[Sidenote:  Origin of the “spoils system.”] But as early as the beginning of the present century a vicious system was growing up in New York and Pennsylvania.  In those states the appointive offices came to be used as bribes or as rewards for partisan services.  By securing votes for a successful candidate, a man with little in his pocket and nothing in particular to do could obtain some office with a comfortable salary.  It would be given him as a reward, and some other man, perhaps more competent than himself, would have to be turned out in order to make room for him.  A more effective method of driving good citizens “out of politics” could hardly be devised.  It called to the front a large class of men of coarse moral fibre who greatly preferred the excitement of speculating in politics to earning an honest living by some ordinary humdrum business.  The civil service of these states was seriously damaged in quality, politics degenerated into a wild scramble for offices, salaries were paid to men who did little or no public service in return, and thus the line which separates taxation from robbery was often crossed.

[Sidenote:  “Rotation in Office.”] [Sidenote:  The “spoils system” made national] About the same time there grew up an idea that there is something especially democratic, and therefore meritorious, about “rotation in office.”  Government offices were regarded as plums at which every one ought to be allowed a chance to take a bite.  The way was prepared in 1820 by W.H.  Crawford, of Georgia, who succeeded in getting the law enacted that limits the tenure of office for postmasters, revenue collectors, and other servants of the federal government to four years.  The importance of this measure was not understood, and it excited very little discussion at the time.  The next presidential election which resulted in a change of party was that of Jackson in 1828, and then the methods of New York and Pennsylvania were applied on a national scale.  Jackson cherished the absurd belief that the administration of his predecessor Adams had been corrupt, and he turned men out of office with a keen zest.  During the forty years between Washington’s first inauguration and Jackson’s the total number of removals from office was 74, and out of this number 5 were defaulters.  During the first year of Jackson’s administration the number of changes made in the civil service was about 2,000. [34] Such was the abrupt inauguration upon a national scale of the so-called “spoils system.”  The phrase originated with W. L. Marcy, of New York, who in a speech in the senate in 1831 declared that “to the victors belong the spoils.”  The man who said this of course did not realize that he was making one of the most shameful remarks recorded in history.  There was, however, much aptness in his phrase, inasmuch as it was a confession that the business of American politics was about to be conducted on principles fit only for the warfare of barbarians.