Spoils System

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  Federal Service and the Constitution

  The Development of the Public Employment Relationship, Second Edition

  • David H. Rosenbloom(Author)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Georgetown University Press

    (Publisher)

  61

  The Spoils System also tended to encourage the creation of civil service positions for party workers, and US naval policy was partially based on the distribution of patronage in the navy yards.62 The widespread political activity, appointment, and removal under the Spoils System therefore not only infringed on the constitutional rights of federal employees but also became associated with administrative effects that in turn encouraged reforms regulating these features of the system and further development of the public employment relationship.

  Conclusion

  The Spoils System thoroughly altered the federal service and had important effects on the public employment relationship and its future development. It destroyed the concept of property in office, made long tenure unusual except in technical positions and agencies, and altered the social class composition of the bureaucracy. It thoroughly reoriented the federal service from being an extension of the elite who dominated the national government to constituting an arm of the political party in power. The Spoils System immediately affected the public employment relationship in diverse ways. It established a greater degree of equality of access to civil service positions among white males insofar as social class status was concerned, but it continued and increased the importance of political opinion and affiliation in recruitment. All things considered, it is reasonable to conclude that within the racial- and gender-based practices of the time, the Spoils System enhanced the social representativeness of the federal service while reducing the First Amendment rights of government employees and applicants by increasing the incidence and importance of political dismissals and by coercing political contributions and activity. When coercion extended to voting, it was especially invasive of a basic constitutional right; although the extent to which this occurred is uncertain, it was substantial.

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  Expansion And Structural Change

  • Paul Windolf(Author)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  The postelection distribution of the "spoils" — the offices available for filling — followed a simple pattern. The precinct managers of the winning party were allotted a number of appointments on the basis of the party's relative electoral success in the respective precincts; these local party bosses could then distribute the offices allotted to them as they pleased, and they were awarded to those activists who had delivered the "marketable goods" when they counted — on election day. Those in possession of these "goods" were unable to cash them in only in the event that their party lost the election.

  The way in which the Spoils System worked to the disadvantage of the middle class businessman can be illustrated in a case from the harbor of New York City. A high proportion of tax revenue stemmed from customs duties in New York harbor, and political party competition was therefore intense for control of the customs office there. An election victory would bring the winning party command of hundreds of highly sought-after jobs; the harbor was therefore also the most important source of income for the local political parties. The efficiency of the customs office was very limited, and the paperwork on some incoming shipments sometimes lasted weeks. The customs officials did not carry out the work themselves but contracted it out to others, for they themselves were engaged exclusively in the political activities for which they had received their official positions. Similar conditions were common in the postal system, which at the local level was also an important resource for the Spoils System. Often it was the case that hundreds of postal bags were piled high in post offices as a result of laxness or the lack of organization (Skowronek 1982, pp. 61-62, 72-73).

  In the late 19th century a movement arose calling for reform of such malpractice in machine politics. This self-styled "progressive movement" was supported not by blue-collar workers or immigrants but by the upper and middle social strata. Those most disadvantaged by "spoils" politics were the entrepreneurs of the then-consolidating capitalist class, and these formed an alliance with the new middle class of graduates from the rapidly expanding universities who, by virtue of their educational qualifications, viewed the government bureaucracy as their personal domain. The clear aim of the progressive movement as regards the state bureaucracy was to change the way in which government operates so that it would better resemble an industrial enterprise. A merit system was to be introduced so that those holding office in the public bureaucracy would be hired and promoted on the basis of qualification and performance, evaluated in terms of competence and impartiality.16

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  Popular misgovernment in the United States

  • Alfred Byron Cruikshank(Author)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Perlego

    (Publisher)

  Coming to the next decade we find a systematic corruption of the electorate, a large part whereof was willing no doubt to be corrupted. Ostrogorski says that “after the (Civil) War the exasperation of party spirit and the extraordinary development of the Spoils System led to bribery being used as a regular weapon.... The parties often secure, in much the same way, the votes of the members of the labor unions; the leaders ‘sell them out’ to the parties without the workmen having a suspicion of it. The voters who deliberately sell themselves belong in the cities, mostly to the dregs of the population.”

  And also referring to states where the vote was close:

  “These states ranked among the doubtful ones, four or five in number, are drenched with money during the presidential campaign for buying the ‘floaters,’ the wavering electors who sell themselves to the highest bidder.” (Pp. 206, 207.)

  During all this period and down to the present time, the Spoils System built on manhood suffrage has been the dominant force in our public life.

  “It is” (says Bryce) “these spoilsmen who have depraved and distorted the mechanism of politics. It is they who pack the primaries and run the conventions so as to destroy the freedom of popular choice, they who contrive and execute the election frauds which disgrace some States and cities—repeating and ballot stuffing, obstruction of the polls and fraudulent countings in.

  In making every administrative appointment a matter of party claim and personal favour, the system has lowered the general tone of public morals, for it has taught men to neglect the interests of the community, and made insincerity ripen into cynicism. Nobody supposes that merit has anything to do with promotion, or believes the pretext alleged for an appointment. Politics has been turned into the art of distributing salaries so as to secure the maximum of support from friends with the minimum of offence to opponents. To this art able men have been forced to bend their minds: on this Presidents and ministers have spent those hours which were demanded by the real problems of the country.” (American Commonwealth, Vol. II, p. 137.)

  Meantime the politicians, not content with the original operation of manhood suffrage on the spoils of office, have bethought them of adding to the fruits of these operations by increasing still further the number of elective offices. It has been easy to persuade to this move many of that small number of intelligent voters who trouble themselves about such matters. The pretence of extending the sway of democracy and liberty which has always been used to cover schemes of public plunder was found sufficient once more. On this pretence the administrative and judicial offices of various states were made elective instead of appointive as formerly. As Ostrogorski says (Idem

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  U. S. History

  • P. Scott Corbett, Volker Janssen, John M. Lund, Todd Pfannestiel, Paul Vickery, Sylvie Waskiewicz(Authors)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Openstax

    (Publisher)

  The populace, it seemed, preferred the devil they didn’t know to the one they did. Once elected, presidents had barely enough power to repay the political favors they owed to the individuals who ensured their narrow victories in cities and regions around the country. Their four years in office were spent repaying favors and managing the powerful relationships that put them in the White House. Everyday Americans were largely left on their own. Among the few political issues that presidents routinely addressed during this era were ones of patronage, tariffs, and the nation’s monetary system. PATRONAGE: THE Spoils System VS CIVIL SERVICE At the heart of each president’s administration was the protection of the Spoils System, that is, the power Chapter 20 | Politics in the Gilded Age, 1870-1900 579 of the president to practice widespread political patronage. Patronage, in this case, took the form of the president naming his friends and supporters to various political posts. Given the close calls in presidential elections during the era, the maintenance of political machinery and repaying favors with patronage was important to all presidents, regardless of party affiliation. This had been the case since the advent of a two-party political system and universal male suffrage in the Jacksonian era. For example, upon assuming office in March 1829, President Jackson immediately swept employees from over nine hundred political offices, amounting to 10 percent of all federal appointments. Among the hardest-hit was the U.S. Postal Service, which saw Jackson appoint his supporters and closest friends to over four hundred positions in the service (Figure 20.8). Figure 20.8 This political cartoon shows Andrew Jackson riding a pig, which is walking over “fraud,” “bribery,” and “spoils,” and feeding on “plunder.” As can be seen in the table below (Table 20.1), every single president elected from 1876 through 1892 won despite receiving less than 50 percent of the popular vote.

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  The Invention of Party Politics

  Federalism, Popular Sovereignty, and Constitutional Development in Jacksonian Illinois

  • Gerald Leonard(Author)
  • 2003(Publication Date)
  • The University of North Carolina Press

    (Publisher)

  Chapter SixThe Spoils Aristocracy and the Paper Aristocracy, 1837–1838

  In a series of three cases between 1976 and 1990, the U.S. Supreme Court made clear that the Spoils System is and always has been inconsistent with the First Amendment.1 Disregarding one dissenter’s assertion that the Spoils System was a matter of “open, widespread, and [constitutionally] unchallenged use that dates back to the beginning of the Republic,”2 the Court created a cause of action for those who had suffered public employment consequences on the basis of their politics, what the Whigs habitually called “proscription for opinion’s sake.” And it is clear that the Whigs shared the modern Court’s reading of the Constitution. They did not, however, resort to the courts to vindicate the Constitution. Instead, they built a mass movement and justified it largely by their condemnation of the partyists’ “proscriptive policy.” Their movement rested on the antispoils constitutional position that truly did date back to the beginning of the Republic.3

  If the Whigs naturally turned to popular politics rather than courts to vindicate the Constitution, that instinct was even stronger among the Democrats. The first Democratic appointee to the office of Illinois’s secretary of state, John McClernand, did necessarily resort to the courts when the stubborn Whig incumbent, Alexander P. Field, refused to hand over the state seal and other appurtenances of office, but that only gave the state’s highest court the chance to opine on the dangers of executive government while vindicating Field.4 More generally, it was an article of faith for Democrats, reinforced by the Field case, that ultimate constitutional authority lay not in the courts, least of all the federal Supreme Court, but in the majority of the people at the polls.5

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