odious system of proscription for the exercise of the elective
franchise in the government of the United States." He continued: "I
understand it is the system on which the party in his own State, of
which he is the reputed head, constantly acts. He was among the first of
the secretaries to apply that system to the dismission of clerks of his
department... known to me to be highly meritorious... It is a detestable
system."

And Webster thundered: "I pronounce my rebuke as solemnly and as
decisively as I can upon this first instance in which an American
minister has been sent abroad as the representative of his party and not
as the representative of his country."

To these and other challenges, Senator Marcy of New York made his
well-remembered retort that "the politicians of the United States are
not so fastidious.... They see nothing wrong in the rule that to the
victor belong the spoils of the enemy."

Jackson, with all his bluster and the noise of his followers, made his
proscriptions relatively fewer than those of Jefferson. He removed
only 252 of about 612 presidential appointees. * It should, however, be
remembered that those who were not removed had assured Jackson's agents
of their loyalty to the new Democracy.

* This does not include deputy postmasters, who numbered
about 8000 and were not placed in the presidential list
until 1836.

If Jackson did not inaugurate the spoils system, he at least gave it a
mission. It was to save the country from the curse of officialdom. His
successor, Van Buren, brought the system to a perfection that only
the experienced politician could achieve. Van Buren required of all
appointees partizan service; and his own nomination, at Baltimore, was
made a foregone conclusion by the host of federal job-holders who were
delegates. Van Buren simply introduced at Washington the methods of the
Albany Regency.

The Whigs blustered bravely against this proscription. But their own
President, General Harrison, "Old Tippecanoe," was helpless against the
saturnalia of office-seekers that engulfed him. Harrison, when he came
to power, removed about one-half of the officials in the service. And,
although the partizan color of the President changed with Harrison's
death, after a few weeks in office,--Tyler was merely a Whig of
convenience--there was no change in the President's attitude towards the
spoils system.

Presidential inaugurations became orgies of office-seekers