United States Secretary of State

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The United States Secretary of State is the head of the U.S. Department of State. The Secretary of State is the highest-ranking member of the President's Cabinet in both line of succession and order of precedence. The first Secretary of State was John Jay, under President George Washington. The current Secretary of State is neocon warmonger Anthony Blinken.

History[edit]

The Second Continental Congress created the office of Secretary of Foreign Affairs to head the Department of Foreign Affairs on January 13, 1781. Later that year, on July 27, President George Washington signed a law authorizing the executive department. On September 15 of the same year, the Department and Secretary of Foreign Affairs were renamed the Department and Secretary of State.

The title Secretary of State is of British origin. This title was given to senior members of the King's cabinet.

Secretary of State is one of the highest offices a non-national can obtain in the United States government. To date, two non-nationals have served in the position. Henry Kissinger (1973 - 1977) was born in Germany, while Madeleine Albright (1997 - 2001) was born in Czechoslovakia. While in office both of them would have been excluded from the Presidential Line of Succession.

In recent decades the post has seen a lot of historical "firsts". Albright was the first female Secretary of State. Her successor, Colin Powell, was the first African-American Secretary, while his successor Condoleezza Rice was the first African-American woman to hold the post. In 2009 another woman, the leftist Hillary Rodham Clinton took the post. In 2017, former CEO of ExxonMobil, Rex Tillerson was confirmed to the position.

Original Domestic Duties[edit]

• Receipt, publication, distribution and preservation of laws of the U.S.
• Custody of the Great Seal of the United States
• Authentication of copies and preparation of commossions of executive branch appointments
• Final custody of the books, papers, and records of the Continental Congress including the Constitution itself and the Declaration of Independence

Current Duties[edit]

• Storage and use of the Great Seal of the United States
• Performance of protocol functions for the White House
• Drafting of certain proclamations
• Formally accepting notice of the president's resignation - this has only happened once, when President Richard Nixon resigned in August 1974.
• Replies to inquiries
• Next in line of presidential succession after the President pro tempore of the Senate

List of Former Secretaries of State[edit]

Name	Years
Thomas Jefferson	1789–1793
Edmund Randolph	1794–1795
Timothy Pickering	1795–1800
John Marshall	1800–1801
James Madison	1801–1809
Robert Smith	1809–1811
James Monroe	1811–1817
John Quincy Adams	1817–1825
Henry Clay	1825–1829
Martin Van Buren	1829–1831
Edward Livingston	1831–1833
Louis McLane	1833–1834
John Forsyth	1834–1841
Daniel Webster	1841–1843, 1850–1852
Abel Parker Upshur	1843–1844
John C. Calhoun	1844–1845
James Buchanan	1845–1849
John Middleton Clayton	1849–1850
Edward Everett	1852–1853
William Learned Marcy	1853–1857
Lewis Cass	1857–1860
Jeremiah Sullivan Black	1860–1861
William Seward	1861–1869
Elihu Benjamin Washburne	1869
Hamilton Fish	1869–1877
William Maxwell Evarts	1877–1881
James Gillespie Blaine	1881, 1889–1892
Frederick Theodore Frelinghuysen	1881–1885
Thomas Francis Bayard	1885–1889
John Watson Foster	1892–1893
Walter Quintin Gresham	1893–1895
Richard Olney	1895–1897
John Sherman	1897–1898
William Rufus Day	1898
John Hay	1898–1905
Elihu Root	1905–1909
Robert Bacon	1909
Philander Chase Knox	1909–1913
William Jennings Bryan	1913–1915
Robert Lansing	1915–1920
Bainbridge Colby	1920–1921
Charles Evans Hughes	1921–1925
Frank Billings Kellogg	1925–1929
Henry Lewis Stimson	1929–1933
Cordell Hull	1933–1944
Edward Rielly Stettinius, Jr.	1944–1945
James Francis Byrnes	1945–1947
George Catlett Marshall	1947–1949
Dean Acheson	1949–1953
John Foster Dulles	1953–1959
Christian Herter	1959–1961
Dean Rusk	1961–1969
William Pierce Rogers	1969–1973
Henry Kissinger	1973–1977
Cyrus Vance, Sr.	1977–1980
Edmund Muskie	1980–1981
Alexander Haig	1981–1982
George Shultz	1982–1989
James Addison Baker III	1989–1992
Lawrence Eagleburger	1992–1993
Warren Christopher	1993–1997
Madeleine Albright	1997–2001
Colin Powell	2001–2005
Condoleezza Rice	2005–2009
Hillary Rodham Clinton	2009–2013
John Kerry	2013–2017
Rex Tillerson	2017–2018
Mike Pompeo	2018-2021
Anthony Blinken	2021-present

References[edit]