United States Passport by Robert Smith
During research, I stumbled over this great travel document. And guess where is it archived? At The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. But it’s not on display. I never thought the MET would have any passports, but here we are. United States passport Robert Smith
U.S. Passport for Charles de Saint-Mémin United States passport Robert Smith
Who was he? Charles de Saint Mémin started out as a French noble who got slammed by the fallout of the French Revolution. Picture a guy who grew up with salons and silk cuffs and suddenly finds himself broke, hungry, and landing in the United States trying to restart his life. He gets excellent at making profile portraits, the kind cut with a pantograph. These little silhouette style images make him kind of big deal in early American circles. Presidents. Generals.
Now, the passport part. By 1810 he wanted to return to France to reclaim whatever future he still had there. But once you were living in the United States you needed a US passport to travel out. There wasn’t some deep diplomatic twist to it. It was paperwork. A travel document so he could leave the country and get back across the Atlantic without trouble.
So the bottom line is simple. Exiled aristocrat turns portrait artist, earns enough status to move around again, then needs a US passport in 1810 because that’s how you got out of the country.
Robert Smith: The Secretary of State Who Never Quite Fit the Chair
If you’ve ever taken a job you weren’t really built for, Robert Smith’s story will feel oddly familiar. He was born in 1757 in Pennsylvania, raised in Baltimore, and grew up in a family that knew how to work its way into local influence. He studied at what’s now Princeton, fought a little in the Revolution, then came home, learned the law, and built a solid practice dealing with ships and trade. That part of his life actually made sense. He understood Baltimore. He understood the docks. He understood how the world moved when goods and power brushed against each other.
Public life pulled him in slowly. Maryland state politics. Local council. A few roles where he could blend his legal mind with early American chaos. Then Jefferson tapped him to run the Navy in 1801. And he did fine there. Maybe not brilliant, but steady. Reliable enough that people trusted him. Then everything went sideways. United States passport Robert Smith
In 1809 Madison made him Secretary of State. Not because Madison really wanted him, but because the Senate blocked Madison’s first choice, Albert Gallatin. Smith’s brother Samuel also swung his own weight in the background. So Smith ended up with the most complicated job in the cabinet at a time when Europe was basically on fire and the United States was stuck between Britain and France like a rowboat between two warships.
The trouble showed fast. Madison kept rewriting Smith’s letters because he didn’t like how Smith shaped diplomatic messages. Smith also made a deal with British minister David Erskine that looked like a breakthrough, but Erskine had gone beyond his orders. London tore the agreement apart. The whole thing blew up, and the United States looked sloppy at a moment when it needed to look strong.
By 1811 the cracks were obvious. Gallatin pushed Madison to remove Smith. Madison tried to ease him out by offering him a posting to Russia. Smith refused and fired back in public, which only made things worse. He resigned on April 1, 1811, and never returned to national office.
So what’s the real story here? Simple. Smith was a smart, capable man in the wrong seat at the wrong time. A solid administrator forced into high wire diplomacy he wasn’t shaped for. And when the pressure hit, he slipped.
History remembers him as a footnote, but he’s a good reminder that titles don’t magically create talent. Sometimes a person is fine. The chair is the problem.
However, according DoS records Smith issued only 227 passports. But how many have survived until today – 215 years later? Hence, no doubt, this passport is a very rare one.
Tom Topol | Passport Historian & Author
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