wiser than the collected
wisdom and experience of the representatives of the nation,--a notion
which neither Washington nor Jefferson nor Madison ever entertained.

Again, Jackson's system of appointments to office--the removal of men
already satisfactorily doing the work of the government, in order to
make places for his personal and political supporters--was a great
innovation, against all the experience of governments, whether despotic
or constitutional. It led to the reign of demagogues, and gave rewards,
not to those who deserved promotion from their able and conscientious
discharge of duty in public trusts, but to those who most unscrupulously
and zealously advocated or advanced the interests of the party in power.
It led to perpetual rotations in office without reasonable cause, and
made the election of party chiefs of more importance than the support of
right principles. The imperfect civil service reforms which have been
secured during the last few years with so much difficulty show the
political mischief for which Jackson is responsible, and which has
disgraced every succeeding administration,--an evil so gigantic that no
president has been strong enough to overcome it; not only injurious to
the welfare of the nation by depriving it of the services of experienced
men, but inflicting an onerous load on the President himself which he
finds it impossible to shake off,--the great obstacle to the proper
discharge of his own public duties, and the bar to all private
enjoyment. What is more perplexing and irritating to an incoming
president than the persistent and unreasonable demands of
office-seekers, nine out of ten of whom are doomed to disappointment,
and who consequently become enemies rather than friends of the
administration?

This "spoils system" which Jackson inaugurated has proved fatal to all
dignity of office, and all honesty in elections. It has divested
politics of all attraction to superior men, and put government largely
into the hands of the most venal and unblushing of demagogues. It has
proved as great and fatal a mistake as has the establishment of
universal suffrage which Jefferson encouraged,--a mistake at least in
the great cities of the country,--an evil which can never be remedied
except by revolution. Doubtless it was a generous impulse on the part of
Jackson to reward his friends with the spoils of office, as it was a
logical sequence of the doctrine of political equality to give every ma