Assistant Secretaries of State
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Updates to the Principal Officers and Chiefs of Mission database are currently suspended. For information about the Department’s current and recent leadership, we recommend visiting the Department of State homepage’s Biographies of Senior Officials and List of U.S. Ambassadors.
Notice posted on January 12, 2024.
Last
updated March 14, 2024.
On Mar 3, 1853, Congress, in a Federal appropriations act (10 Stat. 212), authorized the President to appoint an Assistant Secretary of State, whose duties would be as prescribed by the Secretary of State or as required by law. The Assistant Secretary of State superseded the Chief Clerk as the second-ranking officer of the Department. The Counselor replaced the Assistant Secretary as the second-ranking officer in 1913. Specific duties of the incumbents varied over the years and included such responsibilities as supervising the Diplomatic and Consular Bureaus, general supervision of correspondence, consular appointments, administration of the Department, and supervision of economic matters and various geographic divisions.
- Ambrose Dudley Mann (1853–1855)
- William Hunter (1855)
- John Addison Thomas (1855–1857)
- John Appleton (1857–1860)
- William Henry Trescot (1860)
- Frederick William Seward (1861–1869)
- John Chandler Bancroft Davis (1869–1871)
- Charles Hale (1872–1873)
- John Chandler Bancroft Davis (1873–1874)
- John Lambert Cadwalader (1874–1877)
- Frederick William Seward (1877–1879)
- John Milton Hay (1879–1881)
- Robert Roberts Hitt (1881)
- John Chandler Bancroft Davis (1881–1882)
- John Davis (1882–1885)
- James Davis Porter (1885–1887)
- George Lockhart Rives (1887–1889)
- William Fisher Wharton (1889–1893)
- Josiah Quincy (1893)
- Edwin Fuller Uhl (1893–1896)
- William Woodville Rockhill (1896–1897)
- William Rufus Day (1897–1898)
- John Bassett Moore (1898)
- David Jayne Hill (1898–1903)
- Francis Butler Loomis (1903–1905)
- Robert Bacon (1905–1909)
- John Callan O’Laughlin (1909)
- Francis Mairs Huntington Wilson (1909–1913)
- John Eugene Osborne (1913–1916)
- William Phillips (1917–1920)
- Fred Morris Dearing (1921–1922)
- Leland Harrison (1922–1924)
- Eugene Schuyler (Not commissioned; nomination withdrawn before the Senate acted upon it.)