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 man a vote, whether virtuous or wicked, intelligent or ignorant.  Until Jackson was intrusted with the reins of government, no president of the United States, however inclined to reward political friends, dared to establish such a principle as rotation in office or removal without sufficient cause.  Not one there was who would not have shrunk from such a dangerous precedent, a policy certain to produce an inferior class of public servants, and take away from political life all that is lofty and ennobling, except in positions entirely independent of presidential control, such as the national legislature.