ed it, the "great revolution," Jackson's inauguration was a
cataclysm.

THE NEW DEMOCRACY AT WASHINGTON

=The Spoils System.=--The staid and respectable society of Washington
was disturbed by this influx of farmers and frontiersmen. To speak of
politics became "bad form" among fashionable women. The clerks and
civil servants of the government who had enjoyed long and secure tenure
of office became alarmed at the clamor of new men for their positions.
Doubtless the major portion of them had opposed the election of Jackson
and looked with feelings akin to contempt upon him and his followers.
With a hunter's instinct, Jackson scented his prey. Determined to have
none but his friends in office, he made a clean sweep, expelling old
employees to make room for men "fresh from the people." This was a new
custom. Other Presidents had discharged a few officers for engaging in
opposition politics. They had been careful in making appointments not to
choose inveterate enemies; but they discharged relatively few men on
account of their political views and partisan activities.

By wholesale removals and the frank selection of officers on party
grounds--a practice already well intrenched in New York--Jackson
established the "spoils system" at Washington. The famous slogan, "to
the victor belong the spoils of victory," became the avowed principle of
the national government. Statesmen like Calhoun denounced it; poets like
James Russell Lowell ridiculed it; faithful servants of the government
suffered under it; but it held undisturbed sway for half a century
thereafter, each succeeding generation outdoing, if possible, its
predecessor in the use of public office for political purposes. If any
one remarked that training and experience were necessary qualifications
for important public positions, he met Jackson's own profession of
faith: "The duties of any public office are so simple or admit of being
made so simple that any man can in a short time become master of them."

=The Tariff and Nullification.=--Jackson had not been installed in power
very long before he was compelled to choose between states' rights and
nationalism. The immediate occasion of the trouble was the tariff--a
matter on which Jackson did not have any very decided views. His mind
did not run naturally to abstruse economic questions; and owing to the
divided opinion of the country it was "good politics" to be vague and
ambiguous in the controversy. Especially was th