The President's Cabinet

In 1789, when the Constitution went into effect, Congress passed laws creating the first three executive departments of the new government: Foreign Affairs, Treasury, and War. The head of each department was to be called the "Secretary."
The word "cabinet" came from England, where a private meeting room was often called a cabinet. James Madison, our fourth president,was the first to use this word to refer to the President's advisors.
At first, George Washington consulted with his Cabinet members one at a time, occasionally asking for written opinions. But soon they all met together regularly, in Washington's home on Cherry Street in Philadelphia [then the capital of the United States].
Today, the Cabinet members meet weekly around a big mahogany table in the Cabinet Room next to the President's Oval Office in the West Wing of the White House.
Whenever a member of the Cabinet leaves office the Secretary is traditionally given the leather Cabinet chair, with its brass nameplate on the back, as a memento of service. Members of the Department buy the chair for the outgoing Secretary as a parting gift.