Before Jackson’s entry into the White House, the scenes in and about Gadsby’s were scarcely less than scandalous. A great perspiring mob swarmed in the streets in front, crowded the tap-room, jostled its way in the halls, and, notwithstanding the efforts of Major Lewis, it demanded and secured admission to the President’s private apartment. All admitted themselves responsible for Jackson’s election. Amos Kendall, encountering a pompous stranger on the Avenue, was invited to look upon the man who had “delivered Pennsylvania.”[178] James A. Hamilton, who was close to Jackson in the early days of the Administration, was importuned by an Indianian, who had taken the electoral vote of the State to the Capitol, to intercede on his behalf for the Register’s office at Crawfordsville, or the Marshalship. This typical office-seeker had “calculated to remain a few weeks ... hoping that some of these violent Adams men may receive their walking papers.” He carried letters of recommendation from all the Democratic members of the State Legislature “for any office I can ask.” But, in view of the brisk competition, would not Hamilton kindly recall that he had received letters from the Hoosier bearing on the campaign, and personally testify to the important part he had played?[179] Others depended upon the length of their petitions, and two applicants from Pennsylvania, for the same office, had signers so numerous that the number had to be estimated by the length of the sheets.[180] Meanwhile there is no question but that Jackson was eager to serve his friends, if not to punish his enemies. From the moment of his election, he had entertained no illusions as to the character of the opposition his Administration would encounter. It was an open secret that his enemies, long before the inauguration, had begun to organize for the discrediting of his Administration. He was familiar with the bitterness of Clay. And, with the determination to make his Administration a success, from his point of view, he turned his attention to preparations for the fight. His military training told him that it was fatal to enter a campaign with traitors in the camp. The disloyalty from which Adams had suffered had not been lost upon him.[181] And he had fixed convictions as to political organization. “To give effect to any principles,” he said, “you must avail yourself of the physical force of an organized body of men. This is true alike in war, politics, or religion. You cannot organize men in effective bodies without giving them a reason for it. And when the organization is once made, you cannot keep it together unless you hold constantly before its members why they are organized.”[182] Thus party politics, in the modern sense, began with Jackson, and the spoils system grew out of the exigencies of party politics. Vicious though it may be, it is significant of its appeal to the rank and file of party workers, upon whom party success depends,