same sort to the Secretary of the Treasury brought a reply which well illustrates the hunger for office everywhere prevailing. If there were an enemy threatening the good city of New York with destruction there might be some reason for excitement, the Secretary wrote. But that so many wise men should go into hysterics because an appointee of Mr. Adams continued to collect the duties for a few days or weeks longer was surprising. Yet it was the same everywhere. One of Jackson's best friends in Baltimore left Washington two days after the inauguration, filling the air with imprecations because he had not been given an office not then vacant, and because all the late Administration inspectors had not been removed. But he had since come to his senses. The inspectors were removed, and throngs were "getting right there." Boston, too, where the friends of Jackson were so strong that they could afford to split into two parties, was in a ferment. Providence, where seventy-two votes were given to Jackson, also had the fever, and Egg Harbor, New Jersey, where five democratic votes were cast, was in the same condition. "I should hope there was soberness enough among you to resist the impotence of expectants until their vain hopes shall yield to reason and common sense." There was an immense mass of public business to be transacted. This could not be postponed; the appointments could and must. Only at intervals few and far between could time be found to consider them.* When at last time was found and the removals began, discontent was greater than ever. "Two of the very best offices in the gift of the Government," exclaimed a partisan, "given to personal friends and without even consulting his Cabinet. If the President pursues this course the party is ruined, and the sooner we begin to build up a new the better." Another, shocked at the number of newspaper editors placed in office, declared to one of them that the appointment of personal friends and editorial partisans had aroused such feeling as he never ex *Secretary S. D. Ingham to Jesse Hoyt, April 14, 1829. Mackenzie, Life of Van Buren, pp. 216, 217. ↑ J. I. Coddington to Jesse Hoyt, March 29, 1829. Ibid., pp. 213, 214. 1829. EFFECT OF THE REMOVALS. 531 pected to witness. The dignity of the press was injured, and its lofty independence brought down* by the touch of Executive power. When the editor replied that if gentlemen of his cloth were kept poor there was danger of the press becoming dependent, he was answered that dependence on a party or on the people was one thing, and dependence on the Administration quite another; that in the case of ordinary offices there should be no connection between the press and the President; that editors and congressmen should be put under the same rules and the same exceptions; that independence of the press and freedom of elections were the safeguards of our liberties; and that both were laid at the feet of the President when editors and members of Congress took office.† The distress caused by such acts was terrible. A clerk in the Auditor's office, from mere fear of removal, cut his throat from ear to ear. Another, in the Department of State, went raving crazy. A third found on his desk one morning an official letter. Opening it, he read with dismay that the Secretary would have no further use for his services after the end of the current month, and that he might leave at once or serve out the allotted time, as pleased him best. A fourth, in a controversy with Van Buren, described a scene he beheld when a dismissed clerk broke the news to his wife and children. At Boston an official in the CustomHouse, on whom a mother and sisters depended for their daily bread, never heard of his removal till the new incumbent came to take his place. Some received the news that, in the language of the day, they had been "turned out to graze," that their "walking papers were ready," from the columns of the newspapers." One day in April eleven inspectors were turned out at the Baltimore Custom-House,|| and soon after eleven more were removed from office at # *Thomas Ritchie to Mordecai Noah, of the New York Enquirer, March 25, 1829. Thomas Ritchie to Mordecai Noah, April 11, 1829. National Intelligencer, May 9, 1829. #Baltimore Patriot. National Intelligencer, May 1, 1829. | American Daily Advertiser, April 16, 1829. Philadelphia.* By the first of June it was estimated that three hundred postmasters, in as many cities, towns, and villages, had been deprived of their places, and that the clerks, when there were any, had been ejected by the new incumbents. Some took loss of office as a matter of course. "The reader will observe," said one of them, “that the editor of this paper has been removed from the post-office at Circleville. In October last he voted for the Adams ticket, and for this heretical act his official services have been cut short with just as little ceremony as were the lives of Arbuthnot and Ambrister. The long and the short of the matter is just this: The editor did not wish that General Jackson should be President; so General Jackson did not choose that the editor should be postmaster. The general succeeded in his wishes and the editor did not, and the account is closed." Others appealed to the Postmaster-General. The course of still others was taken up by their fellowtownsmen and made the matter of public resolutions. But all to no avail. To the people at large it made little difference who were clerks in the departments, collectors of the customs, registers of the land offices, Ministers, or consuls abroad. But when the sweep of the post-offices began, when it became known that by the first of July three hundred postmasters, in as many cities, towns, and villages, had been turned out because they had dared to cast a vote for the Adams electors, a large part of the community became deeply interested. To remove an official with whom not one citizen in a thousand ever had occasion to transact business was a small matter, but to eject the postmasters who for five, ten, in some cases twenty years, had faithfully served their little community and were personally known to everybody in the towns, was quite another thing, and the Jackson press soon found it necessary to explain. Wait a bit, it was said, and all will be explained; do not judge too harshly; such a mass of evidence will be laid before Congress as will satisfy the most prejudiced; these men have interfered with elections, or * National Intelligencer, April 27, 1829. 1829. THE POST-OFFICE. 533 are unfit to discharge the duties of their offices, or have abused their trust; the voice of the people calls for their removal. As we look back to the opening of Jackson's Administration, the volume of business transacted by the Post-Office Department each year seems small indeed. Nevertheless, the growth of it since revolutionary days to the men of 1829 was astonishing. When Washington was inaugurated at New York there were in the United States but seventy-five post-offices. When Jackson was inaugurated, forty years later, there were seventy-six hundred. In 1789 letters could with difficulty, in the best of weather, be carried fifty miles between sun and sun. In 1829 on many routes the mail was conveyed one hundred miles each twenty-four hours, and that every day in the year. Now there are one thousand times as many post-offices as in 1789, and ten times as many as in 1829, in which, despite the great reduction in the rates of postage, there is gathered fifteen hundred times as much revenue as in 1789, and seventy times as much as in 1829. On a single letter, and that was one sheet of paper, no matter how large or how small, the postage in Jackson's time might be six, ten, twelve and a half, eighteen, or twentyfive cents, according to the distance it was carried. Double, triple, quadruple letters were charged two, three, and four times these rates. Every packet of four or more bits of paper, or one or more other articles, and weighing one ounce avoirdupois, paid quadruple rates, and in that proportion up to three pounds, which was the limit.* Postage marked on every letter and charged in the post bill accompanying it was lawful postage and must be paid, unless the letter was opened in the presence of the postmaster or his clerk and overrating proved before them. This provision of the law had never been rigidly enforced, but the Postmaster-General had not been long at his desk when a circular went forth * If a newspaper did not go out of the State in which it was printed, the postage was one cent for any distance. If it left the State, the rate was one cent for distances less than a hundred miles and one cent and a half beyond that limit. An editor might send one copy of his paper to every other editor in the United States free of postage. Law of March 3, 1825. charging the new officials to be diligent in the execution of the law, and explaining its intent and meaning. The franking privilege was greatly abused by men high in station and by the postmasters themselves. Many persons seemed to be of the opinion that printed sheets of paper were not chargeable with letter postage. This was erroneous. Everything that went by mail must pay letter postage, except newspapers, pamphlets, and legislative journals. Printed circulars, special advertisements, handbills, and proposals for publications were to be rated as letters.* More care must be used in rating letters. To determine the proper rate was often a hard matter, but when a letter seemed to be double or triple it should be so marked, and if the receiver questioned the correctness he might open it in the presence of the postmaster and have the error, if any, corrected.+ With the prospect of instant removal before them, the postmasters, both old and new, at once began to enforce the law most strictly. No risks were taken, and in a few weeks the merchants were crying out that the post-office was grossly defrauding them. A letter was double, triple, or quadruple whenever it contained one, two, or three pieces of paper of any size. A merchant writing to his correspondent, or a depositor to a bank, or a subscriber to the editor of a journal and inclosing one bank-note, by so doing made his letter subject to double postage. Should he send three bank-bills the packet would cost him as much as four huge sheets of paper covered with writing. Under the best of conditions, as weight had nothing to do with postage, it was often a hard matter for a postmaster to determine whether a letter should be rated as single, double, or triple. As post rates were almost invariably paid by the receiver, it was customary for him when overcharged to report to the postmaster, who, taking the complainant at his word, would correct the error. Now all was changed. The new officials, it was claimed, were showing their zeal and seeking to impress their superiors with their fidelity by deliberately overrating let * Four folio, eight quarto, sixteen octavo, twenty-four duodecimo pages were rated as one sheet or a single letter. Circular to Postmasters, May 18, 1829. |