Division and Reunion Author:Woodrow Wilson Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: altered complexion ; and the election of Jackson to the presidency seemed to make the change permanent. It began to be felt, by those who opposed him. that party... more » struggles for the future affected, not so much measures, as the very structure of the government. 17. The " Spoils System " (1829,1830). It was in such an atmosphere and under such circumstances that the business of the country was resumed by the Twenty-first Congress on December 7, Patronage. The nine months which had elapsed since Jackson's inauguration had disclosed many evidences of what the new administration was to be, and the Houses came together in an anxious frame of mind, conscious that there were delicate questions to be handled. The radical reconstruction of the civil service in the interest of those who had actively supported Jackson for the presidency had startled and repelled not a few even of the Jackson men; for many of these had chosen to believe that their chief was to represent a conservative constitutional policy ; had refused to see that he was not a politician at all, but only an imperative person whose conduct it would always be difficult either to foresee 01 control. It was estimated that when Congress met, more than a thousand removals from office had Removals. 11,, already taken place, as against seventy-three at most for all previous administrations put together ; and John Quincy Adams uttered a very common judgment when he wrote in his Journal : " Very few reputable appointments have been made, and those confined to persons who were indispensably necessary to the office." " The appointments are exclusively of violent partisans," he declares, "and every ediior of a scurrilous and slanderous newspaper is provided for." " Tlie administration," exclaimed Webster, when the whole scopean...« less