Secretary to President

In the early years of the republic, it was common for cabinet secretaries to be candidates for the presidency.  This has become less common over the years.

1. Thomas Jefferson (1790-1793) was the first secretary of state under President George Washington.  However, he was preceded by John Jay, who was acting secretary.  Jefferson only served during Washington's first term.  He ran for the presidency on Washington's retirement and received the second most electoral votes, which made him John Adams' vice president.  That he and Adams were in rival parties made for an awkward combination.  Also, in future elections, the presidential and vice-presidential candidates ran together.  Of course, that created a new problem when Jefferson won the 1800 election.  Jefferson and his 'running mate' Aaron Burr both received the same number of electoral votes.  Who was president and who was vice president?

2. James Madison served as Thomas Jefferson's secretary of state (1801-1809).  From that post, he went directly into the presidency upon Jefferson's retirement.

3. James Monroe was tapped to be Madison's 2nd secretary of state (1811-1817).  In 1814, he was asked to also serve as the secretary of war, which he did (1814-1815) for the conclusion of the War of 1812.  When Madison retired to his Virginia plantation, Monroe became president.

4. John Quincy Adams was secretary of state (1817-1825) to James Monroe.  As with Madison and Monroe, he was promoted to the presidency, though not without controversy.  Though he had fewer electoral votes than Andrew Jackson, he was selected by the Congress in the contingent election (Jackson had failed to get a majority of the electoral votes).  Henry Clay, who had finished 4th in the 1824 Election, had thrown his support to Adams.  Adams then appointed Clay to be secretary of state.  Jackson cried 'corrupt bargain!' and would be back for a rematch in 1828.

5. Martin Van Buren served as Andrew Jackson's first secretary of state (1829-1831).  He only stayed in the post for a couple of years before moving on to Minister to the United Kingdom (1831-1832) and then serving as the VP for Jackson's second term (1833-1837) before becoming president himself.

6. James Buchanan was secretary of state (1845-1849) for James Knox Polk, but did not become the presumptive nominee at the end of Polk's term.  Where the State Dept had been a clear steppingstone to the presidency in the early republic, it had faded by this time.  Like Van Buren, Buchanan served as Minister to UK (1853-1856) after being secretary of state and ran for the presidency in 1856.  Buchanan is the last secretary of state to be elected to the presidency.

7. Ulysses S. Grant served as secretary of war (1867-1868) for President Johnson.  He was only in the post for 4 months.  While serving, he was also the commanding general of the Army, a position he had held since 1864 and would not relinquish until he was inaugurated as president in March 1869.

8. William Howard Taft served as the secretary of war (1904-1908) for the majority of President Theodore Roosevelt's second term.  He was Roosevelt's handpicked successor and was elected to the presidency in 1908.

9. Herbert Hoover was the secretary of commerce (1921-1928) for President Warren G. Harding.  He stayed in the post after Harding's death and through Calvin Coolidge's presidency.  He is the first and only commerce secretary to win the presidency.  He is also the last cabinet secretary to reach the presidency.

Clearly, a cabinet post - especially as secretary of state - was an ideal launching pad for a presidential run in the first 40 to 50 years of the republic.  Today, it is better to make the leap from senator or governor.  Beware a cabinet post if you have pretentions to the presidency!