the heads of departments to appoint "inferior officers" without requiring the advice and consent of the Senate. The final clause of Section 2 grants the president the power to make recess appointments to fill vacancies that occur when the Senate is in recess. Section 3 of Article Two lays out the responsibilities of the president, granting the president the power to convene both houses of Congress, receive foreign representatives, and commission all federal officers. Section 3 requires the president to inform Congress of the "state of the union"; since 1913 this has taken the form of a speech referred to as the State of the Union. The Recommendation Clause requires the president to recommend measures deemed "necessary and expedient." The Take Care Clause requires the president to obey and enforce all laws, though the president retains some discretion in interpreting the laws and determining how to enforce them. Section 4 of Article Two establishes that the president and other officers can be removed from office through the impeachment process, which is further described in Article One. Section 1: President and vice president Clause 1: Executive power and term of office Section 1 begins with a vesting clause that confers federal executive power upon the president. Similar clauses are found in Article I and Article III; the former bestows federal legislative power exclusively to Congress, and the latter grants judicial power solely to the Supreme Court, and other federal courts established by law. These three articles together secure a separation of powers among the three branches of the federal government, and individually, each one entrenches checks and balances on the operation and power of the other two branches. Article I grants certain powers to Congress, and the Vesting Clause does not reassign those powers to the President. In fact, because those actions require legislation passed by Congress which must be signed by the president to take effect, those powers are not strictly executive powers granted to or retained by Congress per se. Nor were they retained by the U.S. Congress as leftovers from the Articles of Confederation. The Articles of Confederation, Continental Congress and its powers were abolished at the time the new U.S. Congress was seated and the new federal government formally and officially replaced its interim predecessor. And although the president is implicitly denied the power to unilaterally declare war, a declaration of war is not in and of