It has been the aim of the Administration to enforce honesty and efficiency in all public offices.  Every public servant who has violated the trust placed in him has been proceeded against with all the rigor of the law.  If bad men have secured places, it has been the fault of the system established by law and custom for making appointments, or the fault of those who recommend for Government positions persons not sufficiently well known to them personally, or who give letters indorsing the characters of office seekers without a proper sense of the grave responsibility which such a course devolves upon them.  A civil-service reform which can correct this abuse is much desired.  In mercantile pursuits the business man who gives a letter of recommendation to a friend to enable him to obtain credit from a stranger is regarded as morally responsible for the integrity of his friend and his ability to meet his obligations.  A reformatory law which would enforce this principle against all indorsers of persons for public place would insure great caution in making recommendations.  A salutary lesson has been taught the careless and the dishonest public servant in the great number of prosecutions and convictions of the last two years.

It is gratifying to notice the favorable change which is taking place throughout the country in bringing to punishment those who have proven recreant to the trusts confided to them and in elevating to public office none but those who possess the confidence of the honest and the virtuous, who, it will always be found, comprise the majority of the community in which they live.

In my message to Congress one year ago I urgently recommended a reform in the civil service of the country.  In conformity with that recommendation Congress, in the ninth section of “An act making appropriations for sundry civil expenses of the Government, and for other purposes,” approved March 3, 1871, gave the necessary authority to the Executive to inaugurate a civil-service reform, and placed upon him the responsibility of doing so.  Under the authority of said act I convened a board of gentlemen eminently qualified for the work to devise rules and regulations to effect the needed reform.  Their labors are not yet complete, but it is believed that they will succeed in devising a plan that can be adopted to the great relief of the Executive, the heads of Departments, and members of Congress, and which will redound to the true interest of the public service.  At all events, the experiment shall have a fair trial.

I have thus hastily summed up the operations of the Government during the last year, and made such suggestions as occur to me to be proper for your consideration.  I submit them with a confidence that your combined action will be wise, statesmanlike, and in the best interests of the whole country.

U. S. GRANT

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State of the Union Address
Ulysses S. Grant
December 2, 1872