As of 2021, there have been 23 members appointed to the Cabinet of the United States who had been born outside the present-day United States. Alexander Hamilton, one of the Founding Fathers who signed the United States Constitution, was the first Cabinet member to be born outside of the United States. President George Washington appointed Hamilton, born in Nevis in 1755 or in 1757, as the United States' first Secretary of Treasury in 1789. Irish-born James McHenry, whom Washington appointed as Secretary of War in 1796 and who served the in same post in John Adams's administration, was the other foreign-born individual in Washington's cabinet.