that to the victor belong the spoils of the enemy."

Jackson, with all his bluster and the noise of his followers,
made his proscriptions relatively fewer than those of Jefferson.
He removed only 252 of about 612 presidential appointees.* It
should, however, be remembered that those who were not removed
had assured Jackson's agents of their loyalty to the new
Democracy.

* This does not include deputy postmasters, who numbered about
8000 and were not placed in the presidential list until 1836.


If Jackson did not inaugurate the spoils system, he at least gave
it a mission. It was to save the country from the curse of
officialdom. His successor, Van Buren, brought the system to a
perfection that only the experienced politician could achieve.
Van Buren required of all appointees partizan service; and his
own nomination, at Baltimore, was made a foregone conclusion by
the host of federal job-holders who were delegates. Van Buren
simply introduced at Washington the methods of the Albany
Regency.

The Whigs blustered bravely against this proscription. But their
own President, General Harrison, "Old Tippecanoe," was helpless
against the saturnalia of office-seekers that engulfed him.
Harrison, when he came to power, removed about one-half of the
officials in the service. And, although the partizan color of the
President changed with Harrison's death, after a few weeks in
office,--Tyler was merely a Whig of convenience--there was no