Following is a list of persons who have served in all three branches of the United States federal government. Membership in this list is limited to persons who have:
Contents |
More than twenty men can claim to have served in all three federal government branches. The first person to achieve this distinction was John Marshall, when he was confirmed to the Supreme Court in 1801, having briefly served in Congress and as Secretary of State. The most recent person to join the list was George J. Mitchell, who had already been a United States Attorney and a District Court judge when he was elected to the United States Senate in 1980.
Of those who have served in all three branches, ten served as a United States Attorney; five served as Attorney General; four served as Secretary of the Navy; three served as Secretary of the Treasury; two served as Secretary of State; two served as Secretary of the Interior; two served as Director of the Office of Economic Stabilization; one served as Secretary of Labor; one served as Secretary of War; one served as Postmaster General, while this office was still a cabinet post. Three held multiple Cabinet posts. Although many Presidents and Vice Presidents have also served in Congress, and one later served on the Supreme Court, none has ever served in all three branches.
With respect to legislative service, ten of these men were Senators and eighteen were Representatives (including four who served in both houses). The states from which they were elected are largely diverse, with only three states having multiple members on the list: Virginia had four, Ohio had three, and Maine had two.
With respect to Judicial service, the tendency is toward higher office. Twelve members of the list served on the Supreme Court of the United States - three as Chief Justice. Of the other twelve, six served on Circuit Courts, one went from the District Court to a Circuit Court, and nine garnered their judicial branch service in District Court judgeships alone. Three of the Supreme Court Justices on the list had previously served on Federal Circuit courts. For nineteen of the members of the list, their judicial appointment was also their final point of service. Of the other five - one Supreme Court Justice, and four District Court judges - four resigned from the bench to take cabinet posts. The fifth instance was a District Court Judge who resigned the bench to take a seat in the United States Senate.
Three people on the list - James F. Byrnes, Salmon P. Chase, and Levi Woodbury - have, in addition to their varied federal government service, also served as Governor of a U.S. state.
Person | Executive branch service |
Legislative branch service |
Judicial branch service |
Warren Austin | Ambassador to the United Nations, 1946–1953 | Senator, Vermont, 1931-1946 | Judge for the U.S. Court for China |
James L. Buckley | Undersecretary of State for Security Assistance, 1981–1982 President of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1982-1985 |
Senator, New York, 1971–1977 | Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, 1985–1996 |
James F. Byrnes | Director, Office of Economic Stabilization, 1942-1943 Chairman, Office of War Mobilization, 1943-1945 Secretary of State, 1945–1947 |
Representative, South Carolina, 1911–1925 Senator, South Carolina, 1931–1941 |
Supreme Court Justice, 1941-1942 |
Salmon P. Chase | Secretary of the Treasury, 1861-1864 | Senator, Ohio, 1849–1855 1861 |
Chief Justice of the United States, 1864-1873 |
Nathan Clifford | Attorney General, 1846-1848 | Representative, Maine, 1839-1843 | Supreme Court Justice, 1858-1881 |
John A. Danaher | United States Attorney, District of Connecticut, 1922-1934 | Senator, Connecticut, 1939-1945 | Judge of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, 1953-1980 |
Nathan Goff, Jr. | United States Attorney for West Virginia, 1868-1881, 1881-1882 Secretary of the Navy, 1881 |
Representative, West Virginia, 1883-1889 Senator, West Virginia, 1913-1919 |
Judge, 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, 1892-1913 |
David M. Key | Postmaster General, 1877–1880 | Senator, Tennessee, 1875–1877 | Federal Judge for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee and the Middle District of Tennessee |
Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar (II) | Secretary of the Interior, 1885–1888 | Representative, Mississippi, 1857-1860 1873-1877 Senator, Mississippi, 1877-1885 |
Supreme Court Justice, 1888-1893 |
John Laurance | Judge Advocate General, 1777-1782 | Representative, New York, 1789-1793 Senator, New York, 1796-1800 |
District Court Judge, New York, 1794-1796 |
George MacKinnon | United States Attorney, District of Minnesota, 1953-1958 | Representative, Minnesota, 1947-1949 | Judge of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, 1969-1995 |
John Marshall | Secretary of State, 1800-1801 | Representative, Virginia, 1799-1800 | Chief Justice of the United States, 1801-1835 |
John Y. Mason | Attorney General, 1845–1846 Secretary of the Navy, 1844-1845 1846–1849 |
Representative, Virginia, 1831-1837 | District Court Judge, Eastern District of Virginia, 1841-1844 |
Stanley Matthews | United States Attorney, Southern District of Ohio, 1858-1861 | Senator, Ohio, 1877-1881 | Supreme Court Justice, 1881-1889 |
James P. McGranery | Attorney General, 1952-1953 | Representative, Pennsylvania, 1937-1943 | District Court Judge, Eastern District of Pennsylvania, 1946-1952 |
Joseph McKenna | Attorney General, 1897–1898 | Representative, California, 1885-1892 | Judge, 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, 1892–1897 Supreme Court Justice, 1898–1925 |
John McLean | Postmaster General, 1823–1829 | Representative, Ohio, 1813-1816 | Supreme Court Justice, 1829–1861 |
Abner J. Mikva | White House Counsel, 1994–1995 | Representative, Illinois, 1969-1973 Representative, Illinois, 1975-1979 |
Appeals Court Judge, Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, 1979-1994 |
George J. Mitchell | United States Attorney, Maine, 1977-1979 | Senator, Maine, 1980-1995 | District Court Judge, District of Maine, 1979-1980 |
William Henry Moody | United States Attorney, District of Massachusetts, 1890-1895 Attorney General, 1904–1906 Secretary of the Navy, 1902–1904 |
Representative, Massachusetts, 1895-1902 | Supreme Court Justice, 1906-1910 |
John Paul, Jr. | United States Attorney, Western District of Virginia, 1929-1932 | Representative, Virginia, 1922-1923 | District Court Judge, Western District of Virginia, 1932-1964 |
Nathaniel Pope | Secretary of the Illinois Territory, 1809-1816 | Delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives, Illinois Territory, 1817-1818 | Judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Illinois, 1819-1850 |
Lewis B. Schwellenbach | Secretary of Labor, 1945–1948 | Senator, Washington, 1934–1940 | District Court Judge, Eastern District of Washington, 1940-1945 |
Caleb Blood Smith | Secretary of the Interior, 1861–1862 | Representative, Indiana, 1843-1849 | District Court Judge, District of Indiana, 1862-1864 |
Emory Speer | United States Attorney, Northern District of Georgia, 1883-1885 | Representative, Georgia, 1878-1882 | District Court Judge, Southern District of Georgia, 1885-1918 |
Horace Worth Vaughan | United States Attorney, District of Hawaii, 1915-1916 | Representative, Texas, 1912–1914 | District Court Judge, District of Hawaii, 1916-1922 |
Fred M. Vinson | Director, Office of Economic Stabilization, 1943–1945 Secretary of the Treasury, 1945–1946 |
Representative from Kentucky, 8th and 9th districts, 1924–1929, 1931–1933, 1933–1938 | Judge, D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, 1938–1943 Chief Justice of the United States, 1946-1953 |
Edmund Waddill, Jr. | United States Attorney, Eastern District of Virginia, 1883-1885 | Representative, Virginia, 1890-1891 | District Court Judge, Eastern District of Virginia, 1898-1921 Judge, 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, 1921-1931 |
William Wilkins | Secretary of War, 1844–1845 | Senator, Pennsylvania, 1831-1834 Representative, Pennsylvania, 1843-1844 |
District Court Judge, Western District of Pennsylvania, 1824-1831 |
Levi Woodbury | Secretary of the Navy, 1831-1834 Secretary of the Treasury, 1834-1841 |
Senator, New Hampshire, 1825-1831 1841-1845 |
Supreme Court Justice, 1845-1851 |
A number of people have come close to achieving this distinction, having held offices in two branches but having failed in an attempt to hold office in a third branch: