Spoils System

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The Andrew Jackson Administrations

Editors: Kelle S. Sisung and Gerda-Ann Raffaelle

Date: 2002

From: Presidential Administration Profiles for Students

Publisher: Gale

Document Type: Topic overview

Length: 11,411 words

Content Level: (Level 5)

Lexile Measure: 1320L

Changes in the U.S. Government

Jacksonian Democracy

By the 1820s and 1830s, the swelling population of the U.S. frontier helped transform the U.S. government into something that more closely resembled true democracy. One by one, states began to eliminate property requirements for suffrage, extending the right to vote to all adult white males. While this still eliminated a good portion of the population, namely women and African Americans, it nevertheless transformed the federal government into one that more closely resembled the will of the masses. Candidates were more directly chosen by the will of the people, rather than by a caucus of political bosses.

Because Jackson saw himself as reflecting the will of the people, he also assumed a dictatorial role and saw the presidency as superior to the Supreme Court and Congress. So he became the main beneficiary of this new populism, so much that this new type of democracy was called Jacksonian Democracy. While he did not create the new democracy, he was the only politician in possession of the shrewdness and backwoods credentials that would allow him to ride this new political sentiment to the presidency.

Jackson was a symbol of the shift of U.S. political influence from the conservative eastern seaboard to the new states on the other side of the Appalachians. 

The "Spoils System"

In his first inaugural address, Jackson had promised to clean house in Washington. No party had been overturned in government since 1800, and many government offices suffered from complacency--or worse, incompetence and corruption. A few officeholders in 1828 had actually had their commissions signed by President Washington and had lingered on into their eighties, performing virtually no work for their salaries. To Jackson, the quickest way to reform was to sweep out this old, worthless corps and bring in his own followers--rewarding them as he punished the supporters of his predecessors.

Jackson is thus recognized by historians as having initiated one of the most troublesome and demoralizing practices in U.S. democracy. Though the "spoils system," from New York senator William Marcy's classic 1832 remark: "To the victor belong the spoils of the enemy" (Remini, p.110), was hardly new to U.S. government, and though Jackson actually only replaced fewer than 2,000 out of 11,000 officers, he did employ the system to a greater degree than any of his predecessors. Some of Jackson's officers, it was later revealed, had openly bought their posts with campaign contributions. Fairly or not,  Jackson bears much historical blame for promoting the practice of patronage and undermining public service by subordinating professional merit to political considerations.

During Jackson's administration, two states were admitted to the Union. Arkansas became the 25th state on June 15, 1836, and Michigan the 26th on January 26, 1837.