Popular misgovernment in the United States

by Alfred Byron Cruikshank

Some writers put all the blame on Jackson for the overthrow of the old lofty ideals and standards of Federal politics, which occurred in his presidency. But Jackson, though coarse and ignorant, was not evil-minded nor intentionally unpatriotic; nor was he, even if so disposed, gifted with the power of corrupting the entire politics of the country. The mischiefs which broke out in his time were nation-wide and must have been due to a nation-wide cause. The fact is that the party of which Jackson happened to be the leader was caught in a movement, the full meaning and effect of which was unsuspected by everybody. The wash of the French Revolution had reached us and had swept manhood suffrage into our boat. Schurz says that in Jackson’s administration there was infused into the government and the whole body politic a spirit of lawlessness which outlived Jackson, and of which the demoralizing influence is felt to this day; that barbarous habits were then first introduced into the field of national affairs, and selfishness made a ruling motive in politics, resulting in a crop of corruption which startled the country. All this is true; the mistake is in ascribing to Jackson or to any one person a widespread deterioration no one man could possibly have accomplished. For such a far-reaching effect, a universal cause was needed; and that that cause was manhood suffrage no candid investigator can possibly doubt. McLaughlin in his Life of Cass (p. 136) recognizes that the introduction of the spoils system in 1829 cannot be solely charged to Jackson or to Van Buren; that they were the mere conduits through which was conducted into federal politics the flood of corruption produced by other causes. But those causes he fails to specify. “It came by natural evolution ... the offices of trust were handed over to the men who brought the greatest pressure to bear, and could make plain their political influences to the scullions of the kitchen cabinet. If the student of American politics is to understand the place which the spoils system holds he must see that its introduction was a natural phase in our national development.” And he describes the brutality of “the scrambling, punch-drinking mob which invaded Washington at Jackson’s inauguration.” It needs no Sherlock Holmes, however, to tell us that the advent of this mob and their possession of the administration would not have been “a natural phase in our national development” had it not been for the specific operation of the new institution of manhood suffrage. The influences which it introduced in our political structure were favorable to the spoils system, which was popularly felt to be a proper result of the filling of all offices by vote of the masses. The Cyclopedia of American Government states that the people favored the introduction of the spoils system. As Marcy said in a speech about that time, “They see nothing wrong in the rule that to the victors belong the spoils of the enemy.” In a word the Democratic spirit ignored efficiency in office as well as in the voter; and the office became what it still continues to be, a reward, a token of gratitude for political activity.

The lamentable effects of manhood suffrage continued in full sweep after the death of Harrison and the return of the Jackson Democracy to power under Polk in 1845. The resultant flagrant misgovernment caused growing popular resentment which might have produced valuable results had it not been for the slavery agitation which soon drove all other political questions into the background. Already in 1843 the dissatisfaction of large numbers was displayed by the organization of the American or Knownothing party, which born in New York and baptized with blood in Philadelphia rapidly spread through the country. Formed ostensibly to check the growing power of Irish Roman Catholic politicians, its real grievance was manhood suffrage misrule. Its leaders mistook the cause of the new political scandals. They wrongly attributed them exclusively to the Irish; they were really due to the effect of the voting power of the newly enfranchised and organized political floaters, both foreign and American. Polk’s election was secured by the machine in 1844:

“By the almost solid foreign vote still unfit for the duties of American citizenship; by the vicious and criminal classes in all the great cities of the North and in New Orleans; by the corrupt politicians, who found ignorance and viciousness tools ready forged to their hands, wherewith to perpetrate the gigantic frauds without which the election would have been lost.” (Roosevelt, Life of Benton, pp. 290, 291.)

On Pierce’s inauguration in 1853, says Rhodes, “the importunate begging for official positions in a republic where it was so easy to earn a living was nothing less than disgraceful. Office seekers crowded the public receptions of the President, and while greeting him in the usual way, attempted at the same time to urge their claims, actually thrusting their petitions into his hands.” (Rhodes, I, 339.)

Meantime the bribery of voters and of legislatures rapidly grew more common and shameless, and about this time the purchase of legislation began to be a scandal. Referring to this period, Prof. Reinsch says:

“In those earlier days things were often managed with little adroitness. There was much indiscriminate and broadcast bribery; to buy men for a moderate amount per vote was the acme of ambition to the successful lobbyist.” (American Legislatures and Legislative Methods, p. 231.)

And Farrand writes, referring to the same period:

“For the first time in contemporary accounts much was made of the vile corruption of politics, the charge being with the growth of a class of professional politicians and the great increase of wealth that money was used improperly, both for bribing of voters and for accomplishing the miscarriage of justice.” (Development of United States, p. 209.)

Under the united influence of manhood suffrage and its offspring the spoils system, corruption, rascality and official incapacity increased enormously as time went on. The historian Rhodes writing of the decade from 1850 to 1860 says that “plentiful evidence of the popular opinion that dishonesty prevailed may be found in the literature of the time.” And that, “the executive and legislative departments of the national government were undoubtedly as much tainted with corruption between 1850-60 as they are at the present time.” (1904.) Senator Benton of Missouri writing in 1850 said:

“Now office is sought for support and for the repair of dilapidated fortunes; applicants obtrude themselves, and prefer claims to office. Their personal condition and party services, not qualification, are made the basis of the demand; and the crowds which congregate at Washington, at the change of an administration, supplicants for office are humiliating to behold, and threaten to change the contest of parties from a contest for principle into a struggle for plunder.” (Thirty Years in Congress, Vol. I, p. 81.)