This, to be sure, was a tory proscription of whigs, and therefore the less recommendable as an example to either party in the United States, but too much followed by both – to the injury of individuals, the damage of the public service, the corruption of elections, and the degradation of government. De Tocqueville quotes removals as a reproach to our government, and although untrue to the extent he represented, the evil has become worse since, and is true to a sufficient extent to demand reform. The remedy is found in Mr. Jefferson's rule, and in the four years' limitation act which has since been passed; and under which, with removals for cause, and some deaths, and a few resignations, an ample field would be found for new appointments, without the harshness of general and sweeping removals.
I consider "sweeping" removals, as now practised by both parties, a great political evil in our country, injurious to individuals, to the public service, to the purity of elections, and to the harmony and union of the people. Certainly, no individual has a right to an office: no one has an estate or property in a public employment; but when a mere ministerial worker in a subordinate station has learned its duties by experience, and approved his fidelity by his conduct, it is an injury to the public service to exchange him for a novice, whose only title to the place may be a political badge or a partisan service. It is exchanging experience for inexperience, tried ability for untried, and destroying incentive to good conduct by destroying its reward. To the party displaced it is an injury, having become a proficient in that business, expecting to remain in it during good behavior, and finding it difficult, at an advanced age, and with fixed habits, to begin a new career in some new walk of life. It converts elections into scrambles, for office, and degrades the government into an office for rewards and punishments; and divides the people of the Union into two adverse parties – each in its turn, and as it becomes dominant, to strip and proscribe the other.
Our government is a Union. We want a united people, as well as united States– united for benefits as well as for burdens, and in feeling as well as in compact; and this cannot be while one half (each in its turn) excludes the other from all share in the administration of the government. Mr. Jefferson's principle is perfect, and reconciled public and private interest with party rights and duties. The party in power is responsible for the well-working of the government, and has a right, and is bound by duty to itself, to place its friends at the head of the different branches of the public service. After that, and in the subordinate places, the opposite party should have its share of employment; and this Mr. Jefferson's principle gives to it. But as there are offices too subordinate for party proscription, so there are others too elevated and national for it. This is now acknowledged in the army and navy, and formerly was acknowledged in the diplomatic department; and should be again. To foreign nations we should, at least, be one people – an undivided people, and that in peace as well as in war. Mr. Jefferson's principle reached this case, and he acted upon it. His election was not a signal gun, fired for the recall of all the ministers abroad, to be succeeded incontinently by partisans of its own. Mr. Rufus King, the most eminent of the federal ministers abroad, and at the most eminent court of Europe, that of St. James, remained at his post for two years after the revolution of parties in 1800; and until he requested his own recall, treated all the while with respect and confidence, and intrusted with a negotiation which he conducted to its conclusion. Our early diplomatic policy, eschewing all foreign entanglement, rejected the office of "minister resident." That early republican policy would have no permanent representation at foreign courts. The "envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary," called out on an emergent occasion, and to return home as soon as the emergency was over, was the only minister known to our early history; and then the mission was usually a mixed one, composed of both parties. And so it should be again. The present permanent supply and perpetual succession of "envoys extraordinary and ministers plenipotentiary" is a fraud upon the name, and a breach of the old policy of the government, and a hitching on American diplomacy to the tail of the diplomacy of Europe. It is the actual keeping up of "ministers resident" under a false name, and contrary to a wise and venerable policy; and requires the reform hand of the House of Representatives. But this point will require a chapter of its own, and its elucidation must be adjourned to another and a separate place.
Mons. de Tocqueville was right in the principle of his reproach, wrong in the extent of his application, but would have been less wrong if he had written of events a dozen years later. I deprecate the effect of such sweeping removals at each revolution of parties, and believe it is having a deplorable effect both upon the purity of elections and the distribution of office, and taking both out of the hands of the people, and throwing the management of one and the enjoyment of the other into most unfit hands. I consider it as working a deleterious change in the government, making it what Mr. Jefferson feared: and being a disciple of his school, and believing in the soundness and nationality of the rule which he laid down, I deem it good to recall it solemnly to public recollection – for the profit, and hope, of present and of future times.
CHAPTER LI.
INDIAN SOVEREIGNTIES WITHIN THE STATES
A political movement on the part of some of the southern tribes of Indians, brought up a new question between the States and those Indians, which called for the interposition of the federal government. Though still called Indians, their primitive and equal government had lost its form, and had become an oligarchy, governed chiefly by a few white men, called half-breeds, because there was a tincture of Indian blood in their veins. These, in some instances, set up governments within the States, and claimed sovereignty and dominion within their limits. The States resisted this claim and extended their laws and jurisdiction over them. The federal government was appealed to; and at the commencement of the session of 1829-'30, in his first annual message, President Jackson brought the subject before the two Houses of Congress, thus:
"The condition and ulterior destiny of the Indian tribes within the limits of some of our States, have become objects of much interest and importance. It has long been the policy of government to introduce among them the arts of civilization, in the hope of gradually reclaiming them from a wandering life. This policy has, however, been coupled with another, wholly incompatible with its success. Professing a desire to civilize and settle them, we have, at the same time, lost no opportunity to purchase their lands and thrust them further into the wilderness. By this means they have not only been kept in a wandering state, but been led to look upon us as unjust, and indifferent to their fate. Thus, though lavish in its expenditures upon the subject, government has constantly defeated its own policy, and the Indians, in general, receding further and further to the West, have retained their savage habits. A portion, however, of the southern tribes, having mingled much with the whites, and made some progress in the arts of civilized life, have lately attempted to erect an independent government within the limits of Georgia and Alabama. These States, claiming to be the only sovereigns within their territories, extended their laws over the Indians; which induced the latter to call upon the United States for protection.
"Under these circumstances, the question presented was, whether the general government had a right to sustain those people in their pretensions? The constitution declares, that "no new States shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other State," without the consent of its legislature. If the general government is not permitted to tolerate the erection of a confederate State within the territory of one of the members of this Union, against her consent, much less could it allow a foreign and independent government to establish itself there. Georgia became a member of the confederacy which eventuated in our federal union, as a sovereign State, always asserting her claim to certain limits; which, having been originally defined in her colonial charter, and subsequently recognized in the treaty of peace, she has ever since continued to enjoy, except as they have been circumscribed by her