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fensive partizanship. Even under Jefferson, when the holders of half of the offices were changed in the space of four years, there were few removals for political reasons. No sooner was Jackson in office, however, than wholesale proscription began. The ax fell in every department and bureau, and cut off chiefs and clerks with equal lack of mercy. Age and experience counted rather against a man than in his favor, and rarely was any reason given for removal other than that some one else wanted the place. When Congress met, in December, it was estimated that a thousand persons had been ousted; and during the first year of the Administration the number is said to have reached two thousand. The Post-Office Department and the Customs Service were purged with special severity. The sole principle on which the new appointees were selected was loyalty to Jackson. Practically all were inexperienced, most were incompetent, and several proved dishonest. "There has been," wrote the President in his journal a few weeks after the inauguration, "a great noise made about removals." Protest arose not only from the proscribed and their friends, but from the Adams-Clay forces generally, and even from some of the more moderate Jacksonians. "Were it not for the outdoor popularity of General Jackson," wrote Webster, "the Senate would have negatived more than half his nominations." As it was, many were rejected; and some of the worst were, under pressure, withdrawn. On the general principle the President held his ground. "It is rotation in office," he again and again asserted in all honesty, "that will perpetuate our liberty," and from this conviction no amount of argument or painful experience could shake him. After 1830 one hears less about the subject, but only because the novelty and glamor of the new regime had worn off. Jackson was not the author of the spoils system. The device of using the offices as rewards for political service had long been familiar in the state and local governments, notably in New York. What Jackson and his friends did was simply to carry over the spoils principle into the National Government. No more unfortunate step was ever taken by an American President; the task of undoing the mischief has been long and laborious. Yet the spoils system was probably an inevitable feature of the new rule of the people; at all events, it was accepted by all parties and sanctioned by public sentiment for more than half a cen
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