The administrative weakness of a democracy, namely, the tendency towards a government by job-hunters, was disclosed even in the early days of the United States, when the official machinery was simple and the number of offices few.Washington at once foresaw both the difficulties and the duties that the appointing power imposed.Soon after his inauguration he wrote to Rutledge: "Ianticipate that one of the most difficult and delicate parts of the duty of any office will be that which relates to nominations for appointments." And he was most scrupulous and painstaking in his appointments.Fitness for duty was paramount with him, though he recognized geographical necessity and distributed the offices with that precision which characterized all his acts.
John Adams made very few appointments.After his term had expired, he wrote: "Washington appointed a multitude of Democrats and Jacobins of the deepest die.I have been more cautious in this respect."The test of partizan loyalty, however, was not applied generally until after the election of Jefferson.The ludicrous apprehensions of the Federalists as to what would follow upon his election were not allayed by his declared intentions."I have given," he wrote to Monroe, "and will give only to Republicans under existing circumstances." Jefferson was too good a politician to overlook his opportunity to annihilate the Federalists.He hoped to absorb them in his own party, "to unite the names of Federalists and Republicans." Moderate Federalists, who possessed sufficient gifts of grace for conversion, he sedulously nursed.But he removed all officers for whose removal any special reason could be discovered.The "midnight appointments" of John Adams he refused to acknowledge, and he paid no heed to John Marshall's dicta in Marbury versus Madison.
He was zealous in discovering plausible excuses for making vacancies.The New York Evening Post described him as "gazing round, with wild anxiety furiously inquiring, 'how are vacancies to be obtained?'" Directly and indirectly, Jefferson effected, during his first term, 164 changes in the offices at his disposal, a large number for those days.This he did so craftily, with such delicate regard for geographical sensitiveness and with such a nice balance between fitness for office and the desire for office, that by the end of his second term he had not only consolidated our first disciplined and eager political party, but had quieted the storm against his policy of partizan proscription.
During the long regime of the Jeffersonian Republicans there were three significant movements.In January, 1811, Nathaniel Macon introduced his amendment to the Constitution providing that no member of Congress should receive a civil appointment "under the authority of the United States until the expiration of the presidential term in which such person shall have served as senator or representative." An amendment was offered by Josiah Quincy, making ineligible to appointment the relations by blood or marriage of any senator or representative.Nepotism was considered the curse of the civil service, and for twenty years similar amendments were discussed at almost every session of Congress.John Quincy Adams said that half of the members wanted office, and the other half wanted office for their relatives.
In 1820 the Four Years' Act substituted a four-year tenure of office, in place of a term at the pleasure of the President, for most of the federal appointments.The principal argument urged in favor of the law was that unsatisfactory civil servants could easily be dropped without reflection on their character.
Defalcations had been discovered to the amount of nearly a million dollars, due mainly to carelessness and gross inefficiency.It was further argued that any efficient incumbent need not be disquieted, for he would be reappointed.The law, however, fulfilled Jefferson's prophecy: it kept "in constant excitement all the hungry cormorants for office."What Jefferson began, Jackson consummated.The stage was now set for Democracy.Public office had been marshaled as a force in party maneuver.In his first annual message, Jackson announced his philosophy:
"There are perhaps few men who can for any great length of time enjoy office and power without being more or less under the influence of feelings unfavorable to the faithful discharge of their public duties....Office is considered as a species of property, and government rather as a means of promoting individual interests than as an instrument created solely for the service of the people.Corruption in some, and in others a perversion of correct feelings and principles, divert government from its legitimate ends and make it an engine for the support of the few at the expense of the many.The duties of all public offices are, or at least admit of being made, so plain, so simple that men of intelligence may readily qualify themselves for their performance....In a country where offices are created solely for the benefit of the people, no one man has any more intrinsic right to official station than another."The Senate refused Jackson's request for an extension of the Four Years' law to cover all positions in the civil service.It also refused to confirm some of his appointments, notably that of Van Buren as minister to Great Britain.The debate upon this appointment gave the spoilsman an epigram.Clay with directness pointed to Van Buren as the introducer "of the odious system of proscription for the exercise of the elective franchise in the government of the United States." He continued: "I understand it is the system on which the party in his own State, of which he is the reputed head, constantly acts.He was among the first of the secretaries to apply that system to the dismission of clerks of his department...known to me to be highly meritorious...
It is a detestable system."
