Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-07-27
PREMIERS OF AMERICA.
An Interesting Historical Sketch of
the Secretaries of State.
THE MENTAL CAPACITY OF MANY
Far 0vershadowed That of Their Respective
Presidential Chiefs.
LIGHTS ON THE POLITICAL PERMANENT

LIGHTS ON THE POLITICAL FIRMAMEN
John W. Foster is the thirty-second o
the list of Secretaries of State, while Ber
iamin Harrison, in whose Cabinet he serves
is only the twenty-third man who has fe
ured on the roll of Presidents. Heads Q
the State Department have exceeded tn
Presidents in number; SO also, in the gen
eral average, have they surpassed them il
ability. This official is the most importan
member of the Presidents Ministeria
Council His Office takes precedence of al
others in the Cabinet At the beginnin.
of the Government he was sometime.
called the Secretary of Foreign Affairs, ,
title by which the corresponding officer il
the leading European governments il
known. Their is a certain propriety in this
title, for through the State Department al
intercourse between our Government and
the other nations of the world takes place,
says Frederick S. Schilling in the St. Louil
Globe Democrat.
Presidents and Premiers on the Same Level
In the first two or three admin istrations
the balance in ability and public expert.
ence may be considered to have been fairly
| level as between the Presidents and the
Premiers Jefferson, the first Secretary Of
State, served in the Legislature of Virginia
as Governor of that State, in the Conti-
mental Congress and as Minister to France
under the confederation before going into
Washington's Cabinet, vet this record, per-
| haps, can be fairly offset by Washington's
service as commander in chief of the army
| during eight years of war, and in the con-
! vention which framed the Constitution, over
which body he presided. At the time when
Jefferson obtained the portfolio of State he
was famed chiefly for his authorship of the
Declaration of Independence, and for
his tendencies toward political and social
radicalism. He was succeeded in the State
Department by Edmund Randolph, who
had been Attorney General in the same
Cabinet previously, and who before that
time had held several Offices in Virginia,
and had been a member of the Continental
Congress and Of the convention which
framed the Federal Constitution.
Timothy Pickering stepped into Ran
dolph's place on the latter's retirement.
Pickering had previously been Postmaster
General and Secretary of War under
Washington, and, before the foundation Of
the Government under the Constitution he
had filled several offices in Massachusetts,.
Like Jefferson and Randolph, Pickering
was one of the best known men of his time.
This comprises the list of men who held the
portfolio of State in the eight years. service
of Washington in the Presidency.
Two Secretaries in Ono Term.
In the four years of the first Adams SER
vice as President there we're two Secretar-
les of State-Timothy Pickering and John
Marshall. Pickering had come over from
Washington's administration. Presidents
in those days sometimes kept some of their
predecessors Cabinet in Office. Adams
held on to nearly all of Washington's s
Marshall succeeded Pickering near the end
of Adams administration. This was the
great John Marshall, who had previously
been a soldier in the war for independence,
a member of the Continental Congress, an
envoy to France, and q member of Congress
under the Constitution, and subsequently
was Chief Justice of the United States Su-
preme Court for over 81 years, serving
longer in that tribunal than any man who
sat in it before or since his time. John
Adams was President when Marshall went
to the head of the court, and on his death
in that Office Andrew Jackson was in the
White House. He pronounced more opin-
ions on constitutional law than any man
who ever sat in the great Federal tribunal
He himself is reported to have said that if
he were to be considered in the future
worthy of remembrance, his best biography
would be found in his decisions in the Su-
preme Court
The Stepping Stone to the Presidency.
James Madison was the Secretary of State
under Jefferson, Robert Smith and James
Monroe under Madison and John Quincy
Adams under Monroe. Thus this post came
to be known as stepping stone to the Pres
idency. Madison, Monroe and John
Office of the Cabinet to the highest post
under the Government, while Jefferson had
also held the Office of Secretary of State
before going to the post of Executive, but
he did not step at once from the lower
Office to the higher, for the Vice Presidency
came to him in the interval Smith is not
well remembered, but Madison, Monroe
and Adams were, even before their eleva-
tion to the White House, among the first
citizens of the land. Madison and Monroe,
who belonged to the Virginia dynasty, were
distinguished. men in their State before the
Government under the Constitution was
founded. Both had been members of the
State Legislature and of the Continental
Congress. Madison was one of the trainers
of the Federal Constitution, and from his
activity and influence in this work he has
been called the "Father of the Constitu-
tion." Monroe had been a soldier in the
war for independence, and each also served |
in Congress under the Constitution before |
reaching the post OF Secretary of State. |
Madison was the last to die of all the men |
who signed the Constitution, while Monroe |
was the last of the men who figured in the |
army or in politics at the time of the Revo- |
luton to reach the Presidency.
Adams, who was the next Secretary of |
State to Monroe and who also succeeded |
Monroe in the Presidency, was only eight |
years old when the "embattled farmers" at
Concord ''6red the shot heard round the /
world" He was perhaps, the ablest of all |
the men who held the post of Secretary of |
State up to his time, with the exception of |
Jefferson. He had, in the latter years Of |
the eighteenth century, been Minister to
the Netherlands and to Prussia, served in
the Legislature of his State and in the
United States Senate In the first decade of
the nineteenth century. and was later on
Minister to Russia, before going to the head
Of Monroe's Cabinet
Henry Clay the Ninth Premier
Henry Clay was the Secretary of State
during the second Adams Presidency. He
was the ninth man on the list of Premiers,
while Adams was the sixth President. The
great Kentuckian at this time was at the
height of his fame and in the full vigor of
his mental and physical powers He had
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