s
increase of patronage, and second, the fact that circumstances had
largely identified a party name with patriotism. The great and radical
evil of the spoils system was carefully fostered by the apparent
absolute necessity to the public welfare of making political opinion and
sympathy a condition of appointment to the smallest place. It is since
the war, therefore, that the evil has run riot and that its consequences
have been fully revealed. Those consequences are now familiar, and
I shall not describe them. It is enough that the most patriotic and
intelligent Americans and the most competent foreign observers agree
that the direct and logical results of that system are the dangerous
confusion of the executive and legislative powers of the Government;
the conversion of politics into mere place-hunting; the extension of the
mischief to State and county and city administration, and the consequent
degradation of the national character; the practical disfranchisement of
the people wherever the system is most powerful; and the perversion of a
republic of equal citizens into a despotism of venal politicians. These
are the greatest dangers that can threaten a republic, and they are due
to the practice of treating the vast system of minor public places which
are wholly ministerial, and whose duties are the same under every party
administration, not as public trusts, but as party perquisites. The
English-speaking race has a grim sense of humor, and the absurdity of
transacting the public business of a great nation in a way which would
ruin both the trade and the character of a small huckster, of proceeding
upon the theory--for such is the theory of the spoils system--that a man
should be put in charge of a locomotive because he holds certain views
of original sin, or because he polishes boots nimbly with his tongue--it
is a folly so stupendous and grotesque that when it is fully perceived
by the shrewd mother-wit of the Yankee it will be laughed indignantly
and contemptuously away. But the laugh must have the method, and the
indignation the form, of law; and now that the public mind is aroused
to the true nature and tendency of the spoils system is the time to
consider the practicable legal remedy for them.

The whole system of appointments in the Civil Service proceeds from the
President, and in regard to his action the intention of the Constitution
is indisputable. It is that the President shall appoint solely upon
public co