Jackson Begins Spoils System

Partisan services should be rewarded by public office, though it involved the removal from office of competent and faithful incumbents.

Continuing Andrew Jackson Becomes President,
our selection from Life of Andrew Jackson by James Parton published in 1860. The selection is presented in five easy 5 minute installments. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

Previously in Andrew Jackson Becomes President.

Time: 1829

Nor was this scrupulousness due to any lack of aspirants for governmental employment. John Quincy Adams says, in one of his letters, that he was tormented with ceaseless, with daily ap plications for office. In the last year of Monroe’s Presidency, when the Fourth Auditorship of the Treasury fell vacant, there were, among the army of applicants for the place, five United States Senators and thirty members of the House of Representatives!

Up to the hour of the delivery of General Jackson’s inaugural address, it was supposed that the new President would act upon the principles of his predecessors. In his Monroe letters he had taken strong ground against partisan appointments, and when he resigned his seat in the Senate he had advocated two amendments to the Constitution designed to limit and purify the exercise of the appointing power. One of these proposed amendments forbade the reelection of a President, and the other the appointment of members of Congress to any office not judicial.

The sun had not gone down upon the day of his inauguration before it was known in all official circles in Washington that the “reform” alluded to in the inaugural address meant a removal from office of all who had conspicuously opposed, and an appointment to office of those who had conspicuously aided the election of the new President. The work was promptly begun. Figures are not important here, and the figures relating to this matter have been disputed.

Some have declared that during the first year of the Presidency of General Jackson two thousand persons in the civil employment of the Government were removed from office, and two thousand partisans of the President appointed in their stead. This statement has been denied. It cannot be denied that in the first month of this Administration more removals were made than had occurred from the foundation of the Government to that time. It cannot be denied that the principle was now acted upon that partisan services should be rewarded by public office, though it involved the removal from office of competent and faithful incumbents.

Colonel Benton will not be suspected of overstating the facts respecting the removals, but he admits that their number, during the year (1829), was six hundred ninety. He expresses himself on this subject with less than his usual directness. His estimate of six hundred ninety does not include the little army of clerks and others who were at the disposal of some of the six hundred ninety. The estimate of two thousand includes all who lost their places in consequence of General Jackson’s accession to power; and, though the exact number cannot be ascertained, I presume it was not less than two thousand. Colonel Benton says that of the eight thousand postmasters, only four hundred ninety-one were removed; but he does not add, as he might have added, that the four hundred ninety-one vacated places comprised nearly all in the department that were worth having. Nor does he mention that the removal of the postmasters of half a dozen great cities was equivalent to the removal of many hundreds of clerks, bookkeepers, and carriers.

General Harrison, who had courteously censured General Jackson’s course in the Seminole war, who had warmly defended his friend, Henry Clay, against the charge of bargain and corruption, was recalled from Colombia just four days after General Jackson had acquired the power to recall him. General Harrison had only resided in Colombia a few weeks when he received the news of his recall. A Kentuckian, who was particularly inimical to Clay, was sent out to take his place.

The appointment of a soldier so distinguished as General Harrison to represent the United States in the infant Republic of Colombia was regarded by the Colombians as a great honor done them, and an emphatic recognition of their disputed claim to a place among the nations. A purer patriot, a worthier gentleman, than General William Henry Harrison, has not adorned the public service of his country. His singular merits as a scholar, as a man of honor, as a soldier, and as a statesman, were only obscured by the calumny and eulogium incident to a Presidential campaign. My studies of the Indian affairs of the country have given me the highest idea of his valor, skill, and humanity.

Samuel Swartwout was among the expectants at Washington -— an easy, good-natured man; most inexact and even reckless in the management of business; the last man in the whole world to be entrusted with millions. He had hopes of the collectorship of New York. On March 14th he wrote from Washington to his friend, Jesse Hoyt, to let him know how he was getting on, and to give Hoyt the benefit of his observations -— Hoyt himself being a seeker. “I hold to your doctrine fully,” wrote Swartwout, “that no d-—d rascal who made use of his office or his profits for the purpose of keeping Adams in and General Jackson out of power is entitled to the least lenity or mercy, save that of hanging. So, we both think alike on that head. Whether or not I shall get anything in the general scramble for plunder, remains to be proven; but I rather think I shall. What it will be is not yet so certain; perhaps keeper of the Bergen lighthouse.

I rather think Massa Pomp stands a smart chance of going somewhere, perhaps to the place you have named, or to the devil. Your man, if you want a place, is Colonel Hamilton * -— he being now the second officer in the Government of the Union, and in all probability our next President. Make your suit to him, then, and you will get what you want.”

[* Acting Secretary of State until the arrival of Van Buren]

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