Mr. Jefferson had early and anxiously studied the question of removals. He was the first President that had occasion to make them, and with him the occasion was urgent. His election was a complete revolution of parties, and when elected, he found himself to be almost the only man of his party in office. The democracy had been totally excluded from federal appointment during the administration of his predecessor; almost all offices were in the hands of his political foes. I recollect to have heard an officer of the army say that there was but one field officer in the service favorable to him. This was the type of the civil service. Justice to himself and his party required this state of things to be altered; required his friends to have a share proportionate to their numbers in the distribution of office; and required him to have the assistance of his friends in the administration of the government. The four years' limitation law – the law which now vacates within the cycle of every Presidential term the great mass of the offices – was not then in force. Resignations then, as now, were few. Removals were indispensable, and the only question was the principle upon which they should be made. This question, Mr. Jefferson studied anxiously, and under all its aspects of principle and policy, of national and of party duty; and upon consultation with his friends, settled it to his and their satisfaction. The fundamental principle was, that each party was to have a share in the ministerial offices, the control of each branch of the service being in the hands of the administration; that removals were only to be made for cause; and, of course, that there should be inquiry into the truth of imputed delinquencies. "Official misconduct," "personal misconduct," "negligence," "incapacity," "inherent vice in the appointment," "partisan electioneering beyond the fair exercise of the elective franchise;" and where "the heads of some branches of the service were politically opposed to his administration" – these, with Mr. Jefferson, constituted the law of removals, and was so written down by him immediately after his inauguration. Thus, March 7th, 1801 – only four days after his induction into office – he wrote to Mr. Monroe:
"Some removals, I know, must be made. They must be as few as possible, done gradually, and bottomed on some malversation, or inherent disqualification. Where we should draw the line between retaining all and none, is not yet settled, and will not be until we get our administration together; and, perhaps, even then we shall proceed à tatons, balancing our measures according to the impression we perceive them to make."
On the 23d of March, 1801, being still in the first month of his administration, Mr. Jefferson wrote thus to Gov. Giles, of Virginia:
"Good men, to whom there is no objection but a difference of political opinion, practised on only so far as the right of a private citizen will justify, are not proper subjects of removal, except in the case of attorneys and marshals. The courts being so decidedly federal and irremovable, it is believed that republican attorneys and marshals, being the doors of entrance into the courts, are indispensably necessary as a shield to the republican part of our fellow-citizens; which, I believe, is the main body of the people."
Six days after, he wrote to Elbridge Gerry, afterwards Vice-President, thus:
"Mr. Adams's last appointments, when he knew he was appointing counsellors and aids for me, not for himself, I set aside as fast as depends on me. Officers who have been guilty of gross abuse of office, such as marshals packing juries, &c., I shall now remove, as my predecessors ought in justice to have done. The instances will be few, and governed by strict rule, and not party passion. The right of opinion shall suffer no invasion from me. Those who have acted well have nothing to fear, however they may have differed from me in opinion: those who have done ill, however, have nothing to hope; nor shall I fail to do justice, lest it should be ascribed to that difference of opinion."
To Mr. Lincoln, his Attorney-General, still writing in the first year of his administration, he says:
"I still think our original idea as to office is best; that is, to depend, for obtaining a just participation, on deaths, resignations and delinquencies. This will least affect the tranquillity of the people, and prevent their giving into the suggestion of our enemies – that ours has been a contest for office, not for principle. This is rather a slow operation, but it is sure, if we pursue it steadily, which, however, has not been done with the undeviating resolution I could have wished. To these means of obtaining a just share in the transaction of the public business, shall be added one more, to wit, removal for electioneering activity, or open and industrious opposition to the principles of the present government, legislative and executive. Every officer of the government may vote at elections according to his conscience; but we should betray the cause committed to our care, were we to permit the influence of official patronage to be used to overthrow that cause. Your present situation will enable you to judge of prominent offenders in your State in the case of the present election. I pray you to seek them, to mark them, to be quite sure of your ground, that we may commit no errors or wrongs; and leave the rest to me. I have been urged to remove Mr. Whittemore, the surveyor of Gloucester, on grounds of neglect of duty and industrious opposition; yet no facts are so distinctly charged as to make the step sure which we should take in this. Will you take the trouble to satisfy yourself on the point?"
This was the law of removals as laid down by Mr. Jefferson, and practised upon by him, but not to the extent that his principle required, or that public outcry indicated. He told me himself, not long before his death (Christmas, 1824), that he had never done justice to his own party – had never given them the share of office to which their numbers entitled them – had failed to remove many who deserved it, but who were spared through the intercession of friends and concern for their distressed families. General Jackson acted upon the rule of Mr. Jefferson, but no doubt was often misled into departures from the rule; but never to the extent of giving to the party more than their due proportion of office, according to their numbers. Great clamor was raised against him, and the number of so-called "removals" was swelled by an abuse of the term, every case being proclaimed a "removal," where he refused to reappoint an ex-incumbent whose term had expired under the four years' limitation act. Far from universal removals for opinion's sake, General Jackson, as I have already said, left the majority of his opponents in office, and re-appointed many such whose terms had expired, and who had approved themselves faithful officers.
Having vindicated General Jackson and Mr. Adams from the reproach of Mons. de Tocqueville, and having shown that it was neither a principle nor a practice of the Jefferson school to remove officers for political opinions, I now feel bound to make the declaration, that the doctrine of that school has been too much departed from of late, and by both parties, and to the great detriment of the right and proper working of the government.
The practice of removals for opinion's sake is becoming too common, and is reducing our presidential elections to what Mr. Jefferson deprecated, "a contest of office instead of principle," and converting the victories of each party, so far as office is concerned, into the political extermination of the other; as it was in Great Britain between the whigs and tories in the bitter contests of one hundred years ago, and when the victor made a "clean sweep" of the vanquished, leaving not a wreck behind. Mr. Macaulay thus describes one of those "sweepings:"
"A persecution, such as had never been known before, and has never been known since, raged in every public department. Great numbers of