Editing Spoils system

{{Short description|Elected party giving jobs to supporters}}
{{Use American English|date=April 2023}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=April 2023}}
[[File:In memoriam - our civil service as it was.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|''In memoriam--our civil service as it was'', a [[political cartoon]] by [[Thomas Nast]] showing a statue of [[Andrew Jackson]] on a pig, which is over "fraud", "bribery", and "spoils", eating "plunder". Included in ''[[Harper's Weekly]]'' on April 28, 1877, p. 325.]]

In [[politics]] and [[government]], a '''spoils system''' (also known as a '''patronage system''') is a practice in which a [[political party]], after winning an election, gives government jobs to its supporters, friends ([[cronyism]]), and relatives ([[nepotism]]) as a reward for working toward victory, and as an incentive to keep working for the party. It contrasts with a [[merit system]], where offices are awarded or promoted on the basis of some measure of [[Meritocracy|merit]], independent of political activity.

The term was used particularly in [[politics of the United States]], where the federal government operated on a spoils system until the [[Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act|Pendleton Act]] was passed in 1883 due to a [[U.S. Civil Service Reform|civil service reform]] movement. Thereafter the spoils system was largely replaced by nonpartisan merit at the federal level of the United States.

The term was derived from the phrase "'''to the victor belong the spoils'''" by New York Senator [[William L. Marcy]],<ref>{{cite web|url=https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/about/presidents/andrewjackson/ |title=Andrew Jackson &#124; The White House |publisher=The White House |access-date=September 5, 2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.bartleby.com/73/1314.html |title=1314. Marcy William Learned (1786–1857). Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989 |publisher=Bartleby.com |access-date=September 5, 2010}}</ref> referring to the victory of [[Andrew Jackson]] in the [[1828 United States presidential election|election of 1828]], with the term [[Prize of war|"spoils"]] meaning goods or benefits taken from the loser in a competition, election or military victory.<ref>[http://www.thefreedictionary.com/spoils "spoils" dictionary definition]</ref>

Similar spoils systems are common in other nations that traditionally have been based on tribal organization or other [[kinship group]]s and [[localism (politics)|localism]] in general.

==Origins==
Although it is commonly thought that the spoils system was introduced by President Andrew Jackson, historical evidence does not support this view.{{sfn|Friedrich|1937|p=10}}{{sfn|United States Civil Service Commission Office of Public Affairs|1974|p=16}} [[Patronage]] came to the [[United States]] during its [[Colonial history of the United States|Colonial history]], whereas in its modern form, the spoils system got introduced into U.S. politics during the [[George Washington administration|administration of George Washington]], whose outlook generally favored members of the [[Federalist Party]].{{sfn|Friedrich|1937|p=12}} Sometimes, Washington is accused of introducing the system himself.{{sfn|Friedrich|1937|p=10-12}}{{sfn|Bailey|1981|p=47}} In addition, both [[John Adams]] and [[Thomas Jefferson]] have also been accused, to a degree, of introducing the spoils system to U.S. politics.{{sfn|Bailey|1981|p=22 & 47}}

== Andrew Jackson ==
{{Andrew Jackson series}}
Even before he entered the White House, some opponents of Jackson suggested that he had a habit of exploiting the public treasury. Samuel Clement, who had piloted steamboat troop transports for Jackson at the time of the [[Battle of New Orleans]], [[Pamphleteer|pamphleteered]] in 1827:<ref name=":0" />

{{blockquote|text="Some of those who zealously strive to increase the popularity, and promote the cause of general Jackson, figuratively say he will cleanse the [[Augean stable]] at Washington, meaning that he will expel the retainers at Washington and reduce the number of clerks in the secretaries offices. We have hitherto had but very little earnest of this disposition in the General; at New Orleans, the number of aides-de-camp which he had about him, I strongly suspect equated the number which Napoleon had, at the [[battle of Austerlitz]] or any other of his great battles; and if the General for the purpose of curtailing the public expenditures, should be disposed to reorganize the public offices, will any one have the hardihood to say, that he knows enough of the labour, and of the proper manner of conducting business in those offices to know how many clerks they require, and consequently how many he might with propriety send adrift; beside there are some reasons to doubt, whether the General has so very great an interest in preventing expenditures of public money, or whether he holds public property so sacred as some would have it believed he does."<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Clement |first=Samuel |url=https://da.mdah.ms.gov/series/books/detail/525009 |title=Truth Is No Slander |publisher=Printed at the Ariel Office |year=1827 |location=Natchez, Mississippi |pages=33 |id=McMurtrie MS Imprints No. 219, [[Shaw and Shoemaker (bibliography)|Shoemaker]] 28519 |via=Mississippi Department of Archives and History}}</ref>}}

[[1828 United States presidential election|In 1828]], moderation was expected to prevail in the [[United States presidential transition|transfer of political power]] from one U.S. president to another. This had less to do with the ethics of [[Politician|politicians]] than it did with the fact the presidency had not transferred from one party to another since the [[1800 United States presidential election|election of 1800]]—known historically for the extraordinary steps the outgoing [[Federalist Party]] took to try and maintain as much influence as possible by exploiting their control over federal appointments up until their final hours in office{{sfnp|McCloskey|2010|p=25}}{{sfnp|Chemerinsky|2019|loc=§&nbsp;2.2.1, p. 40}} (see: [[Marbury v. Madison|''Marbury v. Madison'']] and [[Midnight Judges Act]]). By 1816, the Federalists were no longer nationally viable, and the U.S. became effectively a one-party polity under the [[Democratic-Republican Party]].<ref>{{Cite journal |jstor = 42628249|title = "It Taught our Enemies a Lesson:" the Battle of New Orleans and the Republican Destruction of the Federalist Party|journal = Tennessee Historical Quarterly|volume = 71|issue = 2|pages = 112–127|last1 = Stoltz|first1 = Joseph F.|year = 2012}}</ref> The Jacksonian split after the [[1824 United States presidential election|1824 election]] restored the [[two-party system]].<ref>{{Cite journal | last1 = Stenberg | first1 = R. R. | title = Jackson, Buchanan, and the "Corrupt Bargain" Calumny | journal = The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography | volume = 58 | issue = 1 | pages = 61–85 | year = 1934| doi =  | jstor = 20086857 }}</ref> Jackson's [[First inauguration of Andrew Jackson|first inauguration]], on March 4, 1829, marked the first time since 1801 where one party yielded the presidency to another. A group of office seekers attended the event, explaining it as democratic enthusiasm. Jackson supporters had been lavished with promises of positions in return for political support. These promises were honored by a large number of removals after Jackson assumed power. At the beginning of Jackson's administration, fully 919 officials were removed from government positions, amounting to nearly 10 percent of all government postings.<ref name="howe2007">{{cite book|title=What hath God Wrought, The Transformation of America, 1815-1848|last=Howe|first=Daniel W.|year=2007|publisher=Oxford University Press, Inc.|isbn=978-0-19-507894-7|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/whathathgodwroug00howe}}</ref>{{rp|328–33}} In 1913 a history of Tennessee commented, "It is said that in early life Jackson had made it a principle never to stand between a friend and a benefit. The converse seemed also to have been a principle: never to benefit an enemy. And those who were excluded from his friendship were excluded from preferment."<ref>{{Cite web |title=A history of Tennessee and Tennesseans : the leaders and representative men in commerce, industry, and modern activities / by Will T. Hale and Dixon L. Merritt ... v.2. |url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.32044097947352&seq=180 |access-date=2025-01-11 |website=HathiTrust |page=430 |language=en}}</ref>

[[File:"Solicitor of the Treasury" Martinsburg Gazette, June 21, 1837.jpg|thumb|Reports of a plan to appoint [[Alfred Balch]] of Nashville to be Solicitor of the Treasury led a [[Martinsburg, Virginia]] newspaper to comment that former President "A. Jackson, it is evident, can yet provide for his friends by billeting them on the Treasury, as he use to do when he was the Government "'solitary and alone'." (''Martinsburg Gazette'', June 21, 1837)]]
[[File:"The Proscribed and the Spoilsmen" May 12, 1841.jpg|thumb|News article ("The Proscribed and the Spoilsmen," May 12, 1841) listed beneficiaries of [[nepotism]] and political patronage who were given jobs under the new Whig-party administration, including nephews and sons-in-law of high government officials, participants in the [[Buckshot War]], and the "president of a broken [[Wildcat banking|wildcat bank]]" ]]
Historians like [[Paul Wallace Gates|Paul W. Gates]] and especially [[Malcolm J. Rohrbough]] seem to have concluded that the transfer of land from Indigenous to U.S. government title was particularly susceptible to exploitation, and that "the bias against adequate support for public work and the political utility of patronage appointments conspired to create a system that functioned admirably to transfer public resources to private hands but showed itself inadequate to any more grandiose end."<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Young |first=Mary |date=1969-12-01 |title=History of Public Land Law Development. By Paul W. Gates , with a chapter by Robert W. Swenson . (Washington, D. C.: [Public Land Law Review Commission.] 1968. Pp. xv, 828. $8.25.) and The Land Office Business: The Settlement and Administration of American Public Lands, 1789–1837. By Malcolm J. Rohrbough . (New York: Oxford University Press. 1968. Pp. xiii, 331. $8.75.) |url=https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article/75/2/571/62156 |journal=The American Historical Review |language=en |volume=75 |issue=2 |pages=571–573 |doi=10.1086/ahr/75.2.571-a |issn=1937-5239}}</ref> As told by Rohrbough in his history of the government land office to 1837, "Andrew Jackson himself displayed signs of frailty in a period when men were becoming increasingly flexible in their ethical standards."{{Sfn|Rohrbough|1971|p=278}} Jackson used government appointments as currency with which to pay political debts, for instance by directing Levi Woodbury to appoint a judge "the office promised worth $1000."{{Sfn|Rohrbough|1971|p=278}} Newspaper editors who had supported the campaign, in-laws, and "attorneys" and "colonels" who were skilled at graft were often among the beneficiaries of land office appointments; per Rohrbough, "Historians have dealt harshly with the land officers of this period."{{Sfn|Rohrbough|1971|p=291}} The most-changed organization within the federal government proved to be the Post Office. The Post Office was the largest department in the federal government, and had even more personnel than the War Department. In one year, 423 postmasters were deprived of their positions, most with extensive records of good service.<ref name=howe2007 />{{rp|334}} Jackson did not differ much from other Presidents in the number of officials he replaced by his own partisans.{{sfn|Friedrich|1937|p=10}} There was, however, an increase in outright criminality, with a measurable, if not marked, increase in corruption in the Land Office, Post Office, and Indian Affairs departments, for instance, see the embezzlement of government funds from the port of New York in what is known as the [[Swartwout–Hoyt scandal]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Howe |first=Daniel Walker |url=https://www.worldcat.org/title/122701433 |title=What hath God wrought: the transformation of America, 1815–1848 |date=2007 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-507894-7 |series=The Oxford history of the United States |location=New York |pages=334 |oclc=122701433}}</ref> In another case, Jackson had personally battled to get [[Samuel Gwin]], the son of an old friend, appointed to a land office job down in Mississippi; a Congressional investigation later found that Gwin "had left his office to buy some tracts and had resold them immediately at a 33 percent profit to settlers."{{sfnp|Gates|1968|p=152}} Furthermore, Jackson's replacement of 29 of 56 [[Indian agent|U.S. Indian agents]] was critical to his administration's [[Indian removal|systematic expulsion of Indigenous people]] from the lands east of the Mississippi River because it removed any institutional resistance and left "several zealous officers at the top who had little sympathy for indigenous Americans, and dozens of inexperienced, patronage appointees at the bottom."<ref>
{{Cite book |last=Saunt |date=2020 |first=Claudio |title=Unworthy Republic: The Dispossession of Native Americans and the Road to Indian Territory |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |page=85 |isbn=978-0-393-60984-4 |edition= |location=New York |lccn=2019050502 |oclc=1102470806}}</ref>

Jackson was also accused of dabbling in [[nepotism]] for the benefit of his family network of [[Wards of Andrew Jackson|wards]], [[John Donelson#Descendants|in-laws, and nephews]]. As one history of public administration described, "During Jackson's administration the policy of political patronage and nepotism in federal employment was intensified, partly because of his belief that rotation of government jobs was an essentially democratic process. What this actually implies is that political nepotism is not corruption, but one of the principles of sound democracy. This is, of course, ridiculous!"<ref>{{Cite book |last=Gildenhuys |first=J. S. H. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SmIyAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA300 |title=The Philosophy of Public Administration |year=2004 |publisher=Sun Media |isbn=978-1-919980-04-1 |page=300 |language=en}}</ref> In 1831, "A Corn Planter of Madison County" called out the political appointments and government-funded salaries of Jackson's kinsmen [[Stockley D. Hays]], [[John Coffee]], [[John C. McLemore]], [[Andrew Jackson Donelson|A. J. Donelson]], and [[Robert I. Chester|R. I. Chester]], asking, "Have we, sir, no high minded and honorable men amongst us, who are qualified to offices of honor, profit, and trust, but the [[Donelson family|nephews of President Jackson]]?"<ref>{{Cite news |date=1831-06-18 |title=A Corn Planter of Madison County |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/southern-statesman-a-corn-planter-of-mad/166510375/ |access-date=2025-02-23 |work=Southern Statesman |pages=2}}</ref> Historian Ronald P. Formisano wrote in 1976 about the state of Jacksonian scholarship, "Kinship has acquired considerable visibility in recent years as a binding tie among political élites, and it is too important to leave to genealogists. This traditional element seems to have been a cement of many oligarchies which controlled local parties. Its influence on patronage suggests that studies of different modes of distribution{{Mdash}}for example, party-oriented versus patron-client{{Mdash}}are needed."<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Formisano |first=Ronald P. |date=June 1976 |title=Toward a Reorientation of Jacksonian Politics: A Review of the Literature, 1959–1975 |url=https://academic.oup.com/jah/article-lookup/doi/10.2307/1908989 |journal=The Journal of American History |volume=63 |issue=1 |pages=42–65 [54–55] |doi=10.2307/1908989}}</ref>

After Jackson and Martin Van Buren, succeeding Whig presidents swapped in Whig appointees of the same caliber and the cycle continued apace.{{Cn|date=April 2025}}

==Reform==
[[File:The seven stages of the office seeker - Clay, fecit. LCCN2004665351.jpg|thumb|"The seven stages of the office seeker," 1852]]
By the late 1860s, citizens began demanding civil service reform, but it was only after the 1881 [[assassination of James A. Garfield]] by [[Charles J. Guiteau]] as revenge for the latter being denied a [[Consul (representative)|consulship]] that the calls for civil service reform intensified.<ref>Harris, J. C. (2012). An office or your life. ''Archives of General Psychiatry'', ''69''(11), 1098. {{doi|10.1001/archgenpsychiatry.2012.110}}</ref> Moderation of the spoils system at the federal level with the passage of the [[Pendleton Act]] in 1883, which created a bipartisan Civil Service Commission to evaluate job candidates on a nonpartisan merit basis. While few jobs were covered under the law initially, the law allowed the President to transfer jobs and their current holders into the system, thus giving the holder a permanent job.{{citation needed|date=December 2020}} The Pendleton Act's reach was expanded as the two main political parties alternated control of the [[White House]] every election between 1884 and 1896. Following each election, the outgoing President applied the Pendleton Act to some of the positions for which he had appointed political supporters. By 1900, most federal jobs were handled through civil service, and the spoils system was limited to fewer and fewer positions.

Although state patronage systems and numerous federal positions were unaffected by the law, Karabell argues that the Pendleton Act was instrumental in the creation of a professional civil service and the rise of the modern [[Bureaucracy|bureaucratic]] state.{{sfn|Karabell|pp=108–111}} The law also caused major changes in campaign finance, as the parties were forced to look for new sources of campaign funds, such as wealthy donors.{{sfn|White|2017|pp=467–468}}

The separation between political activity and the civil service was made stronger with the [[Hatch Act of 1939]] which prohibited federal employees from engaging in many political activities.

The spoils system survived much longer in many states, counties and municipalities, such as the [[Tammany Hall]] [[political machine|machine]], which survived until the 1950s when [[New York City]] reformed its own civil service. [[Illinois]] modernized its bureaucracy in 1917 under [[Frank Lowden]], but [[Chicago]] held on to patronage in city government until the city agreed to end the practice in the [[Shakman Decrees]] of 1972 and 1983. Some federal positions such as ambassadorships have continued to be assigned to political supporters into the present day, leading to criticism that they remain part of the spoils system.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://americandiplomacy.web.unc.edu/2013/02/high-time-to-end-our-diplomatic-spoils-system/ |title=High Time to End Our Diplomatic Spoils System &#124; American Diplomacy Est 1996 |format= |work= |accessdate=}}</ref>

==See also==
* [[Cronyism]]
* [[Padrino system]], Philippine equivalent
* [[Political patronage]]
* [[Political corruption]]
* [[Separation of powers]]
* [[Soft despotism]]
* [[Whig Party (United States)]]
* [[Guanxi]]

== Citations ==
{{Reflist}}

== Sources ==
{{refbegin|indent=yes}}
* {{Cite book |last=Bailey |first=Thomas Andrew  |date=1981 |author-link=Thomas Andrew Bailey |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GZ5IpwgQ0jMC&pg=PA47 |title=Presidential Saints and Sinners |publisher=VNR AG |isbn=978-0-02-901330-4}}
* {{Cite journal |last=Friedrich |first=Carl Joachim |date=1937 |author-link=Carl Joachim Friedrich |title=The Rise and Decline of the Spoils Tradition |url=http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/000271623718900103 |journal=The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science |language=en |volume=189 |issue=1 |pages=10–16 |doi=10.1177/000271623718900103 |s2cid=144735397 |issn=0002-7162}}
* {{cite book |last=Gates |first=Paul W. |author-link=Paul Wallace Gates |url=https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001326536 |title=History of Public Land Law Development, Written for the U.S. States Public Land Law Review Commission  |location=Washington, D.C. |lccn=68062999 |date=November 1968 |publisher=U.S. Government Printing Office |others=One chapter written by Robert W. Swenson |oclc=453829 }}
* {{cite book|author= Timothy Gilfoyle|author-link= Timothy Gilfoyle|title=A Pickpocket's Tale: The Underworld of Nineteenth-Century New York|url= https://archive.org/details/pickpocketstaleu00gilf|url-access= registration|publisher=W. W. Norton Company|date=2006|isbn=978-0393329896}}
* Griffith, Ernest S. ''The Modern Development of the City in the United Kingdom and the United States'' (1927)
* [[Hoogenboom, Ari Arthur]]. ''Outlawing the Spoils: A history of the civil service reform movement, 1865–1883'' (1961)
* {{cite book | title = Chester Alan Arthur | last = Karabell | first = Zachary | author-link = Zachary Karabell | year = 2004 | publisher = Henry Holt & Co | location = New York | isbn = 978-0-8050-6951-8 | ref = {{sfnRef|Karabell}} | url = https://archive.org/details/chesteralanarthu00kara }}
* [[Moisey Ostrogorsky|Ostrogorski, M.]] ''Democracy and the Party System in the United States'' (1910)
* {{cite book |last=Parton |first=James |title=The beginning of the "spoils" system in the national government, 1829–30 |location=New York |others=Civil Service Reform Association |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Sons |year=1881 |lccn=unk81009481 }}
* {{Cite book |last=Rohrbough |year=1971 |first=Malcolm J. |title=The Land Office Business: The Settlement and Administration of American Public Lands, 1789–1837 |orig-year=1968 |edition=Paperback |series=Galaxy Book 354 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-501472-3 |oclc=176589 |lccn=68029725 |location=London}}
* Rubio, Philip F. (2001). ''A History of Affirmative Action, 1619–2000''. University Press of Mississippi
* {{Cite book |last=United States Civil Service Commission Office of Public Affairs |date=1974 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1lTZlhTGsycC&pg=PA16 |title=Biography of an Ideal: A History of the Federal Civil Service |publisher=The Commission}}
* Van Riper, Paul. ''History of the United States Civil Service'' Greenwood Press (1976; reprint of 1958 edition)
* {{cite book |last=White |first=Richard |author-link=Richard White (historian)|title=The Republic for Which It Stands: The United States During Reconstruction and the Gilded Age: 1865–1896|date=2017|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=9780190619060 }}
{{refend}}

==External links==
{{Wiktionary|spoils}}
* {{Cite Americana|wstitle=Civil Service Reform |short=x}}
* {{Cite NIE|wstitle=Civil-Service Reform |year=1905 |short=x}}
* {{Cite book |author=Fish, Carl Russell|author-link=Carl Russell Fish|title=The Civil Service and the Patronage |location=New York |publisher=Longmans, Green, and Co.|year=1905 |url=https://archive.org/details/civilservicepatr00fishrich}}

{{Civil service}}
{{Andrew Jackson}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Political terminology]]
[[Category:Andrew Jackson administration controversies]]