![]() He was friendly with many individual Indians and had taken home an Indian orphan from the Creek campaign to raise in his household as a companion to his adopted son. For many years, Jackson had protested the practice of treating with Indian tribes as if they were foreign nations. ![]() But in the southwest, the Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws, and Creeks still occupied large portions of Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee. Indian nations had been largely erased or removed from the northeastern United States by the time Jackson became President. Creating the "spoils system" of partisan manipulation of the patronage was not his conscious intention. ![]() Marcy, defended Jackson's removals by proclaiming frankly in 1832 that in politics as in war, "to the victor belong the spoils of the enemy." Jackson was never so candid-or so cynical. A Jackson senator from New York, William L. Yet he accepted an officeholder's support for Adams as evidence of unfitness, and in choosing replacements he relied exclusively on recommendations from his own partisans. Jackson denied that political criteria motivated his appointments, claiming honesty and efficiency as his only goals. In 1838, Swartwout absconded with more than $1 million, a staggering sum for that day. Against all advice, Jackson made him collector of the New York City customhouse, where the government collected nearly half its annual revenue. His most appalling appointee was an old army comrade and political sycophant named Samuel Swartwout. Newspaper editors who had championed Jackson's cause, some of them very unsavory characters, came in for special favor. Under the guise of reform, many offices were doled out as rewards for political services. Jackson claimed to be purging the corruption, laxity, and arrogance that came with long tenure, and restoring the opportunity for government service to the citizenry at large through "rotation in office." But haste and gullibility did much to confuse his purpose. As President, he initiated sweeping removals among highranking government officials-Washington bureau chiefs, land and customs officers, and federal marshals and attorneys. On these two matters he moved quickly and decisively.ĭuring the campaign, Jackson had charged the Adams bureaucracy with fraud and with working against his election. Jackson entered the White House with an uncertain policy agenda beyond a vague craving for "reform" (or revenge) and a determination to settle relationships between the states and the Indian tribes within their borders. Rotation in Office and The Spoils System:
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