Who Was the Last President Who (Like Trump) Had Never Worked in Government Before?
It turns out that’s never happened. Donald Trump would be the first. There have been presidents who never previously won an election, but none without public sector experience.
Every president, from George Washington to Barack Obama, previously held at least one of these offices:
- Vice President
- Member of the Cabinet
- Member of Congress
- Governor
- General
Now let’s reorder those categories by most recent president from each:
- Member of Congress (Barack Obama, Senator from Illinois, elected president in 2008)
- Governor (George W. Bush, Governor of Texas, elected president in 2000)
- Vice President (George H. W. Bush, Vice President, elected president in 1988)
- General (Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander, elected president in 1952)
- Member of the Cabinet (Herbert Hoover, Secretary of Commerce, elected president in 1928)
We’ve talked about how Donald Trump would make history, but what about Hillary Clinton? In addition to being the first woman president, the former Secretary of State would be the first cabinet member elected president in nearly a century, and the first presidential spouse elected ever. But like Barack Obama, she was also a senator. Given that she nearly defeated Obama in the primary while she was still a senator in 2008, it’s probably unwise to read too much into this about cabinet members’ viability in presidential contests.
Still, Secretaries of State were once formidable and frequent presidential contenders. George Washington’s Secretary of State, Thomas Jefferson, became Vice President and then President. President Jefferson was succeeded by his Secretary of State, James Madison. Then Madison’s Secretary of State, James Monroe. Then Monroe’s Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams. For those keeping score, four of the first six presidents held that job.
I said it’s been almost a century since a former Cabinet member became President, but what about a former Secretary of State? For that, we have to go back 155 years to James Buchanan, the one-term President under whom the union was torn asunder and the Civil War began. Ironic for a former top diplomat.* The bar for President Hillary Clinton would be low by this (obscure) measure.
President Buchanan’s successor nearly broke this pattern of experience. Abraham Lincoln was a one-term Congressman before he was elected President. But Lincoln’s two years on Capitol Hill put the hypothetical President Donald Trump in a league of his own.
*Also ironic: the Great Depression started in 1929, the year Herbert Hoover became President. The former Secretary of Commerce notoriously spent the rest of his presidency ignoring the economic collapse.
