When was spoil system

Foulk, Fighting the Spoilsmen The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. All rights reserved. See more Encyclopedia articles on: U. Username Please enter your Username. Password Please enter your Password. Forgot password? Don't have an account? Sign in via your Institution. You could not be signed in, please check and try again. Jackson supporters portrayed it as a necessary and overdue effort at reforming the federal government. Jackson's political opponents had a very different interpretation, as they considered his method to be a corrupt use of political patronage.

And the term Spoils System was intended to be a derogatory nickname. The phrase came from a speech by Senator William L. Marcy of New York. While defending the actions of the Jackson administration in a speech in the U. Senate, Marcy famously said, "to the victor belong the spoils. When Andrew Jackson took office in March , after the bruising election of , he was determined to change the way the federal government operated.

And, as might be expected, he ran into considerable opposition. Jackson was by nature very suspicious of his political opponents. As he took office he was still quite angry at his predecessor, John Quincy Adams. The way Jackson saw things, the federal government was full of people who were opposed to him. When Jackson felt that some of his initiatives were being blocked, he became incensed. His solution was to come up with an official program to remove people from federal jobs and replace them with employees considered loyal to his administration.

Other administrations going back to that of George Washington had hired loyalists, of course, but under Jackson, the purging of people thought to be political opponents became official policy. To Jackson and his supporters, it was a welcome change. Stories were circulated claiming that elderly men who were no longer able to perform their jobs were still filling positions to which they had been appointed by George Washington nearly 40 years earlier.

Jackson's policy of replacing federal employees was bitterly denounced by his political opponents. New York, where Roosevelt was an assemblyman, and Massachusetts were the first states to implement their own civil service systems. Although all states now have such systems in place at local, state or both levels, it was not until after that most states adopted a competitive civil service. The Oct.

The burrowing included the controversial appointment of Michael Ellis as general counsel of the National Security Agency. Senior executive service rules permit some political appointees to be converted to civil servants. This could protect them from easily being removed by Biden.

Biden may want to remove civil servants considered Trump loyalists who may try to subvert his policies. But keeping and using Schedule F, even for a relatively brief period, challenges the most fundamental principles of the civil service.

If, on a whim, a president can undo over a century of reforms, then the civil service remains insufficiently insulated from politics and patronage.

Portsmouth Climate Festival — Portsmouth, Portsmouth.