And further: (p. 163).
“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.”
About this time public officials were assessed for political contributions; afterwards the offices were put on sale. “Under Buchanan (1857-1861) was established the practice of taxing federal office holders. The politicians after the war carried it to perfection. There were five categories of assessments on salaries; federal, state, municipal, ward and district.” (Ostrogorski; Democracy, p. 68.)
The politicians under Lincoln were no whit behind their predecessors. The new administration machine went merrily to work right after March 4, 1861. Then followed such scandals as might naturally be expected from the appointment as Secretary of War of Simon Cameron, the rapacious and corrupt Pennsylvania boss. Carbines were sold by the Government at $3.50 each and repurchased at $15, and the contract repeated, the second purchase being at $22. Large sums were spent without accounting in violation of law. Brothers-in-law were in luck. Cameron’s brother-in-law was president of a railroad which in one year exacted from the Government a million or more for excessive transportation charges. One Morgan, the brother-in-law of the Secretary of the Navy, was made purchasing agent for railroad supplies, although he was absolutely without experience in that line. Other politicians received similar favors. A great scandal was caused by the issuing of permits for trading with the enemy under which supplies to numerous amounts sufficient to furnish whole armies were sent through the rebel lines. The machine was able to obtain the signature of Lincoln himself to these permits. Foreign affairs were neglected in order that the offices might be distributed. (Stickney; Organized Democracy, Chap. III.)
Coming to the next decade we find a systematic corruption of the electorate, a large part whereof was willing no doubt to be corrupted. Ostrogorski says that “after the (Civil) War the exasperation of party spirit and the extraordinary development of the spoils system led to bribery being used as a regular weapon.... The parties often secure, in much the same way, the votes of the members of the labor unions; the leaders ‘sell them out’ to the parties without the workmen having a suspicion of it. The voters who deliberately sell themselves belong in the cities, mostly to the dregs of the population.”
And also referring to states where the vote was close:
“These states ranked among the doubtful ones, four or five in number, are drenched with money during the presidential campaign for buying the ‘floaters,’ the wavering electors who sell themselves to the highest bidder.” (Pp. 206, 207.)
During all this period and down to the present time, the spoils system built on manhood suffrage has been the dominant force in our public life.
“It is” (says Bryce) “these spoilsmen who have depraved and distorted the mechanism of politics. It is they who pack the primaries and run the conventions so as to destroy the freedom of popular choice, they who contrive and execute the election frauds which disgrace some States and cities—repeating and ballot stuffing, obstruction of the polls and fraudulent countings in.
In making every administrative appointment a matter of party claim and personal favour, the system has lowered the general tone of public morals, for it has taught men to neglect the interests of the community, and made insincerity ripen into cynicism. Nobody supposes that merit has anything to do with promotion, or believes the pretext alleged for an appointment. Politics has been turned into the art of distributing salaries so as to secure the maximum of support from friends with the minimum of offence to opponents. To this art able men have been forced to bend their minds: on this Presidents and ministers have spent those hours which were demanded by the real problems of the country.” (American Commonwealth, Vol. II, p. 137.)