ing in his appointments. Fitness for duty was paramount with
him, though he recognized geographical necessity and distributed the
offices with that precision which characterized all his acts.

John Adams made very few appointments. After his term had expired, he
wrote: "Washington appointed a multitude of Democrats and Jacobins of
the deepest die. I have been more cautious in this respect."

The test of partizan loyalty, however, was not applied generally until
after the election of Jefferson. The ludicrous apprehensions of the
Federalists as to what would follow upon his election were not allayed
by his declared intentions. "I have given," he wrote to Monroe, "and
will give only to Republicans under existing circumstances." Jefferson
was too good a politician to overlook his opportunity to annihilate the
Federalists. He hoped to absorb them in his own party, "to unite
the names of Federalists and Republicans." Moderate Federalists, who
possessed sufficient gifts of grace for conversion, he sedulously
nursed. But he removed all officers for whose removal any special
reason could be discovered. The "midnight appointments" of John Adams he
refused to acknowledge, and he paid no heed to John Marshall's dicta in
Marbury versus Madison. He was zealous in discovering plausible excuses
for making vacancies. The New York Evening Post described him as "gazing
round, with wild anxiety furiously inquiring, 'how are vacancies to
be obtained?'" Directly and indirectly, Jefferson effected, during his
first term, 164 changes in the offices at his disposal, a large number
for those days. This he did so craftily, with such delicate regard for
geographical sensitiveness and with such a nice balance between fitness
for office and the desire for office, that by the end of his second term
he had not only consolidated our first disciplined and eager political
party, but had quieted the storm against his policy of partizan
proscription.

During the long regime of the Jeffersonian Republicans there were three
significant movements. In January, 1811, Nathaniel Macon introduced
his amendment to the Constitution providing that no member of Congress
should receive a civil appointment "under the authority of the United
States until the expiration of the presidential term in which such
person shall have served as senator or representative." An amendment was
offered by Josiah Quincy, making ineligible to appointment the relations
by blood or marria