d, and without responsibility. As far as I remember, Sir,
after the early part of Mr. Jefferson's administration, hardly an
instance occurred for near thirty years. If there were any instances,
they were few. But at the commencement of the present administration,
the precedent of these previous cases was seized on, and a _system_, a
regular _plan of government_, a well-considered scheme for the
maintenance of party power by the patronage of office, and this
patronage to be created by general removal, was adopted, and has been
carried into full operation. Indeed, before General Jackson's
inauguration, the party put the system into practice. In the last
session of Mr. Adams's administration, the friends of General Jackson
constituted a majority in the Senate; and nominations, made by Mr. Adams
to fill vacancies which had occurred in the ordinary way, were
postponed, by this majority, beyond the 3d of March, _for the purpose,
openly avowed, of giving the nominations to General Jackson_. A
nomination for a judge of the Supreme Court, and many others of less
magnitude, were thus disposed of.

And what did we witness, Sir, when the administration actually
commenced, in the full exercise of its authority? One universal sweep,
one undistinguishing blow, levelled against all who were not of the
successful party. No worth, public or private, no service, civil or
military, was of power to resist the relentless greediness of
proscription. Soldiers of the late war, soldiers of the Revolutionary
war, the very contemporaries of the independence of the country, all
lost their situations. No office was too high, and none too low; for
_office_ was the spoil, and "_all the spoils_," it is said, "belong to
the _victors_"! If a man holding an office necessary for his daily
support had presented himself covered with the scars of wounds received
in every battle, from Bunker Hill to Yorktown, these would not have
protected him against this reckless rapacity. Nay, Sir, if Warren
himself had been among the living, and had possessed any office under
government, high or low, he would not have been suffered to hold it a
single hour, unless he could show that he had strictly complied with the
party statutes, and had put a well-marked party collar round his own
neck. Look, Sir, to the case of the late venerable Major Melville. He
was a personification of the spirit of 1776, one of the earliest to
venture in the cause of liberty. He was of the Tea Par