Chapter XXIX: Reduction of Executive Patronage

In the session 1825-'26, Mr. Macon moved that the select committee, to which had been committed the consideration of the propositions for amending the constitution in relation to the election of President and Vice-President, should also be charged with an inquiry into the expediency of reducing Executive patronage, in cases in which it could be done by law consistently with the constitution, and without impairing the efficiency of the government. The motion was adopted, and the committee (Messrs. Benton, Macon, Van Buren, White of Tennessee, Findlay of Pennsylvania, Dickerson, Holmes, Hayne, and Johnson of Kentucky) made a report, accompanied by six bills; which report and bills, though not acted upon at the time, may still have their use in showing the democratic principles, on practical points of that day (when some of the fathers of the democratic church were still among us);--and in recalling the administration of the government, to the simplicity and economy of its early days. The six bills reported were. 1. To regulate the publication of the laws of the United States, and of the public advertisements. 2. To secure in office the faithful collectors and disbursers of the revenue, and to displace defaulters. 3. To regulate the appointment of postmasters. 4. To regulate the appointment of cadets. 5. To regulate the appointment of midshipmen. 6. To prevent military and naval officers from being dismissed the service at the pleasure of the President.--In favor of the general principle, and objects of all the bills, the report accompanying them, said:

"In coming to the conclusion that Executive patronage ought to
be diminished and regulated, on the plan proposed, the committee
rest their opinion on the ground that the exercise of great
patronage in the hands of one man, has a constant tendency
to sully the purity of our institutions, and to endanger the
liberties of the country. This doctrine is not new. A jealousy
of power, and of the influence of patronage, which must always
accompany its exercise, has ever been a distinguished feature
in the American character. It displayed itself strongly at
the period of the formation, and of the adoption, of the
federal constitution. At that time the feebleness of the old
confederation had excited a much greater dread of anarchy
than of power--'of anarchy among the members than of power in
the head'--and although the impression was nearly universal
that a government of more energetic character had become
indispensably necessary, yet, even under the influence of this
conviction--such was the dread of power and patronage--that
the States, with extreme reluctance, yielded their assent to
the establishment of the federal government. Nor was this the
effect of idle and visionary fears, on the part of an ignorant
multitude, without knowledge of the nature and tendency of
power. On the contrary, it resulted from the most extensive and
profound political knowledge,--from the heads of statesmen,
unsurpassed, in any age, in sagacity and patriotism. Nothing
could reconcile the great men of that day to a constitution
of so much power, but the guards which were put upon it
against the abuse of power. Dread and jealousy of this abuse
displayed itself throughout the instrument. To this spirit
we are indebted for the freedom of the press, trial by jury,
liberty of conscience, freedom of debate, responsibility to
constituents, power of impeachment, the control of the Senate
over appointments to office; and many other provisions of a like
character. But the committee cannot imagine that the jealous
foresight of the time, great as it was, or that any human
sagacity, could have foreseen, and placed a competent guard
upon, every possible avenue to the abuse of power. The nature
of a constitutional act excludes the possibility of combining
minute perfection with general excellence. After the exertion
of all possible vigilance, something of what ought to have been
done, has been omitted; and much of what has been attempted,
has been found insufficient and unavailing in practice. Much
remains for us to do, and much will still remain for posterity
to do--for those unborn generations to do, on whom will devolve
the sacred task of guarding the temple of the constitution, and
of keeping alive the vestal flame of liberty.

"The committee believe that they will be acting in the spirit
of the constitution, in laboring to multiply the guards, and to
strengthen the barriers, against the possible abuse of power. If
a community could be imagined in which the laws should execute
themselves--in which the power of government should consist in
the enactment of laws--in such a state the machine of government
would carry on its operations without jar or friction. Parties
would be unknown, and the movements of the political machine
would but little more disturb the passions of men, than they
are disturbed by the operations of the great laws of the
material world. But this is not the case. The scene shifts from
this imaginary region, where laws execute themselves, to the
theatre of real life, wherein they are executed by civil and
military officers, by armies and navies, by courts of justice,
by the collection and disbursement of revenue, with all its
train of salaries, jobs, and contracts; and in this aspect of
the reality, we behold the working of PATRONAGE, and discover
the reason why so many stand ready, in any country, and in all
ages, to flock to the standard of POWER, wheresoever, and by
whomsoever, it may be raised.

"The patronage of the federal government at the beginning, was
founded upon a revenue of two millions of dollars. It is now
operating upon twenty-two millions; and, within the lifetime
of many now living, must operate upon fifty. The whole revenue
must, in a few years, be wholly applicable to subjects of
patronage. At present about one half, say ten millions of it,
are appropriated to the principal and interest of the public
debt, which, from the nature of the object, involves but little
patronage. In the course of a few years, this debt, without
great mismanagement, must be paid off. A short period of peace,
and a faithful application of the sinking fund, must speedily
accomplish that most desirable object. Unless the revenue be
then reduced, a work as difficult in republics as in monarchies,
the patronage of the federal government, great as it already is,
must, in the lapse of a few years, receive a vast accession of
strength. The revenue itself will be doubled, and instead of one
half being applicable to objects of patronage, the whole will
take that direction. Thus, the reduction of the public debt, and
the increase of revenue, will multiply in a four-fold degree
the number of persons in the service of the federal government,
the quantity of public money in their hands, and the number of
objects to which it is applicable; but as each person employed
will have a circle of greater or less diameter, of which he
is the centre and the soul--a circle composed of friends and
relations, and of individuals employed by himself on public
or on private account--the actual increase of federal power
and patronage by the duplication of the revenue, will be, not
in the arithmetical ratio, but in geometrical progression--an
increase almost beyond the power of the mind to calculate or to
comprehend."

This was written twenty-five years ago. Its anticipations of increased revenue and patronage are more than realized. Instead of fifty millions of annual revenue during the lifetime of persons then living, and then deemed a visionary speculation, I saw it rise to sixty millions before I ceased to be a senator; and saw all the objects of patronage expanding and multiplying in the same degree, extending the circle of its influence, and, in many cases, reversing the end of its creation. Government was instituted for the protection of individuals--not for their support. Office was to be given upon qualifications to fill it--not upon the personal wants of the recipient. Proper persons were to be sought out and appointed--(by the President in the higher appointments, and by the heads of the different branches of service in the lower ones); and importunate suppliants were not to beg themselves into an office which belonged to the public, and was only to be administered for the public good. Such was the theory of the government. Practice has reversed it. Now office is sought for support, and for the repair of dilapidated fortunes; applicants obtrude themselves, and prefer "claims" to office. Their personal condition and party services, not qualification, are made the basis of the demand: and the crowds which congregate at Washington, at the change of an administration, supplicants for office, are humiliating to behold, and threaten to change the contests of parties from a contest for principle into a struggle for plunder.

The bills which were reported were intended to control, and regulate different branches of the public service, and to limit some exercises of executive power. 1. The publication of the government advertisements had been found to be subject to great abuse--large advertisements, and for long periods, having been often found to be given to papers of little circulation, and sometimes of no circulation at all, in places where the advertisement was to operate--the only effect of that favor being to conciliate the support of the paper, or to sustain an efficient one. For remedy, the bill for that purpose provided for the selection, and the limitation of the numbers, of the newspapers which were to publish the federal laws and advertisements, and for the periodical report of their names to Congress. 2. The four years' limitation law was found to operate contrary to its intent, and to have become the facile means of getting rid of faithful disbursing officers, instead of retaining them. The object of the law was to pass the disbursing officers every four years under the supervision of the appointing power, for the inspection of their accounts, in order that defaulters might be detected and dropped, while the faithful should be ascertained and continued. Instead of this wholesome discrimination, the expiration of the four years' term came to be considered as the termination and vacation of all the offices on which it fell, and the creation of vacancies to be filled by new appointments at the option of the President. The bill to remedy this evil gave legal effect to the original intention of the law by confining the vacation of office to actual defaulters. The power of the President to dismiss civil officers was not attempted to be curtailed, but the restraints of responsibility were placed upon its exercise by requiring the cause of dismission to be communicated to Congress in each case. The section of the bill to that effect was in these words: "_That in all nominations made by the President to the Senate, to fill vacancies occasioned by an exercise of the President's power to remove from office, the fact of the removal shall be stated to the Senate at the same time that the nomination is made, with a statement of the reasons for which such officer may have been removed._" This was intended to operate as a restraint upon removals without cause, and to make legal and general what the Senate itself, and the members of the committee individually, had constantly refused to do in isolated cases. It was the recognition of a principle essential to the proper exercise of the appointing power, and entirely consonant to Mr. Jefferson's idea of removals; but never admitted by any administration, nor enforced by the Senate against any one--always waiting the legal enactment. The opinion of nine such senators as composed the committee who proposed to legalize this principle, all of them democratic, and most of them aged and experienced, should stand for a persuasive reason why this principle should be legalized. 3. The appointment of military cadets was distributed according to the Congressional representation, and which has been adopted in practice, and perhaps become the patronage of the member from a district instead of the President. 5. The selection of midshipmen was placed on the same footing, and has been followed by the same practical consequence. 6. To secure the independence of the army and navy officers, the bill proposed to do, what never has been done by law,--define the tenure by which they held their commissions, and substitute "good behavior" for the clause which now runs "during the pleasure of the President." The clause in the existing commission was copied from those then in use, derived from the British government; and, in making army and navy officers subject to dismission at the will of the President, departs from the principle of our republican institutions, and lessens the independence of the officers.