Under the
Constitution, the duties of the Secretary of State became more
responsible; and the office was recognized as the highest in dignity,
next to the Executive.
We may attribute our present rank among nations in no little degree to
the conspicuous fitness of our envoys at foreign courts for the peculiar
mission which it was their duty to fulfil, in the first quarter of a
century of our national existence. As soon as the British ministry
recognized the nationality of the United States, it was clear, that, on
the new footing, our relations with the mother-country must of necessity
be more intimate than those with any other nation. To pave the way for
the establishment of such an intercourse, no man could have been more
aptly chosen than John Adams. While his high-toned manners opened the
way to favor, his nervous logic followed up the advantage so gracefully
won, and drove home his purpose to its end. Franklin was equally
felicitous in attaching to himself the good-will of the court of
Versailles. Their successors well sustained the respect which they had
inspired; and it was a matter of surprise among the best educated
Europeans that such cultivated and capable men should proceed from a
country which they had thought to be a wilderness, and from a people of
whom they expected only the most flagrant barbarisms.
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