“Foreign Office” to Oval Office

Seal of the Department of State (Source: US. Dept. of State)

Do the names James Blaine, William Jennings Bryan, and Charles Evan Hughes ring a bell?

All three men had been Secretary of State. All three ran for president. All three lost.

Blaine (“the Man from Maine”) lost to Cleveland in 1884; Bryan lost three times, in 1896 and 1900 to McKinley and in 1908 to Taft; Hughes lost to Wilson in 1916 — the last time a former Secretary of State was a presidential nominee.

If Hillary Clinton is nominated and wins, she will become the first former Secretary of State to become president since James Buchanan was elected the 15th president in 1856.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (Photo Source: State Dept.)

Once in American history, the office was seen as a stepping stone to the presidency. The post was once considered far more consequential than vice president, whose powers were largely limited to presiding over the Senate. In part, the vice president was also a political party choice but the Secretary of State was hand-picked by the president, sometimes with succession in mind.

Illustrating the prominence of the position, between 1789 and 1856, six of the first fifteen presidents were former Secretaries of State.

They include four of the first six presidents. In order, they are:

•Thomas Jefferson, the first Secretary of State, and the third president.

Thomas Jefferson, third president (Source: White House)

•James Madison, who served as Jefferson’s Secretary of State, and became fourth president.

•James Monroe, unique in that he served as War Secretary and Secretary of State simultaneously; that happened during the War of 1812 in the Madison administration. Monroe became the fifth president.

•John Quincy Adams, who was Monroe’s secretary of State and drafted the “Monroe Doctrine,” became sixth president.

John Quincy Adams. Copy of 1843 Daguerreotype by Philip Haas. (Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art/Public Domain)

•Martin Van Buren, was Secretary of State under Andrew Jackson before becoming his vice president. He was elected the eighth president.

•James Buchanan, Secretary of State under Polk, but later minister to Great Britain under Pierce, became the fifteenth president and is usually regarded among the worst American presidents.

Smithsonian magazine explored the history of the Secretary of State in August 2014: “Why Do Secretaries of State Make Such Terrible Presidential Candidates?”

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