1

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The corrupt use of the press was to be "reformed." Mr. Adams writes, April 16th: "The appointments, almost without exception, are conferred upon the vilest purveyors of slander during the late electioneering campaign, and an excessive disproportion of places is given to editors of the foulest presses." Senator Clayton said, a little later: "The public press has been not shackled by a gag-law, but subsidized * by salaries, jobs, and pensions granted to partisan editors. The appointment of editors is not casual, but systematic. They were appointed because they were editors." Niles' Register for June 13th says: "About twenty-five editors of very decided, if not violent, party newspapers have been already appointed to office, and some of them to places of much responsibility and great profit." Later a list was made out of fifty-five editors appointed to office during the first two years of the administration, most of them continuing to edit their papers while in office.

Complaint was made that the time of the President, which should have been given to important business, was wasted in attending to applications, and many bore witness to the extraordinary zeal of the applicants. His partisans told of the "official decision and brevity" with which such visitors were treated, and said that no annoyance was felt, and that applications were not pressed in an uncourteous manner."

Thus the matter stood when Congress met in December. It was estimated that two thousand removals took place during the first year, nearly all during the recess of the Sen

1 Memoirs, viii., p. 138.

Niles, vol. xxxvi., p. 250. "Gales and Seaton, vi., pt. i., p. 238. Globe, vol. xxii., pt. i., p. 489. 'Letter of "Aristides," May 2, 1829, Niles, xxxvi., p. 152. This is probably the only instance on record where a President has not confessedly been annoyed by office-seekers. The letters of his predecessors are filled with such complaints, but the friends of President Jackson say they do not desire office, and never seek it in an improper manner. "Aristides" tells us that callers "make their salutations and retire after an interview of from one to five minutes." He says that it would not do to dismiss all public officers at once, although a civil revolution had been accomplished, but "it behooves us to be patient and have confidence the good work is slowly but surely progressing."

ate.' The places thus made vacant had been filled by members of Congress, by partisan editors, by men lacking every qualification of ability and character."

In view of what had transpired during the recess, the first message of the President was awaited with interest. In it,' he recommends the exclusion of members of Congress from all offices except judicial, diplomatic, or those connected immediately with the cabinet. These exceptions covered nearly all of his own appointments and included all offices which members of Congress would specially desire. He recommended also a general extension of the law limiting

1 In Story, ii., p. 355, note by Judge Cooley, is a list cited from the National Intelligencer of September 27, 1832. It is confessedly imperfect, but is as follows:

A very large proportion of these included the most profitable offices in the gift of the Executive, and as each person removed a large number of his subordinates, two thousand does not seem an exaggerated estimate. Amos Kendall admits that one seventh of the office-holders in Washington were removed, and one eleventh in the government employ outside of the city.—Autobiography, p. 301.

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* Senator Bell said of some of the first nominations sent to the Senate, that in the whole forty years since the government had existed, it would be impossible to collect a number of infamous and degraded characters in the list of United States officers equal to those then under consideration.-" Mem. J. Q. Adams,” viii., 188, 189. Mr. Adams says: "Very few reputable appointments have been made, and those confined to persons who were indispensably necessary to the office."-Memoirs, viii., p. 138. "The appointments are exclusively of violent partisans, and every editor of a scurrilous and slanderous newspaper is provided for."-Memoirs, viii., pp. 144, 145. A large number of disgraceful appointments had been made in Florida. Mr. White of that State gave the President, from personal knowledge, an account of the men thus placed in office, and some of them were removed. Mr. Adams said, after an interview with Mr. White: "If he had extracted the quintessence of all the penitentiaries of the Union to represent the virtues of the government in Florida, he could not have made the appointments worse."-Memoirs, viii., 172.

'Annual Register, 1829-30, p. 8.

appointments to four years. This had the appearance of a desire to justify his removal of so many officers not included in the four years' limitation law. He shows that he has not forgotten the position conferred on Mr. Clay by Mr. Adams, as he recommends twice in the message the exclusion from office of representatives in Congress who may have been officially concerned in the election of President.

In view of the large number of names to be acted upon by the Senate, it was expected that a list of them would be immediately sent in. A month, however, elapsed before any names were presented, and two months before all were given to the Senate.' When they were at last under consideration, so unwise did most of them seem that Webster says but for the President's popularity out-of-doors, the Senate would have rejected half. As it was, a large number were rejected, some of them unanimously, others with only a small vote in their favor."

The two questions involved in these nominations gave rise to prolonged and stormy discussions; the first, concerned their constitutionality, the second, their expediency. On the first point it was held by a part of the opposition that the Constitution gave the President power to fill but not to create vacancies during the recess, while others believed that the Senate should decide as to removals as well as appointments. On the second point, objection was made

' Annual Register, 1829-30, p. 21.

Private Correspondence of Webster," i., p. 501.

'Mr. Lee and Mr. Gardner were rejected unanimously. A few of the others

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21

Mr. Rector

-From Annual Register, 1829-30, p. 21.

John Tyler says that when "Jackson nominated a batch of editors to office but two have squeezed through, and that by the whole power of the government here having been thrown into the scale."—" Life and Times of the Tylers," i., p. 408. The editors thus rejected "were either subsequently renominated and confirmed or generally secured better places at Jackson's hands," P. 409.

that experienced officers were removed and that the country had suffered loss through the mismanagement of new officials, the private character of many of whom was a disgrace to the nation.' Opportunity for discussion was given in the repeated resolutions introduced asking that reasons be given for the removal of various individuals, yet the subject was too engrossing not to be introduced whenever occasion permitted.'

It seemed difficult to prove, in view of the decision of 1789, that the President had transgressed his constitutional powers. The way was therefore open to a renewal of the question as to what those powers were. It assumed an interesting form, as it found marshalled on the side of "implied powers" all the adherents of Jefferson and Jackson,* while their opponents became "strict constructionists." It

The greatest opposition on the latter score was to the Florida appointments, p. 60. A gentleman familiar with the circumstances had interceded with the President to withdraw the names as the persons were of suspicious character and odious to the Territory. When the President assured him that every removal had been for defalcation or oppression, he visited the Secretary of State to learn the specific charges, that they might be made known in Florida. Here he was told that the President's recollection was at fault, that they gave no reasons for removals. Mr. White then saw members of the Senate individually, and his account of the nominees was so damaging that the President sent for him, and finally withdrew the names." Memoirs J. Q. Adams," viii., pp. 172, 176, 177; Gales and Seaton, vi., pt. ii., p. 394.

21. Senator Barton's resolutions of March 17th.-Gales and Seaton, vi., pp. 457-467. 2. Senator Mark's resolutions in the case of Wm. Clark, removed from the Treasury Department.-G. and S., vi., pp. 467–470. 3. Senator Barton's resolutions of April 21st, in the case of Theodore Hunt.-Gales and Seaton, vi., pt. i, pp. 367-374. 4. Senator Barton's resolutions of April 26th, in case of James Carson.-G. and S., vi., p. 384. 5. Senator Holmes' resolutions of April 28th, on the general question of the competency of the President to make such removals.-G. and S., vi., pp. 385-396.

'Some of the most important speeches were made ostensibly on Foot's Resoution. 1. Speech of Senator Grundy, March 1st, in favor of the President.G. and S., vi., pp. 210-220. 2. That of Senator Clayton, March 4th, on the opposite side.-G. and S., vi., pp. 224-244. 3. Speech of Senator Livingston, March 15th, in support of the President.-Gales and Seaton, vi., pp. 247–264. Other senators discussed it at less length.

See especially the speech of Senator Grundy.-Gales and Seaton, vi., pp.

210-220.

Speech of Mr. Clay.-Clay's Works, vi., p. 11, et. seq. Webster's Speeches, Whipple's edition, pp. 395–406.

was not possible, however, at this time to reverse that decision, and all resolutions calling into question the power of the President were out of place and rejected on that ground. On the side of expediency the opposition found strong arguments in the derangement of the post-office and custom-house affairs, as well as in the principle of corruption introduced. The administration shielded itself behind the number of removals made by other Executives, to which no objection had been made; in the changes introduced by Jefferson and his reasons for them; and in the principle of rotation in office.'

No constitutional or legislative questions were settled by all these debates of 1830; no new arguments were advanced on either side, yet they show the intensity of feeling in every part of the country. But the subject was by no means dismissed. Constant agitation was the only weapon of the opposition, and they used it on every occasion. In 1832 a.

'The point of issue was evaded entirely. Benton in his " Thirty Years View," gives nine columns ostensibly to removals by Jackson. He dismisses the subject, however, in a column and a half, in which he tells us of the great number Jackson did not remove, and devotes the rest of the chapter to adulations of Jefferson and platitudes on the civil service. He complains of the corruption in the service a dozen years later, but omits to mention the part played by Jackson, vol. i., p. 160, et seq.

Senator Grundy strained the question, and applying it to cabinet officers, dwelt upon the inconvenience caused if the President could not remove them. Of inferior offices, he claimed that if they were profitable and advantageous they should not be monopolized too long; if they were disadvantageous, the burden should not be borne too long. Of the personal suffering caused he said : "If an individual can not live without office, I pronounce him unfit for that." Senator Barton answered him by saying that no one wished to take from the President the power to remove cabinet officers. The second class, however, were public servants, and offices were not created to be used as a means of bribery, or instrument of corruption in the hands of any man.-G. and S., vi., P. 457.

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Maine, Missouri, and Florida were all prominent in the opposition. Senator Grundy ridiculed the idea of any unusual excitement, saying, there was the same commotion raised against Jefferson. 'As well attempt to raise a commotion in the ccean by throwing in a few pebbles, as to agitate the people of this nation on account of the removal of a few subordinate officers who have held their offices already too long a period, and whose places are well supplied.”—G. and S., vi., p. 218. The administration never seemed able to appreciate the difference between thirty-nine removals and two thousand.