics to describe British Prime Minister Harold Wilson's inner circle during his terms of office (1964-1970 and 1974–1976); prior to Tony Blair, Wilson was the longest-serving Labour Party Prime Minister. Members included Marcia Williams, George Wigg, Joe Haines, and Bernard Donoughue. The term has been used subsequently, especially under Tony Blair, for the sidelining of traditional democratic cabinet structures to rely far more on a close group of non-elected advisors and allies. Examples of this practice include Blair's reliance on advisor Andrew Adonis before his appointment to the cabinet.
In colloquial U.S. usage, "kitchen cabinet" refers to any group of trusted friends and associates, particularly in reference to a president's or presidential candidate's closest unofficial advisers.
Lisa Yoon extends use of the term "Kitchen Cabinet" to "a network of trusted advisers" who influence the decisions of corporate presidents and potentates. [12]
Andrew Jackson was the seventh president of the United States, serving from 1829 to 1837. Before his presidency, he gained fame as a general in the U.S. Army and served in both houses of the U.S. Congress. Often praised as an advocate for ordinary Americans and for his work in preserving the union of states, Jackson has also been criticized for his racial policies, particularly his treatment of Native Americans.
Martin Van Buren was the eighth president of the United States, serving from 1837 to 1841. A primary founder of the Democratic Party, he served as New York's attorney general and U.S. senator, then briefly as the ninth governor of New York before joining Andrew Jackson's administration as the tenth United States secretary of state, minister to Great Britain, and ultimately the eighth vice president from 1833 to 1837, after being elected on Jackson's ticket in 1832. Van Buren won the presidency in 1836 against divided Whig opponents. Van Buren lost re-election in 1840, and failed to win the Democratic nomination in 1844. Later in his life, Van Buren emerged as an elder statesman and an anti-slavery leader who led the Free Soil Party ticket in the 1848 presidential election.
The Whig Party was a mid-19th century political party in the United States. Alongside the Democratic Party, it was one of two major parties between the late 1830s and the early 1850s and part of the Second Party System. As well as four Whig presidents, other prominent members included Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, Rufus Choate, William Seward, John J. Crittenden, and John Quincy Adams. The Whig base of support was amongst entrepreneurs, professionals, Protestants, and the urban middle class. It had much less backing from poor farmers and unskilled workers.
The Republican Party, known retroactively as the Democratic-Republican Party, was an American political party founded by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in the early 1790s. It championed liberalism, republicanism, individual liberty, equal rights, decentralization, free markets, free trade, and agrarianism. In foreign policy it was hostile to Great Britain and in sympathy with the French Revolution. The party became increasingly dominant after the 1800 elections as the opposing Federalist Party collapsed.
The 1844 United States presidential election was the 15th quadrennial presidential election, held from Friday, November 1 to Wednesday, December 4, 1844. Democrat James K. Polk narrowly defeated Whig Henry Clay in a close contest turning on the controversial issues of slavery and the annexation of the Republic of Texas. This is the only election in which both major party nominees served as Speaker of the House at one point, and the first in which neither candidate held elective office at the time.
John Henry Eaton was an American politician and ambassador from Tennessee who served as U.S. Senator and as U.S. Secretary of War in the administration of Andrew Jackson. He was 28 years, 4 months, and 29 days old when he entered the Senate, making him the youngest U.S. Senator in history.
John Branch Jr. was an American politician who served as U.S. Senator, Secretary of the Navy, the 19th Governor of the state of North Carolina, and was the sixth and last governor of the Florida Territory.
Rachel Jackson was the wife of Andrew Jackson, the seventh president of the United States. She lived with him at their home at the Hermitage, where she died just days after his election and before his inauguration in 1829—therefore she never served as first lady, a role assumed by her niece, Emily Donelson.
The Petticoat affair was a political scandal involving members of President Andrew Jackson's Cabinet and their wives, from 1829 to 1831. Led by Floride Calhoun, wife of Vice President John C. Calhoun, these women, dubbed the "Petticoats", socially ostracized Secretary of War John Eaton and his wife, Peggy Eaton, over disapproval of the circumstances surrounding the Eatons' marriage and what they deemed her failure to meet the "moral standards of a Cabinet Wife".
Francis Preston Blair Sr. was an American journalist, newspaper editor, and influential figure in national politics advising several U.S. presidents across party lines.
Amos Kendall was an American lawyer, journalist and politician. He rose to prominence as editor-in-chief of the Argus of Western America, an influential newspaper in Frankfort, the capital of the U.S. state of Kentucky. He used his newspaper, writing skills, and extensive political contacts to build the Democratic Party into a national political power.
Emily Tennessee Donelson was the acting first lady of the United States from 1829 to 1834 during the presidency of her uncle Andrew Jackson. She was the daughter of the brother of Jackson's wife. Jackson's wife, Rachel Donelson Jackson, died weeks before her husband's presidential inauguration.
The Bank War was a political struggle that developed over the issue of rechartering the Second Bank of the United States (B.U.S.) during the presidency of Andrew Jackson (1829–1837). The affair resulted in the shutdown of the Bank and its replacement by state banks.
The 1832 Democratic National Convention was held from May 21 to May 23, 1832, in Baltimore, Maryland. In the first presidential nominating convention ever held by the Democratic Party, incumbent President Andrew Jackson was nominated for a second term, while former Secretary of State Martin Van Buren was nominated for vice president.
The presidency of Andrew Jackson began on March 4, 1829, when Andrew Jackson was inaugurated as President of the United States, and ended on March 4, 1837. Jackson, the seventh United States president, took office after defeating incumbent President John Quincy Adams in the bitterly contested 1828 presidential election. During the 1828 presidential campaign, Jackson founded the political force that coalesced into the Democratic Party during Jackson's presidency. Jackson won re-election in 1832, defeating National Republican candidate Henry Clay by a wide margin. He was succeeded by his hand-picked successor, Vice President Martin Van Buren, after Van Buren won the 1836 presidential election.
The presidency of John Quincy Adams, began on March 4, 1825, when John Quincy Adams was inaugurated as President of the United States, and ended on March 4, 1829. Adams, the sixth United States president, took office following the 1824 presidential election, in which he and three other Democratic-Republicans—Henry Clay, William H. Crawford, and Andrew Jackson—sought the presidency. Adams was not a strong president, and he was under continuous attack from Jackson who easily defeated him in the 1828 presidential election, after one term in office.
The presidency of Martin Van Buren began on March 4, 1837, when Martin Van Buren was inaugurated as President of the United States, and ended on March 4, 1841. Van Buren, the incumbent vice president and chosen successor of President Andrew Jackson, took office as the eighth United States president after defeating multiple Whig Party candidates in the 1836 presidential election. A member of the Democratic Party, Van Buren's presidency ended following his defeat by Whig candidate William Henry Harrison in the 1840 presidential election.
William Berkeley Lewis was an influential friend and advisor to Andrew Jackson. He was born in Loudoun County, Virginia, and later moved near Nashville, Tennessee, in 1809. Major Lewis served as quartermaster under General Jackson. Later, in politics, he was a manager of Jackson and retained considerable influence until Jackson's second term as President of the United States. Jackson appointed Lewis as second auditor of the Treasury, a position he was able to retain until the Polk administration.
The 1844 Democratic National Convention was a presidential nominating convention held in Baltimore, Maryland from May 27 through 30. The convention nominated former Governor James K. Polk of Tennessee for president and former Senator George M. Dallas of Pennsylvania for vice president.
American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House is a 2008 biography of Andrew Jackson, the seventh President of the United States, written by Jon Meacham. It won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Biography, with the prize jury describing it as "an unflinching portrait of a not always admirable democrat but a pivotal president, written with an agile prose that brings the Jackson saga to life".