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TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



nine persons, but he himself repeatedly and sol- 

 emnly declared that not one of them was removed 

 because he belonged to the party opposed to his 

 own. Hildreth, indeed, appears anxious to make 

 Jefferson guilty of introducing the mischievous 

 practice which has had such disastrous fruits in 

 later times ; l but the evidence seems to be in- 

 adequate. And if, in a few cases, Jefferson dis- 

 placed men because of their political opinions, it 

 must be acknowledged by his most bitter critics 

 that the manner in which his predecessor exer- 

 cised the power of patronage during the interval 

 between Jefferson's election and the commence- 

 ment of his presidency was a strong provocation 

 to resort to measures of retaliation. 3 Madison, ac- 

 cording to Mr. Parton, made five removals ; Mon- 



1 "History of the United States,'' vol. ii., Second 

 Series, pp. 426, sq. 



2 Hildreth speaks lightly of the "clamor" which 

 was raised about the "midnight appointments" of 

 John Adams. If Mr. Parton's narrative and the story 

 which he gives on the authority of Jefferson's great- 

 granddaughter are to be trusted, these appointments 

 created very great annoyance. The incidents are 

 given by Mr. Parton with his usual dramatic force. 

 It should be remembered that the President comes 

 into power on the 4th of March. 



"Mr. Adams's last day arrived. 



"This odious judiciary law had been passed three 

 weeks before ; but, owing to the delay of the Senate 

 to act upon the nominations, the judges were still 

 uncommissioned. The gcntlejnerCs party had not the 

 decency to leave so much as one of these valuable life- 

 appointments to the incoming administration ; nor 

 any other vacancy whatever, of which tidings reached 

 the seat of government in time. Nominations were 

 sent to the Senate as late as nine o'clock in the even- 

 ing of the 3d of March, and Judge Marshall, the act- 

 ing Secretary of State, was in his office at midnight, 

 still signing commissions for men through whom an- 

 other administration was to act. But the secretary 

 and his busy clerks, precisely upon the stroke of 

 twelve, were startled by an apparition. It was the 

 bodily presence of Mr. Levi Lincoln, of Massachusetts, 

 whom the President-elect had chosen for the office of 

 Attorney-General. A conversation ensued between 

 these two gentlemen which has been recently report- 

 ed for us by Mr. Jefferson's great-granddaughter: 



" Lincoln. 'I have been ordered by Mr. Jefferson 

 to take possession of this office and its papers.' 



" Marshall. ' Why, Mr. Jefferson has not yet quali- 

 fied.' 



" Lincoln. ' Mr. Jefferson considers himself in the 

 light of an executor bound to take charge of the pa- 

 pers of the Government until he is duly qualified.' 



" Marshall {taking out his watch). ' But it is not yet 

 twelve o'clock.'' 



"Lincoln (taking out. a watch from his pocket and 

 sliowing if). ' Thio is the President's watch, and rules 

 the hour.' 



"Judge Marshall felt that Mr. Lincoln was master 

 of the situation, and, casting a rueful look upon the 

 unsigned commissions spread upon the table, he left 

 his midnight visitor in possession. Relating the scene 



roe nine ; John Quincy Adams two. The evil 

 precedent was really set by Jackson. In the 

 first month of his administration (1829) more re- 

 movals were made than had occurred from the 

 foundation of the Government to that time. 

 Some have declared that during the first year of 

 his presidency 2,000 persons in the civil employ- 

 ment of the Government were removed from 

 office, and 2,000 partisans of the President ap- 

 pointed in their stead. 1 



The Democratic party represented by Jack- 

 son must, therefore, be held responsible for one 

 of the worst and most pernicious elements in the 

 political life of America. 2 But since his time 

 both parties have accepted the evil motto — " The 

 spoils to the victor " — as the rule of their policy. 

 If the Democrats have carried their candidate 

 for the presidency, Republican postmasters, cus- 

 tom-house officers, supervisors of excise, and a 

 whole army of office-holders besides, have had to 

 make way for the men who have won the presi- 

 dential triumph. If the Republicans have been 

 successful, the Democratic office-holders have 

 suffered the same penalty for their political de- 

 feat. The local predominance of either party 

 in any particular State is succeeded by similar 

 consequences. A considerable number of salaried 

 State officials are elected by popular vote; and 

 whenever there is a change in the political tem- 

 per of a State the men that are in office lose their 

 positions, and give place to the nominees of the 

 victorious party. 



An Englishman will naturally suppose that 

 only the waifs and strays of society, men who 

 have learned no trade or profession, or who from 

 want of power, or want of industry, or want of 

 character, have been unsuccessful in ordinary 



in after-years, when the Federalists had recovered a 

 portion of their good-humor, he used to say, laughing, 

 that he had been allowed to pick up nothing but his 

 hat." 



1 Parton, "Life of Andrew Jackson," vol. iii., p. 

 209. 



2 In the report of a speech delivered a few weeks 

 ago by an English manufacturer, I noticed that he 

 charged the " hot-headed Democrats " of America 

 with the folly of maintaining the present protective 

 system. The speaker was a Conservative, and seems 

 to have forgotten four things : 1. That Mr. Hayes and 

 his administration are not " Democrats," hut " Re- 

 publicans ; " 2. That the "Democrats" in America 

 have not been in power for the last seventeen years ; 

 3. That the "hot-headed Democrats" are the party 

 with which English Conservatives have always had 

 most political sympathy ; 4. That although protection 

 is a cross-question and does not accurately divide the 

 two great American parties, free-trade principles have 

 a stronger support among the "Democrats" than 

 among the "Republicans." 



