Jackson was elected by 178 votes to 83 for Adams. The criticisms which had been made upon Adams’s administration were now all used as a basis for representing the entire government as needing reform. This reform took the form of removing all persons in office and replacing them by friends of the new President. Up to this time the tenure of office in the public service had been during efficiency or good behavior, although instances of removals for political reasons had not been wanting and there had been many changes when Jefferson went into office. I will only say in passing that the complaints of inefficiency in office and of corruption during Jackson’s administration steadily and justly increased. According to a report by Secretary Ewing, in 1841, there were lost, to the government between 1829 and 1841, over two millions and a half of dollars by defalcations of public officials. The Cabinet selected by Jackson at the outset consisted of obscure men remarkable only for their loyalty to the person of the President. It may be said in general of the new appointments to inferior offices that they constituted a deterioration of the public service. Two doctrines were now affirmed as democratic principles which, if they should be accepted as such, would be the condemnation of democracy to all sober-minded men. The first was that of rotation in office, which, if it is a democratic principle, raises inefficiency and venality to permanent features of the public service. You will observe that its effect has been, as a matter of history, to make thousands of people believe despairingly that these things are inseparable from the public service and that elections only determine which set shall enjoy the opportunity. The other doctrine or democratic principle was that to the victors belong the spoils. This was distinctly enunciated by William L. Marcy on the floor of the Senate. He said that he did not hesitate to avow the principle as a principle. By this principle corruption in the public service is made a matter of course. I think that these two “principles” are rotten, and by virtue of their own intrinsic baseness. If any one is inclined to despair of the republic now, he ought to remember that there was a time when men shamelessly professed these doctrines as principles. I doubt if any one would be bold enough to do it to-day.