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On this day in New York · July 27, 1789

The First Federal Department Is Born in New York

In the nation's first capital on Wall Street, Congress created the office that would become the State Department, the first arm of the new government under the Constitution.

The facts

Date
July 27, 1789
Location
New York City, the first national capital
Created
The Department of Foreign Affairs, soon renamed the Department of State
Significance
The first federal executive department under the Constitution

On July 27, 1789, in New York City, then the seat of the federal government, President George Washington signed the law creating the Department of Foreign Affairs, the first executive department established under the new Constitution. The First Congress was meeting at Federal Hall on Wall Street, where Washington had taken the oath of office three months earlier. Within weeks the department was handed a pile of domestic duties as well and renamed the Department of State. Thomas Jefferson would become its first secretary. It started with a few clerks a short walk from the harbor that made the city rich.

In their words

The day in the words of the people who were there. Every quote is verbatim, and every source links out so you can check it.

  1. there shall be an executive department to be denominated the Department of Foreign Affairs

    An Act for establishing an Executive Department, to be denominated the Department of Foreign Affairs, approved July 27, 1789

    Source: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. 1, 1st Congress, ch. 4 (1789), via Wikisource

Why it still matters

The federal government was born in New York before it ever saw Washington, D.C., and its first department was assembled here. The capital moved south in 1790, but for a year and a half the machinery of the United States ran out of Lower Manhattan.

Sources

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