accidentally occurring, or caused by some official misconduct; and even if acting within the limits of his constitutional prerogative, it was a proscription for opinion's sake contrary to the spirit of our institutions and without a precedent in the history of the country.* The officers removed were experienced and faithful, and much was justly and forcibly urged against making the public offices the prize of party contests, and thus augmenting party violence and stimulating the cupidity of political adventurers by rewards distributed without any criterion, except the unscrupulous manner in which the candidates had promoted the views of their party. On the other hand it was contended, that the Executive was solely in vested with the right of removal, that it was a discretionary right, for the exercise of which he was responsible solely to the nation, that that power was given to enable him not only to remove incumbents for delinquency or incapacity, but with the view of reforming the administration of the government and introducing officers of greater efficiency or sounder principles into its various departments. Occasion was also taken, owing to the defalcation of a few of those removed, to assert the necessity of reform, and un

sparing efforts were made to create an impression on the public mind of the necessity of a general removal of the officers of the Federal Government.

Some abuses no doubt existed, and one instance of fraud and defalcation on the part of an auditor high in the confidence of the late administration, gave a temporary popularity to this policy; but when it was discovered, after a vigorous scrutiny, that defalcations to the amount of a few thousand dollars only were detected, and that in no instance were these fastened upon officers appointed by the immediate predecessor of General Jackson, a reaction took place in the public feeling, and doubts began to arise, whether the country might not lose as much by the inexperience of the new officers, whose fidelity was yet to be subjected to the test of experience, as by the defalcations of some of the old. A still heavier and better founded objection to this reform was found in the private character of some of the new incumbents; and the Senate was called upon to rescue the country from the disgrace of having its business committed to men, whose conduct had awakened alike the indignation of the community and the censure of its laws.

This manner of distributing the

executive patronage was also strongly contrasted with the professions of General Jackson shortly before the election. He had then earnestly inculcated the propriety of a Chief Magistrate acting for the good of the whole and not a part of the community, and devoting himself to exterminate party spirit; and among the most reprehensible modes of bestowing appointments, he had designated that of confering offices on members of Congress. He regarded this as aiming so directly at the independence and purity of the legislature, that he proposed an amendment to the Constitution, prohibiting the appointment of members of Congress to any office except judicial, during the term for which they were elected and two years thereafter. It was therefore cause of just and general surprise to find him within the first year of his administration conferring a greater number of offices upon members of Congress, than any of his predecessors had done during their whole term of service.

As the members appointed had been actively engaged in promoting his election, he was not only accused of inconsistency, but of carrying into practice that system of corruption which he had depicted as the probable consequence of that mode of bestowing offices.

The numerous appointments bestowed upon editors of violent political journals were also severely criticised. It was denominated an attempt upon the purity of the

periodical press, and when systematized it would directly tend to augment the violence of party disputes and to corrupt the fountain of political intelligence, by holding up public office to editors as a reward for electioneering services.

The general change which took place in the Post Office department gave additional dissatisfaction to the moderate men of the country. Under the superintendence of Mr McLean this department had been distinguished for its efficiency and order, and as its functions operated directly upon the private business of individuals, that officer had acquired great and deserved popularity from the manner in which its duties were discharged. He had himself been favorable to the election of General Jackson, and his continuance in an office of so much influence and patronage had been deemed an instance of magnanimity on the part of. Mr Adams, and a proof of his determination not to use the patronage of the government for party purposes.

The removal of that officer and the introduction of his successor into the Cabinet were regarded as indications of an intention to introduce the same proscriptive system into the Post Office, and the numerous removals, which took place shortly after his appointment verified the apprehensions of the community.* In this state of public feeling the 21st Congress assembled, and it was easily foreseen that the appoint

ments made during the recess were destined to meet with opposition, although it was supposed that the decided majority of the administration party in the Senate would prevent it from being effectual. The Senate however was not at once put to the test. The President allowed a month to elapse after it assembled, before he submitted any of the appointmeats made during the recess, and more than two months of the Session had expired before all those appointments were submitted for confirmation. This deJay, which was attributed to the disagreement that already prevailed between the friends of the Vice President and of the Secretary of State, although it tended to consolidate the strength of the adininistration, did not produce a general confirmation of the appointments.

A warm opposition was instituted to the whole course of the Executive in relation to removals -1st, on the ground of their unconstitutionality, and 2d, on that of inexpediency. The opposition

failed on both points; and on the first it can hardly be doubted that it was unsound in principle. The expediency of the reform itself was a subject of greater difference of opinion; and whatever might have been urged on the one side in favor of rotation in office and a thorough reformation. of abuses, and on the other in favor of the experience of the old incumbents and against deranging the whole business and policy of the Government by committing it to the hands of new and untried agents, it could not be disputed, that the President, in selecting the successors to those removed, had been guided by personal predilections and a wish to reward electioneering services, rather than by a regard for the public good. The consequence was, that the Senate felt itself constrained by a sense of public duty to reject many of the appointments made during the recess, and in some instances the vote rejecting them was so large as to convey a strong censure upon the selection of the President.*

Neg. 43. Aff. 1.

66 42. 66 5. 66 36. 66 9.

15.

M. M. Noah, Surveyor at New York,

23.

The removals in the post office were still more general, and when to these were added the changes made from time to time in those offices, where the commissions expired, they constituted a reform which could scarcely have been more complete had a revolution taken place in the government itself, instead of a change in the persons administering it. The decided manner in which the dominant party proceeded to appropriate all the offices of honor and profit under the government of the United States, was by no means an indication of any harmonious feeling prevailing among its leaders. The necessity which had kept its different sections together while in opposition, no longer existed, and its discordant materials began to obey their several principles of action and to range themselves under the standards of the rival chieftains, who had, by combining, achieved the overthrow of the late administration. Strong and incessant efforts had been made from the commencement of the administration by the respective partisans of the Vice President and of the Secretary of State, to direct the Executive patronage to the aggrandizement of their own friends. A division of the party was early foreseen to be inevitable, but the personal predilections of the President, which would give great preponderance to the side he might espouse, were as yet unknown. In the formation of his Cabinet the first post had been given to Mr Van Buren himself; but this advantage was in some measure counterbalanced by the

appointment of Mr Ingham, a devoted friend of the Vice President, to the Treasury Department, the influence and patronage of which were much more direct and extensive than those of any other department of the Government. The other members of the Cabinet were not selected with reference to the views of either of the competitors for the succession to the Presidency; but upon grounds of personal preference on the part of the President. In fact the whole administration was formed as the organ of a personal party. It was not the representative of any specific principle, nor did it profess any particular system of national policy. The views of the Secretary of State and of the Secretary of the Navy concerning the policy and powers of the General Government, had not harmonized with those of the Secretaries of War and of the Treasury. The Attorney General had belonged to the old federal party, and the new Post-master General had not shown that his political principles necessarily inclined him to a narrow construction of the powers of the Federal Government. Upon the whole, however, the Cabinet was formed with an apparent preference of the political creed professed by the friends of the Vice President, rather than that of the radical party. The star of the Vice President was deemed to be in the ascendant, and it was generally believed that the influence of the Executive would be exerted to promote his elevation to the Presidential chair upon his own retirement. These

opinions, however, were not realized. While the patronage of the Executive was so directed as publicly to strengthen Mr Calhoun's political party by placing many of his friends in important posts, the ground on which he stood was crumbling beneath him, and measures were in train to create a breach between him and the President. To him, as a more early and efficient supporter, the President had given a greater share of confidence and manifested a warmer feeling than he had originally bestowed upon the Secretary of State, whose support was rather a matter of necessity than of choice. In this particular the Secretary labored under a disadvantage; but circumstances soon enabled him to obtain a great superiority of influence over the mind of the President.

The Secretary of War had been brought into the Cabinet solely on account of the confidential relations and intimate friendship subsisting between him and the President, and of course was entitled to, and received, his entire confidence. Upon the arrival of the Secretary of State at Washington, he found a coolness existing between the Secretary of War and the Vice President, and a division in the Cabinet itself in consequence of some disagreement in their private relations; and it was instantly perceived that as the President had particularly interested himself in this matter, that the most direct road to his confidence was by sustaining his view of this delicate subject. Whether the Secretary of State

was actuated by this motive, or regarding the lady in question as an injured woman, was desirous of doing her justice by affording her his countenance and support, certain it is, that he made signal efforts to facilitate her admission into society, and by the course he took ultimately rendered a pure question of morals and feeling, one having a direct political bearing and pregnant with great political results. As the President warmly sympathized in the feelings and resentment of the Secretary of War on this point, the Secretaries of the Treasury and Navy, as the objects of that resentment, gradually lost his confidence, which was transferred to the Secretary of State, whose course both in public and private had so completely harmonized with the wishes of himself and his friend.

The loss of influence on the part of the Secretary of the Treasury had impaired the indirect power of Mr Calhoun, and the same cause had injured his own standing with the Executive. No open breach had however as yet taken place between them, and the Vice President and his friends in Congress continued to support the administration, some of whose most obnoxious appointments were carried by the casting vote of the Vice President as the President of the Senate. Affairs remained on this uncertain footing, until nearly the close of the first Session of the 21st Congress. At that time and after the greater part of the questionable nominations had been confirmed, a movement was made which ripened the misunder