that short terms and rapid rotation made for alertness and efficiency.  He felt that one man had as much right to public office as another, and he was so unacquainted with the tasks of administration as to suppose all honest citizens equally capable of serving their fellowmen in public station.  As for the grievances of persons removed, his view was that “no individual wrong is done by removal, since neither appointment to nor continuance in office is a matter of right.”

Shortly after the election Major Lewis wrote to a friend that the General was “resolved on making a pretty clean sweep of the departments.”  It is expected, he added, that “he will cleanse the Augean stables, and I feel pretty confident that he will not disappoint the popular expectation in this particular.”  If a complete overturn was ever really contemplated, the plan was not followed up; and it is more than possible that it was Van Buren who marked off the limits beyond which it would not be expedient to go.  None the less, Jackson’s removals far exceeded those made by his predecessors.  Speaking broadly, the power of removal had never yet been exercised in the Federal Government with offensive partizanship.  Even under Jefferson, when the holders of half of the offices were changed in the space of four years, there were few removals for political reasons.

No sooner was Jackson in office, however, than wholesale proscription began.  The ax fell in every department and bureau, and cut off chiefs and clerks with equal lack of mercy.  Age and experience counted rather against a man than in his favor, and rarely was any reason given for removal other than that some one else wanted the place.  When Congress met, in December, it was estimated that a thousand persons had been ousted; and during the first year of the Administration the number is said to have reached two thousand.  The Post-Office Department and the Customs Service were purged with special severity.  The sole principle on which the new appointees were selected was loyalty to Jackson.  Practically all were inexperienced, most were incompetent, and several proved dishonest.

“There has been,” wrote the President in his journal a few weeks after the inauguration, “a great noise made about removals.”  Protest arose not only from the proscribed and their friends, but from the Adams-Clay forces generally, and even from some of the more moderate Jacksonians.  “Were it not for the outdoor popularity of General Jackson,” wrote Webster, “the Senate would have negatived more than half his nominations.”  As it was, many were rejected; and some of the worst were, under pressure, withdrawn.  On the general principle the President held his ground.  “It is rotation in office,” he again and again asserted in all honesty, “that will perpetuate our liberty,” and from this conviction no amount of argument or painful experience could shake him.  After 1830 one hears less about the subject, but only because the novelty and glamor of the new regime had worn off.