III.

Jackson's Policy

Politically, Jackson was motivated by three principal considerations. As the representative of the interests of the farmers and artisans of the expanding western frontier, he was determined to end the domination of the federal government by the representatives of the financial interests of New England and of the aristocratic planters of the southern states. A second motivation was his fear of the development of a bureaucracy with an interest in perpetuating its hold on the government. Thus, he favored a policy of rotation in office. Jackson's third motivation was his desire to punish his political opponents by removing them and their followers from office. The course he followed became known as the spoils system from a speech justifying it made by the statesman William L. Marcy, who declared in 1832 that he perceived “nothing wrong in the maxim that to the victors belong the spoils of the enemy.”

The precedent set by Jackson was followed by his successors and by the states and local communities generally. It reached its peak during the period of Reconstruction in the years following the American Civil War, when federal control of the defeated southern states created unparalleled opportunities for patronage. As it developed, the spoils system became pernicious. It tended to place party interests above the public welfare and factional interests within a party above the interests of the party as a whole, resulting in the development of powerfully entrenched political groups that threatened to dominate political life and divert government to the service of selfish interests.