that politicians of all parties, including Lincoln, have adopted it without shame. It does not appear that Jackson was greatly influenced in his course by his advisers, of either his constitutional or Kitchen Cabinet. Van Buren, who has been wrongfully accused of so many things, and among others, of having been the dominating influence as to the spoils system, heard of the plan for sweeping changes with grave misgivings. “If the General makes one removal at this time,” he said in a letter to Hamilton written from Albany, “he must go on. So far as depends on me, my course would be to restore by a single order every one who has been turned out by Mr. Clay for political reasons, unless circumstances of a personal character have since arisen to make the appointment in any case improper. To ascertain that will take a little time. There I would pause.” This, from the head of his official family. And the most intimate of his advisers, of the Kitchen Cabinet, Major Lewis, is reported to have written to the President: “In relation to the principle of rotation in office, I embrace this occasion to enter my solemn protest against it; not on account of my office, but because I hold it to be fraught with the greatest mischief to the country. If ever it should be carried out _in extenso_, the days of this Republic will, in my opinion, be numbered; for whenever the impression shall become general that the Government is only valuable on account of its offices, the great and paramount interests of the country will be lost sight of, and the Government itself ultimately destroyed.” With the possible exception of Eaton, who was a practical politician in the modern sense, and Van Buren, to the extent just indicated, none of the members of the Cabinet were spoilsmen at heart; and Amos Kendall, the genius of the Kitchen Cabinet, would unquestionably have preferred to be spared the pain of turning men out of office. To be sure, the jovial but vindictive Duff Green, who spent much time at the elbow of Jackson in the early months of the Administration, was insistent upon the punishment of enemies, but the responsibility for the adoption of the policy rests upon the President himself.