Thomas Jefferson Appointed Secretary of State
- When
- 1789
- Where
- Paris, France; United States
- Episodes
- 3
In September 1789, Thomas Jefferson left Paris for America, and President George Washington appointed him the nation's first Secretary of State, a post he accepted soon after returning from France and held from 1790 to 1793.
Episodes
- Appointment as First Secretary of State
President George Washington appointed Jefferson the nation's first secretary of state, an office created in 1789 with Jefferson as its first holder.
- Acceptance of Washington's Invitation
Soon after returning from France, Jefferson accepted President Washington's invitation to serve as Secretary of State.
- Departure from Paris
Jefferson left Paris for America in September 1789, ending his tenure as Minister to France.
Background and detail
Background. Jefferson had served as Minister to France from 1785 to 1789, remaining in Paris through the summer of 1789, where he witnessed the storming of the Bastille and consulted with Lafayette on the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.
The New Office. The Department of State was created in 1789 with Jefferson as its first office holder. The secretary of state heads the department within the executive branch, serves as the president's principal advisor on foreign affairs, and represents the United States to foreign countries, analogous to a minister of foreign affairs.
Acceptance and Service. After leaving Paris in September 1789, Jefferson soon accepted President Washington's invitation to serve as Secretary of State, serving from 1790 to 1793. In that role he was the ex officio head of the three-person patent review board.
People involved
- Thomas Jefferson · Appointed first U.S. Secretary of State; previously Minister to France (1785–1789)
- George Washington · President who appointed Jefferson as Secretary of State
Sources
- Thomas Jefferson Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-30
- United States Secretary of State Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-30
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.