virtue of a recent act of Congress the secretary of state is made the successor to the presidency, in the event of the death of the President and Vice-President. By a parity of reasoning the secretary standing so near in the line of succession to the chief-magistracy, a claim might be urged for him of precedence over the ambassadors.

Before the act of Congress cited was passed, the secretary of state had been recognized as the head of the cabinet. This grew out of the fact that the Department of State was the first created, and the custom was established in legislation of naming the secretary of state first in the cabinet list. For twenty years and more after the organization of the Federal government the secretaries of state and of the treasury received higher salaries than their colleagues. But the chief of the Department of State has not always held this preeminence unchallenged. The cabinet of Mr. Monroe had more than one aspirant to be his successor, and they conspired against the more prominent candidate, John Quincy Adams, secretary of state. They first succeeded in making by act of Congress the salaries of the cabinet officers uniform. They then demanded social equality. It had been the practice from the foundation of the government for the President to invite only the secretary of state to the diplomatic dinners. President Monroe was given to understand that henceforth such a distinction would be considered offensive to the other heads of departments. The President determined to invite thereafter to the diplomatic dinners all the cabinet officers. Mr. Adams narrates the result in his diary:

"The Foreign Ministers, though willing to yield pre

cedence to the Secretary of State, are not willing, at dinners of professed ceremony given to them, to be thrown at the bottom of the table by postponement to four or five heads of Departments and their wives. To avoid these difficulties, Mr. Monroe last winter invited the Foreign Ministers without any of the heads of Departments, and to fill the table invited with them the navy commissioners and some respectable private inhabitants of the city. But this did not escape remark. The Foreign Ministers were not pleased at being invited with persons of inferior rank and private citizens, nor at the absence of the Secretary of State, with whom they had usually been associated on these occasions heretofore. The slight to the Secretary of State himself by the omission to invite him as heretofore was also noticed . . by the Foreign Ministers and by all the gossips of the District, who have drawn many shrewd conclusions from it. . . . These incidents, apparently so insignificant and contemptible, are connected with all the pantings of Crawford's ambition, and with the future history of this nation and of the world." 1

1 4 Memoirs of John Quincy Adams (1874), 293. Mr. Crawford was a member of the Cabinet and Adams's competitor for the presidency.

CHAPTER III

THE APPOINTMENT OF DIPLOMATS

THE diplomatic representation of the United States to other countries consists at present of ten ambassadors, twenty-seven ministers, two ministers resident, who also act as consuls-general, and one diplomatic agent and consul-general. Six of the ministers plenipotentiary are accredited to more than one state: the minister to Greece acting also as minister to Montenegro, and as diplomatic agent to Bulgaria; the minister to Roumania also to Servia; the minister to the Netherlands also to Luxemburg; the minister to Guatemala also to Honduras; the minister to Nicaragua also to Salvador and Costa Rica; and the minister to Uruguay also to Paraguay. The representative of the United States at Cairo is styled Agent, out of deference to the Sultan, the Khedive of Egypt being under his suzerainty, but for all practical intercourse free from his control.1

Other governments follow the same practice as to combining two or more countries under one diplomatic representative. Adjoining countries are often associated in missions, because of proximity. A number of ministers to the United States are also accredited to Mexico. A single minister is often accredited to more

1 This classification is in conformity with the diplomatic appropriation bill of 1906.

than one of the Central and South American republics, as also to Sweden and Denmark, Belgium and Holland. The Chinese minister to the United States has the unique duty of also representing his country to the republics of Mexico, Cuba, Panama, and Peru, because of the large population of Chinese laborers in these countries.

The embassies are provided with two or three secretaries, and most of the legations with one secretary and two of them with second secretaries. The embassy to Japan has also a Japanese secretary and six student interpreters, and the legation in China a Chinese secretary and ten student interpreters. In addition to the foregoing, which constitutes the diplomatic body, there are attached to several of the embassies and more important legations military and naval officers.

In the early history of European diplomatic intercourse it was the practice to require reciprocity in the exchange of envoys, governments going to the length of not allowing a retiring representative to depart till assurance was received that another would be sent. The English government of that period insisted that a French ambassador should embark at Calais at the same hour that an English ambassador embarked at Dover. But such strictness has long ago ceased.

John Adams resided three years in London as minister without any British representative being sent to the United States. After his return to America, President Washington consulted him as to the course we ought to pursue as to our diplomatic intercourse with Great Britain. In his reply he said: "The utmost length that

can now be gone, with dignity, would be to send a minister to the court of London, with instructions to present his credentials, demand an audience, make his remonstrance; but to make no establishment, and demand his audience of leave and quit the Kingdom in one, two, or three months if a minister of equal degree were not appointed and actually sent to the President of the United States from the King of Great Britain."1

Washington did not deem it prudent to follow this advice, but named Gouverneur Morris an agent to go to London and confer unofficially with the officials as to the most urgent pending questions. A British minister was not appointed to the United States till 1791, eight years after the treaty of peace and independence. His arrival in the United States was soon followed by the appointment of a permanent minister from the United States to London.

It is the usual practice of nations at the present day to observe reciprocity in the exchange of ministers, but the United States has never construed this practice strictly, and it sends ministers to not less than eight states which do not maintain regular diplomatic representatives in this country.

It is the practice in Europe before publicly announcing the appointment of a new ambassador or minister to privately consult the government to which he is to be accredited, to ascertain whether he will be acceptable to it, persona grata; and refusals are not uncommon. Only a few years ago the German government is understood to have refused three persons successively pro

1 Letter of August 29, 1790. 8 John Adams's Works, 499.