is around us and upon us. No candid man can deny that a great, a
very great change has taken place, within a few years, in the practice
of the executive government, which has produced a corresponding change
in our political condition. No one can deny that office, of every kind,
is now sought with extraordinary avidity, and that the condition, well
understood to be attached to every officer, high or low, is
indiscriminate support of executive measures and implicit obedience to
executive will. For these reasons, Sir, I am for arresting the further
progress of this executive patronage, if we can arrest it; I am for
staying the further contagion of this plague.

The bill proposes two measures. One is to alter the duration of certain
offices, now limited absolutely to four years; so that the limitation
shall be qualified or conditional. If the officer is in default, if his
accounts are not settled, if he retains or misapplies the public money,
information is to be given thereof, and thereupon his commission is to
cease. But if his accounts are all regularly settled, if he collects and
disburses the public money faithfully, then he is to remain in office,
unless, for some other cause, the President sees fit to remove him. This
is the provision of the bill. It applies only to certain enumerated
officers, who may be called accounting officers; that is to say,
officers who receive and disburse the public money. Formerly, all these
officers held their places at the pleasure of the President. If he saw
no just cause for removing them, they continued in their situations, no
fixed period being assigned for the expiration of their commissions. But
the act of 1820 limited the commissions of these officers to four years.
At the end of four years, they were to go out, without any removal,
however well they might have conducted themselves, or however useful to
the public their further continuance in office might be. They might be
nominated again, or might not; but their commissions expired.

Now, Sir, I freely admit that considerable benefit has arisen from this
law. I agree that it has, in some instances, secured promptitude,
diligence, and a sense of responsibility. These were the benefits which
those who passed the law expected from it; and these benefits have, in
some measure, been realized. But I think that this change in the tenure
of office, together with some good, has brought along a far more than
equivalent amount of evil. By