People's Pilot, Volume 6, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 February 1897 — SECRETARY OF STATE [ARTICLE]

SECRETARY OF STATE

AN OFFICE MONOPOLIZED BY CERTAIN OF THE STATES. South-western and Southern States Never Had a Representative In That Position. The Only High State Office an Ohioan Has Never Pilled. The office of secretary of state, established in 1789, of which Thomas Jefferson was the first incumbent, is as old as the government itself; but, unlike other cabinet posts, it has not been equitably allotted among the several states, but has been monopolized in fact by a few, or, rather, the presidents in seeking their constitutional advisers have nbt deemed it prudent, or perhaps desirable, to go outside of a limited number of states for the officer whose guidance is sought in matters relating to federal relations with other countries. It may surprise a good many persons ordinarily familiar with American politics to know that there has never been a secretary of state from Ohio. This ir in, fact, the only office of great honor or emolmment, it might almost be said, that no Ohio man has ever felt himself called upon to fill. There has never been a man from any of the states of the Pacific coast who has been secretary of state, either, though a very large share of the foreign business of the country is done through the medium of the Pacific states and relates to matters iu which they have the closest interest, such as our relations with China, Japan, Hawaii and other Pacific islands.

In the early days of the republic American diplomacy had much to do with Spain aud France, and in the period of the nation’s history preceding the civil war there wei-e many negotiations; but, thougli southern men have been freely recongized under all administrations in appoinlmeuts in the foreign service of the United States, with a single unimportant exception, # the southwestern and gulf states have been wholly unrecognized in' appointments to the head of the state deartmeut. The following states have never been called upon to furnish secretaries of state: Alabama, Mississippi, Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee and Missouri. The oue exception is the state of Louisiana, which for a brief time, two years, had in Edward Livingston as secretary of state under the administration of Andrew Jackson. Mr. Livingston was, however, in no true sense a Louisiana man, for he was born in Columbia county, N. Y. (the same county as Mr. Tilden), and he was elected congressman from New York not long after the close of the Revolutionary war and became mayor of New York city at the beginning of the century. He moved temporarily to New Orleans, where he engaged in business, and while there was appointed to succeed Martiu Van Buren as secretary of state. He retired, after the close of his official service, to his home in Rhinebeck, where he died three years after the expiration of his term of office as secretary of state. Florida, which is more nearly concerned in Cuban complications than any other American state, perhaps, has never had a secretary of state. Neither has any of the new western or northwestern states beyond the Mississippi river. In the early history of the country Massachusetts and Virginia usually furnished the cabinet with its secretary of state, and New York, Pennsylvania and Delaware (there have been three secretaries of state from Delaware) have done so since. Illinois has been twice called upon, Pennsylvania twice, Maine and Maryland once each, Indiana once, New Jersey once and Kentucky and Michigan once each, but usually the post has been kept either iu the eastern, seaboard or middle western states, and such claims as the others might have had have heretofore been disregarded.—New York Sun.