. A history of the United States of America, its people, and its institutions. fices to be held long by the same per-son. The offices belonged to the people, men said, andshould be enjoyed by as many of the people as possible. A different view had before prevailed, the former Presi-dents making few removals. Jefferson, who made the most,soon stopped doing so, and afterward refused to remove anyhonest, faithful, and capable office-holder, whatever his polit-ical opinions. From 1789 to 1829 less than a hundred rcvmovals were made, and some of these were for theft. Jack-son turned out fully two t
. A history of the United States of America, its people, and its institutions. fices to be held long by the same per-son. The offices belonged to the people, men said, andshould be enjoyed by as many of the people as possible. A different view had before prevailed, the former Presi-dents making few removals. Jefferson, who made the most,soon stopped doing so, and afterward refused to remove anyhonest, faithful, and capable office-holder, whatever his polit-ical opinions. From 1789 to 1829 less than a hundred rcvmovals were made, and some of these were for theft. Jack-son turned out fully two thousand, and filled their placeswith men of his own party. The Spoils System.—This system came to be known asthe Spoils System, from a remark of Senator Marcy in1834, who spoke of politics as conducted on the principlethat to the victors belong the spoils. It proved to behighly injurious to the public service of the country, capableand experienced men being removed from office every fouryears to make way for untried aspirants, whose only claim JACKSONS ADMINISTRATION. 301. John C. Calhotjn. was that they had voted and worked for the party, and who were often incapable of properly performin|, their official duties. This vicious system is now being rapidly set aside by the Civil \ Service Reform movement. Nullification.—While Jackson was doing evil in this direction he was doing good in another. The tariff of 1828 was extremely unpopular in the South, as it added considerably to the cost of goods which were received in exchange for cotton. John C. Calhoun declared that any State had the right to decide if such an act was constitutional, and, if not, to declare it null and void. This would be to nuUify an act of Congress, and the doctrine was called nullifi-cation. In 1830 it gave rise toa remarkable debate in Hayne, of South Carolina,supported the doctrine in a powerfulspeech. He was answered by DanielWebster,^ Senator from Massachu-setts, in one of the great
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