as achieved.

The President is nominally the head of his party. In reality he may not
be; he may be only the President. That depends upon his personality,
his desires, his hold upon Congress and upon the people, and upon the
circumstances of the hour. During the Grant Administration, as already
described, there existed, in every sense of the term, a federal machine.
It held Congress, the Executive, and the vast federal patronage in its
power. All the federal office-holders, all the postmasters and their
assistants, revenue collectors, inspectors, clerks, marshals, deputies,
consuls, and ambassadors were a part of the organization, contributing
to its maintenance. We often hear today of the "Federal Crowd," a term
used to describe such appointees as still subsist on presidential and
senatorial favor. In Grant's time, this "crowd" was a genuine machine,
constructed, unlike some of its successors, from the center outward. But
the "boss" of this machine was not the President. It was controlled by
a group of leading Congressmen, who used their power for dictating
appointments and framing "desirable" legislation. Grant, in the
imagination of the people, symbolized the cause their sacrifices had
won; and thus his moral prestige became the cloak of the political
plotters.

A number of the ablest men in the Republican party, however, stood
aloof; and by 1876 a movement against the manipulators had set in. Civil
service reform had become a real issue. Hayes, the "dark horse" who
was nominated in that year, declared, in accepting the nomination, that
"reform should be thorough, radical, and complete." He promised not to
be a candidate for a second term, thus avoiding the temptation, to which
almost every President has succumbed, of using the patronage to secure
his reelection. The party managers pretended not to hear these promises.
And when Hayes, after his inauguration, actually began to put them into
force, they set the whole machinery of the party against the President.
Matters came to a head when the President issued an order commanding
federal office-holders to refrain from political activity. This order
was generally defied, especially in New York City in the post-office
and customs rings. Two notorious offenders, Cornell and Arthur, were
dismissed from office by the President. But the Senate, influenced
by Roscoe Conkling's power, refused to confirm the President's new
appointees; and under the Tenure of Office Act, which