Edward Livingston (1764–1836) was born on his family’s estate at Clermont, New York. He studied at the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) and opened a law practice in New York City. With the support of his older brother Robert, who had been secretary of foreign affairs during the Articles of Confederation government, Livingston entered politics. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives and as mayor of New York before moving to New Orleans, where he was aide-de-camp to General Andrew Jackson in the famous battle at the end of the War of 1812. In the 1820s Livingston represented Louisiana in both the U.S. House and U.S. Senate, and in 1831 President Jackson appointed him secretary of state.

Livingston inherited, and could not resolve, the tensions with Mexico over Texas and with Britain over the boundary dispute in Maine. Negotiations during his tenure secured commercial agreements with Naples, Muscat, Russia, Siam, and Turkey. But despite the Monroe Doctrine’s warning that the Americas were no longer open for European colonization, Livingston did not prevent Britain’s seizure of the Falkland Islands, off Argentina. 

On the day of Livingston’s resignation as secretary of state, President Jackson appointed him U.S. minister to France, where he was able to advance repayments for decades-old claims over the seizure of U.S. ships and cargo during France’s war with Great Britain. Payment finally came in 1836, after Livingston’s departure and death.

Louis McLane (1786–1857) was born in Smyrna, Delaware. He served as a midshipman in the U.S. Navy from 1798 to 1801 and attended Newark College (now the University of Delaware). After reading law, he embarked on a career in politics, serving five terms in the U.S. House of Representatives before being elected to the U.S. Senate. In 1829, President Andrew Jackson named McLane minister to Great Britain. His diplomacy in opening U.S. trade to the British West Indies likely impressed Jackson, and soon McLane returned to Washington, D.C., to become the secretary of the treasury from 1831 to 1833. In 1833 Jackson named McLane secretary of state. 

Like his predecessors, McLane tried but was unable to resolve the Maine boundary dispute with Great Britain or Mexican claims regarding Texas. But he did settle U.S. claims against Spain for property seized during the Napoleonic Wars. France was still refusing to make payments for its wartime damages, and McLane resigned from office in frustration. 

McLane later returned to diplomacy in 1845 when President James K. Polk appointed him minister to Great Britain.

John Forsyth (1780–1841) was born in Fredericksburg, Virginia, and in his boyhood moved with his family to Augusta, Georgia. He graduated from the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University), studied law, and entered politics, gaining a reputation as a powerful debater. In the next twenty years he represented Georgia in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, and also served as his state’s governor. Between 1819 and 1823, Forsyth was U.S. minister to Spain, helping to secure the Adams-Onís Treaty, which ceded Spain’s claim to East and West Florida. While in Congress, Forsyth supported President Andrew Jackson’s policies, including Indian Removal Act of 1830, which started the forced migration of thousands of Native Americans out of Georgia and states in the Southeast to lands west of the Mississippi River. In 1834, Jackson named Forsyth secretary of state.

As secretary, Forsyth worked to secure the payments France had promised for damages inflicted on U.S. commerce during its wars against Great Britain. When Jackson threatened to seize French property, France severed diplomatic relations but eventually made a payment of $5 million in exchange for reducing the import duty on French wines. Forsyth also coordinated with President Jackson on U.S. recognition of the Republic of Texas in 1837, newly independent following the Texas Revolution against Mexico the previous year.  

Forsyth stayed on as secretary of state under President Martin Van Buren, overseeing many of the same issues, such as the status of Texas and the Maine border dispute. In the Amistad case, in which a slave mutiny had put the United States in the difficult position of deciding what to do with the mutineers, Forsyth supported the government’s position that they should be returned to Spain as property. But John Quincy Adams argued against the government’s position in the U.S. Supreme Court, which determined that the mutineers were not slaves but free Africans, who should be released from custody. 

Daniel Webster (1782–1852) was born into a family of frontier farmers in Salisbury, New Hampshire. He graduated from Dartmouth College and studied law. His gift for oratory made him an influential attorney, and he became involved in a number of landmark Supreme Court cases. Moving to Boston, he represented Massachusetts in the U.S. House of Representatives and then the U.S. Senate, where his speeches defending the Union made him one of the greatest statesmen of his time. He served as secretary of state to three presidents, from 1841 to 1843 and again from 1850 to 1852.  

First appointed by President William Henry Harrison, Webster stayed on in the cabinet after Harrison died a month after his inauguration, but he was not always in agreement with President John Tyler. Webster’s major accomplishment was the landmark Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842, which settled the long-standing Maine boundary dispute with Great Britain and renewed peaceful relations between the two nations. The treaty defined the boundary with Canada all the way to the Lake of the Woods in Minnesota, agreed that both nations would share use of the Great Lakes, and promised cooperation in the suppression of the international slave trade. The next year, Webster resigned from his position, likely due to financial difficulties, but he also disapproved of Tyler’s policy toward Texas.

In 1845 Webster returned to the U.S. Senate and in 1850 he was again appointed secretary of state, this time by President Millard Fillmore.

Abel Parker Upshur (1791–1844) was born into a planter family in Northampton County, Virginia. He attended Yale College and the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University), then studied law and began a political career. He served in the Virginia House of Delegates and as a justice in the Virginia General Court before being appointed secretary of the navy by President John Tyler, a longtime friend. As secretary, Upshur worked to modernize and expand the navy, believing it played a vital role in securing the nation’s interests. When Secretary of State Daniel Webster resigned, Tyler asked Upshur to be secretary of state, confident of his interest in westward expansion.

As secretary, Upshur reopened negotiations that led to the annexation of Texas in 1845. He also worked to settle a border dispute with Great Britain over the Oregon Territory, resulting in the Oregon Treaty of 1846 that ended the joint occupation and extended the border at the 49th parallel around Vancouver Island all the way to the Pacific. But Upshur did not live to see these initiatives realized. In February 1844, while aboard the new warship, USS Princeton, on the Potomac River near Washington, D.C., he was killed by an accidental explosion of one of the ship’s guns. 

John Caldwell Calhoun (1782–1850) was born in Abbeville County, South Carolina, to a prosperous farming family. He graduated from Yale College and practiced law before being elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1810. In 1817 President James Monroe appointed Calhoun secretary of war. He served as vice president to both President John Quincy Adams and President Andrew Jackson. Calhoun resigned in 1832 and was elected to the U.S. Senate from South Carolina, serving 11 years. Following Secretary Upshur’s unexpected death, Calhoun became the next secretary of state, a position he held for just a year.

As secretary, Calhoun supported Tyler’s efforts to annex Texas. He submitted the treaty crafted by President Tyler and former Secretary Upshur to the U.S. Senate, but it was defeated by those who were opposed to adding another slave state to the Union. President Tyler lost his bid for reelection in 1844, but, just days before he left office in 1845, Congress approved Texas annexation by means of a joint resolution, which required only a majority vote of both houses instead of a two-thirds majority in the Senate. Calhoun also continued Secretary Upshur’s efforts to resolve the dispute with the British over the Oregon Territory. During Calhoun’s tenure the United States signed the Treaty of Wanghia, its first commercial treaty with China.

In 1845 Calhoun returned to South Carolina, which returned him to the U.S. Senate, where he served until his death.

James Buchanan (1791–1868) was born near Mercersburg, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Dickinson College and entered politics, and in 1820 he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. In 1832, President Andrew Jackson made Buchanan minister to Russia. Returning after two years in St. Petersburg, Buchanan was elected to the U.S. Senate. He hoped to be the Democratic nominee in the presidential election of 1844, but the nomination went to James K. Polk, who appointed Buchanan secretary of state in return for his support during the election. 

Both Polk and Buchanan promoted westward expansion and believed in Manifest Destiny—the idea that the nation should expand all the way to the Pacific—and this goal was accomplished during Polk’s administration. The 1846 Oregon Treaty partially achieved this aim by settling the long-standing boundary dispute with Britain at the 49th parallel and bringing the Pacific Northwest into the United States. President Polk also signed the joint resolution that formally brought Texas into the United States and then pursued a border dispute with Mexico that led to the Mexican-American War. Following U.S. victory in 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo brought California and New Mexico Territory (today parts or all of Arizona. Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming) into the United States. Buchanan thought that Baja and the northern provinces of Mexico should have been included as well, but Polk directed most aspects of U.S. foreign policy during his presidency, allowing Buchanan little control. Buchanan again sought the presidency in 1852 but failed and was appointed by President Franklin Pierce as minister to Great Britain, where he continued his interest in U.S. expansion. With the U.S. ministers to France and Spain, he drafted the so-called Ostend Manifesto that detailed the rationale for the purchase or even the seizure of Cuba from Spain. The manifesto proved to be an embarrassment to the Pierce administration but seems not to have damaged Buchanan’s reputation, as he won the Democratic nomination in 1856 and was elected president. His administration was notable primarily for its failure to prevent the Civil War.

John Middleton Clayton (1796–1856) was born in Sussex County, Delaware. He graduated from Yale College, practiced law, and entered politics in 1824, when he was elected to the state legislature. In 1828 he was elected to the U.S. Senate and later served as chief justice of the Delaware Supreme Court. In 1849, President Zachary Taylor appointed Clayton secretary of state.

Clayton was a supporter of U.S. commercial expansion. His key achievement as secretary was the 1850 Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, which pledged cooperation with Great Britain in the building of a future canal through Central America, connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. 

Clayton resigned upon the death of President Taylor in July 1850 and in 1853 was returned by voters of Delaware to the U.S. Senate, where he served until his death.

Daniel Webster had been in the U.S. Senate in 1850 during the debates over slavery in the new territories gained from Mexico following the Mexican-American War. After he assumed the office of the secretary of state for a second time, he continued to work for the passage of what would become known as the Compromise of 1850. His interest in foreign relations focused on trade. In the Pacific, the expedition of Commodore Matthew C. Perry opened Japan to trade, and Webster also negotiated trade agreements with Latin American nations, at the same time discouraging British influence.  

Webster became ill in 1852 and died at his farm in Massachusetts while still serving as secretary of state.

Edward Everett (1794–1865) was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard College and combined an academic career with politics. Everett taught Greek literature and eventually became Harvard’s president. He was also a pastor in the Unitarian church. He served several terms in the U.S. House of Representatives and in 1836 was elected governor of Massachusetts. In 1841 Secretary of State Daniel Webster appointed Everett, his friend, minister to France, a position he held for four years. This diplomatic experience proved valuable in 1852, when Webster died while serving as secretary of state, and  President Fillmore appointed Everett to take Webster’s place. 

Everett’s time as secretary was brief, just four months, but he facilitated the opening of Japan to American trade. In addition, he recognized Peru’s rights to the Lobos Islands, even though the United States had pursued an interest in its rich guano deposits that could be used as fertilizer and in explosive materials. Everett also shaped U.S. policy toward Cuba, rejecting a proposal from Britain and France that the United States join in guaranteeing Spanish control of the island. Instead, Everett stated that the United States would not enter into alliances but would maintain an interest in Cuba.

A respected orator and writer, Everett returned to the U.S. Senate at the end of Fillmore’s term and is perhaps best known for his two-hour-long oration at the dedication of the Gettysburg military cemetery in 1863, preceding President Abraham Lincoln’s two-minute and justly famous Gettysburg Address.

William Learned Marcy (1786–1857) was born to a farming family in Sturbridge, Massachusetts. He graduated from Brown University, studied law, and opened a practice in Troy, New York. He was a U.S. senator from New York and governor of the state before President James K. Polk named him secretary of war. In 1853 President Franklin Pierce appointed Marcy secretary of state.

As secretary, Marcy negotiated the 1854 Gadsden Treaty with Mexico, a purchase of land just south of New Mexico that was wanted for a transcontinental rail route. Marcy also oversaw the drafting of the Ostend Manifesto, a document that detailed the rationale for the purchase or even the seizure of Cuba from Spain. The manifesto proved an embarrassment to the Pierce administration, criticized at home as well as abroad for its support of the expansion of slavery. In 1855, Marcy negotiated a treaty with Great Britain over reciprocal fishing rights in Canada.

Marcy died in New York shortly after the end of President Pierce’s term.

Lewis Cass (1782–1866) was born to a farming family in Exeter, New Hampshire. After serving in the War of 1812 and attaining the rank of general, he was appointed governor of the Michigan Territory. In 1831 President Andrew Jackson appointed Cass secretary of war and later as minister to France, a position he held for six years. Cass represented Michigan in the U.S. Senate for 12 years, twice running unsuccessfully for president. In 1857 President Buchanan appointed him secretary of state.

President Buchanan was himself an experienced diplomat who had also served as secretary of state, and during his administration he largely directed Cass in matters of foreign policy, especially related to Latin America. Seeking to limit British influence in Latin America, Cass negotiated the final settlement of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, which pledged cooperation in the building of a future canal through Central America, connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. 

Following the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860, Cass, though a Democrat, began to voice his long-held disagreements with the Buchanan administration over slavery and sectionalism, and he resigned in the last days of 1860.

Cass supported the Union during the Civil War and lived to see Union victory.

Jeremiah Sullivan Black (1810–1883) was born in Somerset County, Pennsylvania. He studied law under a famous lawyer in the state and took over the practice, and went on to serve for many years on the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. President James Buchanan appointed him attorney general, and in the final months of his term, secretary of state. Black served for three months. 

The nation was in crisis. Following Abraham Lincoln’s election to the presidency, southern states began to secede from the Union. President Buchanan declared the act of secession unconstitutional, based partly on former Attorney General Black’s legal arguments. Black’s role as trusted adviser to the president changed little with his new appointment. As secretary of state he instructed U.S. diplomatic representatives abroad to caution their respective governments against recognizing the Confederacy.

Before he left office, President Buchanan nominated Black to the U.S. Supreme Court, but the nomination lapsed and Black was named reporter of decisions, a position he held for two years before returning to his private law practice in his home state of Pennsylvania.

William Henry Seward (1801–1872) was born in Florida, New York. He graduated from Union College and began practicing law in Auburn, New York. He served in the New York Senate and was governor of New York before being elected to the U.S. Senate, where he became an opponent of slavery. Seward was the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination in 1860, but his antislavery speeches struck some party members as too radical. The party instead selected the more moderate Abraham Lincoln, whose victory in the general election led to the secession of states in the South and the formation of the Confederate States of America. With other political leaders, Seward tried to resolve the crisis during the winter of 1861 but was unsuccessful. 

Lincoln named his rival as secretary of state, and Seward became a loyal friend to Lincoln. As secretary, Seward was able to prevent recognition of the Confederacy by other nations, especially Britain, although a diplomatic crisis arose when the U.S. Navy arrested Confederate envoys headed for Europe. Since envoys were afforded diplomatic protections, especially during wartime, many feared that Britain might intervene in the conflict unless the envoys were released, which Seward did. Seward and the U.S. minister in London, Charles Francis Adams, the son of President John Quincy Adams, put an end to Britain’s building of ships for the Confederates after one of them, the Alabama, was launched to attack Union merchant and naval ships.

Immediately after the Confederate surrender, Seward was a target of the same conspiracy that assassinated Lincoln. He was attacked in his home, and his son Frederick, assistant secretary of state at the time, was seriously wounded, but both recovered.

Seward retained his position during the administration of Andrew Johnson. He is perhaps best known for his negotiations with Russia that led to the purchase of Alaska in 1867. His efforts to purchase the Danish West Indies (today the U.S. Virgin Islands) and other islands in the Caribbean were unsuccessful, but in 1867 he did force the French to withdraw from Mexico, where—with the United States distracted by the Civil War—they had established a new Mexican government under the Austrian archduke Maximilian, in 1864. Seward also negotiated the 1868 Burlingame-Seward Treaty with China that gave the United States favorable terms for trade and eased restrictions on Chinese immigration.

Seward was disappointed not to be named secretary of state in the administration of Ulysses S. Grant, and he returned to Auburn.