Washington signs the first agency of the new government into law
For twelve years under the Articles of Confederation, foreign affairs had been handled by shifting committees of Congress, with no single office responsible for the work. On July 27, 1789, President George Washington signed legislation the First Congress had approved six days earlier, creating the Department of Foreign Affairs. It was the first federal agency built under the new Constitution. Two months later, Congress renamed it the Department of State and added a list of domestic duties, from keeping the Great Seal to managing the U.S. Mint and administering the census.
This was the first federal agency built under a branch of government the Constitution had only sketched in outline. Washington's signature turned a constitutional clause about conducting foreign affairs into an real office with working clerks. It set the pattern every cabinet department since has followed. By September, Jefferson had a real building, real clerks, and real correspondence to manage.
QWhy did patents end up filed with a foreign affairs office?
In 1793, Congress transferred responsibility for patents from the cabinet at large to the Department of State, a duty that had nothing to do with diplomacy. The office of superintendent of patents grew out of that arrangement, but Congress didn't formally recognize the position for another thirty-seven years, waiting until 1830 to give it official standing. For decades, the agency handling ambassadors in London and Paris was also the agency handling inventors' paperwork.
QWhat happened to the department's two-clerk system within a year of Jefferson taking over?
Congress authorized hiring a separate chief clerk for the Foreign Office and another for the Home Office in June 1790. That doubled the department's clerical leadership less than a year after Jefferson arrived. It didn't last. The following month, Congress reversed course and consolidated both offices back under a single clerk, a reorganization that came and went in a matter of weeks.
QWhat kept foreign courts confused about who spoke for America before 1789?
Under the Articles of Confederation, there was no designated executive branch at all, so foreign affairs got delegated piecemeal to shifting committees of the Congress of the Confederation. There was no fixed office and no consistent signature a foreign minister could count on. The Constitution's clause fixing that responsibility on the president alone is what made a standing department necessary in the first place.
