pensation of his office,21 and Remsen then became the Chief Clerk, occupying that position until 1792, when he resigned to become the first teller of the new United States Bank, and his place was taken by George Taylor, of New York, who was promoted from a clerkship in the Department. The form of appointment was: Department of State to wit. George Taylor, heretofore a clerk in the office of the Secretary of State, is hereby appointed a chief clerk thereof in the room of Henry Remsen resigned. Given under my hand this first day of April, 1792. TH: JEFFERSON.22 June 17, 1790, Jefferson sent the Secretary of the Treasury an estimate of the probable expenses of the Department for one year from April 1 last: The Secretary of State, his salary.. 1st The Home Office One Clerk a 800 dollrs and one do a 500 dollrs.. Office Keeper and Messenger.. Stationary Firewood Newspapers from the different States, suppose 15 a 4 dollars.. 24 The Foreign Office One Clerk a 800 dollrs two Do a 500 dollrs each.. The french interpreter.... Office-Keeper and Messenger. 1800 250 200 21 In 1822 Alden applied for an office from President Monroe, his personal friend. He stated that he had served in the Revolution in 1777 as aide to General Benedict Arnold; was afterwards a major in the brigade of General Huntington; served under Washington, and in 1780 was selected by him as an aide, but recommended Colonel Humphreys in his place. His last military service was as aide to General Parsons, and he resigned in February, 1781. Afterwards he studied law under Samuel Johnson of Connecticut; was appointed Deputy Secretary of Congress in 1785 and continued in that office until he became a principal clerk in the Department of State. (D. of S. MSS., Applic. for Office.) 22 Dept. of State MSS., American Letters, Vol. IV. December 11, 1790, he made the estimates for the ensuing year as $8008.50, having combined the home office and foreign affairs. He had one chief clerk at $800 per annum; three clerks at $500 each; "clerk for foreign languages," $250; "office rent at Philadelphia $187.50, Ditto at New York, supposing the house there not to be let, or if let, the Rent not recovered for the office is responsible, 150." 24 One of the clerks, the French translator, it will be observed, received only $250 per annum, but it was not intended that he should devote his whole time to his official duties, as his colleagues did. Other translators were employed for other languages. Isaac Pinto, who was appointed interpreter of the Spanish language November 24, 1786, continued to serve for several years and complained in a letter dated November 13, 1789, that in three years his entire compensation had amounted to only £8.12.4.25 To the post of French translator Philip Freneau, "the poet of the Revolution," was appointed August 16, 1791, and while he held it he edited the National Gazette, a newspaper started at the instigation of Jefferson and his friends and the organ of their party. The clerks were paid out of a general fund, no specific appropriation being made until the act of December 23, 1791, named as the whole amount for the ensuing year for the Secretary and officers $6,300. The appropriation was meant to include the whole force of the Department, except messengers or laborers, although it spoke of the Secretary" and officers" and did not specify clerks. An act passed 23 Dept. of State MSS., American Letters, Vol. IV. 24 Dept. of State MSS., American Letters, Vol. IV. 25 Dept. of State MSS., American Letters, Vol. IV. the same year required an oath of office from every clerk and "other officer" in the Departments. Clerks were thus officers. In 1868 Attorney-General Evarts, having the question presented to him by the Secretary of the Treasury, gave an opinion, following that of the Supreme Court,26 that "clerks in the several executive departments were officers under the government of the United States." 27 In 1896, in response to a request for an opinion by the Secretary of State, the Attorney-General expressed the opinion that all of the officers of the State Department who were below the rank of the Assistant Secretaries were clerks in the meaning of the law.28 Legally speaking, therefore, not only are clerks officers, but officers are clerks. The act creating the Department of Foreign Affairs required that the Secretary and each of his subordinates should, before entering upon his duties, take an oath "well and faithfully to execute the trust committed to him." This was modified subsequently by the act of March 3, 1791, to require every clerk and "other officer" who had been appointed in any of the Departments and who had not already done so, as well as all who should subsequently be appointed, to take an oath or affirmation before a Justice of the Supreme Court, or a judge of a United States district court, to support the Constitution of the United States as well as to faithfully perform the duties intrusted to him. No regular form of oath was prescribed, but the wording usually ran: "I, A. B., do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support the Constitution of the United States and well and faithfully execute the trust confided to me as Later a new form came into use, the first one of which is found in 1807: I John Graham clerk in the Department of State do solemnly swear that I will well and faithfully execute the trust reposed in me according to the best of my skill and Judgement, and particularly that I will make no copies of, or extracts from, any Books or Papers belonging to the said office; but such as I shall be directed or authorized by the Secretary to make nor will I disclose the secrets of the office I do further swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States and serve them in the 26 6 Wall., 393. 27 12 Op., 521. 28 15 Op., 3. office which I now hold, under their authority with fidelity and honor, according to the best of my skill and understanding. Sworn this 25th July 1807 before William Thomton 29 JOHN GRAHAM This form of oath was probably put into effect because there had been in 1800 disclosures of official secrets by two clerks in the office of the Auditor of the Treasury Department,30 but it does not seem to have remained in use for a long time, the simpler form of an oath of allegiance and to perform faithfully the duties of office being returned to. The organic act of the Department of State required that the Secretary should provide a Department seal, the President approving the design. The War Department found ready for its use the old seal of the Board of War and Ordnance and the Treasury Department the seal of the Board of Treasury, but the Department of Foreign Affairs had had no seal, so there was no guide for the new Department to follow. Jefferson had served in 1776 on the first committee chosen by Congress to prepare the design for the arms of the United States; but the device submitted was rejected. He was not, therefore, wholly inexperienced on the subject of official seals; but he does not appear to have made any attempt to make an original one for his Department, and simply chose the arms of the United States. In the inner surrounding circle is the legend: "Department of State United States of America." No record of the precise time of the adoption of the seal is found, but the device has remained without any further change than has arisen from several new seals being cut. The Department was the medium through which correspondence with the National Government and the several State governments was conducted. How the communications from the States to Congress were to be transmitted was the subject of the following letter from Jefferson to Washington (April 1, 1790): 20 Dept. of State MSS., Bureau of Appointments. 30 They were Anthony Campbell and William P. Gardner. See American Historical Review, Vol. III, p. 282. Th. Jefferson has the honor to inform the President that Mr Madison has just delivered to him the result of his reflections on the question How shall communications from the several states to Congress through the channel of the President be made? He thinks that in no case would it be proper to go by way of letter from the Secretary of state: that they should be delivered to the houses either by the Secretary of state in person or by Mr Leir, he supposes a useful division of the office might be made between these two, by employing the one where a inatter of fact alone is to be communicated, or a paper delivered in the ordinary course of things and where nothing is required by the President; and using the agency of the other where the President chuses to recommend any measure to the legislature and to attract their attention to it. The President will be pleased to order in this what he thinks best. T. Jefferson supposes that whatever may be done for the present, the final arrangement of business should be considered as open to alteration hereafter. The government is as yet so young, that cases enough have not occurred to enable a division of them into classes, and the distribution of these classes to the persons whose agency would be the properest. He sends some letters for the President's perusal, praying him to alter freely anything in them which he thinks may need it.31 Under the Confederation the President of Congress always transmitted acts of Congress to the executives of the States, but the Secretary of Foreign Affairs was commonly the medium of correspondence with the governors.32 The Department of Foreign Affairs took the duty of sending the acts and of other correspondence under the new Government. Jay wrote to the governors of New York and Massachusetts September 4, 1789: In pursuance of the Orders of the President of the United States, I have the honor of transmitting to your Excellency herewith enclosed, a copy of an Act of Congress of the 6th June 1788 and of a concurrent Resolution of the Senate and House of Representatives (passed by the latter on the 10th and concurred in by the former on the 19th August last). In pursuance of a request contained in this Resolution, the President has been pleased to appoint Andrew Ellicott to compleat the survey therein mentioned; who will begin that work on the tenth day of October next; and am directed to give your Excellency this information in order that the State of may if they think proper, have persons attending at the time.33 31 Washington Papers, Record Book, Vol. 21; also Jefferson's Writings (Ford), V, 150. 32 Writings of Madison (Hunt), I, 291. 33 Dept. of State MSS.. American Letters, Vol. IV. |