itutions to suit
themselves. So indignant were some of the Southerners that the
dissolution of the Union was openly threatened. To allay this
agitation Clay's compromise measures were proposed, but Taylor did
not live to see the bill passed.

The horde of office-seekers which invaded Washington after the
inauguration of President Taylor recalled the saying of John
Randolph, when it was asserted that the patronage of the Federal
Government was overrated: "I know," said the sarcastic Virginian,
"that it may be overrated; I know that we cannot give to those who
apply offices equal to their expectations; and I also know that
with one bone I can call five hundred dogs." The Democratic motto,
that "To the victors belong the spoils," was adopted by the Taylor
Administration. Unexceptionable men were removed from office, that
their places might be filled with officers of Rough and Ready clubs
or partisan orators. Veterans like General Armstrong and even the
gifted Hawthorne, were "rotated" without mercy from the offices
which they held. In the Post-Office Department alone, where Mr.
Fitz Henry Warren, as Assistant Postmaster-General, worked the
political guillotine, there were three thousand four hundred and
six removals during the first year of the Taylor Administration,
besides many hundred clerks and employees in the post-offices of
the larger cities.

In the dispensation of "patronage" there was a display of shameless
nepotism. A brother-in-law of Senator Webster was made Navy Agent
at New York. Sons of Senators Crittenden, Clay, and Davis received
important appointments abroad, and the son-in-law of Senator Calhoun
was retained in the diplomatic service. Two sons-in-law of Senator
Benton were offered high places. A nephew of Senator Truman Smith
was made one of the United States Judges in Minnesota, and a nephew
of Secretary Clayton was made purser at the Washington Navy Yard.
The assurance of the President that he had "no friends to reward"
was apparently forgotten, and he was hedged in by a little circle
of executive councilors, who ruled all things.

While the Administration was profligate in this abuse of patronage,
the conduct of several of the Secretaries was such as to give the
President great uneasiness as he became acquainted with what was
going on. Old claims were revived, approved by the Secretaries,
and paid. Prominent among them was the Galphin claim, the Chickasaw
claim, the De la Francia cl