"Fellow citizens: About to undertake the arduous duties that I have been appointed to perform by the choice of a free people, I avail myself of this customary and solemn occasion, to express the gratitude which their confidence inspires, and to acknowledge the accountability which my situation enjoins. While the magnitude of their interests convinces me that no thanks can be adequate to the honor they have conferred, it admonishes me that the best return I can make, is the zealous dedication of my humble abilities to their service and their good.

"In such measures as I may be called on to pursue, in regard to the rights of the separate states, I hope to be animated by a proper respect for those sovereign members of our Union; taking care not to confound the powers they have reserved to themselves with those they have granted to the confederacy.

"The management of the public revenue-that searching operation in all governments-is among the most delicate and important trusts in ours; and it will, of course, demand no inconsiderable share of my official solicitude. Under every aspect in which it can be considered, it would appear that advantage must result from the observance of a strict and faithful economy. This I shall aim at the more anxiously, both because it will facilitate the extinguishment of the national debt-the unnecessary duration of which is incompatible with real independence-and because it will counteract that tendency

a profuse expenditure of money by the government, is but too apt to engender. Powerful auxiliaries to the attainment of this desirable end, are to be found in the regulations provided by the wisdom of Congress, for the specific appropriation of public money, and the prompt accountability of public officers.

"The recent demonstration of public sentiment inscribes, on the list of execu tive duties, in characters too legible to be overlooked, the task of REFORM; which will require, particularly, the correction of those abuses, that have brought the patronage of the federal government into conflict with the freedom of elections, and the counteraction of those causes which have disturbed the rightful course of appointment, and have placed, or continued, power in unfaithful or incompetent hands.

"In the performance of a task thư generally delineated, I shall endeavor to select men whose diligence and talents will ensure, in their respective stations, able and faithful co-operationdepending, for the advancement of the public service, more on the integrity and zeal of the public officers, than on their numbers.

"A diffidence, perhaps too just, in my own qualifications, will teach me to look with reverence to the examples of public virtue left by my illustrious predecessors, and with veneration to the lights that flow from the mind that founded, and the mind that re- 1829. formed our system. The same diffidence induces me to hope for instruction and aid from the co-ordinate

CH. I.]

branches of the government, and for the indulgence and support of my fellow-citizens generally. And a firm reliance on the goodness of that Power whose providence mercifully protected our national infancy, and has since upheld our liberties in various vicissitudes, encourages me to offer up my ardent supplications, that He will continue to make our beloved country the object of his Divine care and gracious benediction."

After concluding this address, the oath of office was administered to the new president by the venerable Chief Justice Marshall, who had discharged the same duty on many previous occasions. The Senate being in session, Jackson sent in the names of those whom he had selected to form his cabinet. They were: Martin Van Buren, (at the time governor of New York,) | secretary of state; Samuel D. Ingham, of Pennsylvania, secretary of the treasury; John H. Eaton, of Tennessee, secretary of war; John Branch, of North Carolina, secretary of the navy; John M. Berrien, of Georgia, attorneygeneral; and William T. Barry, of Kentucky, postmaster-general. This last office was held by Mr. M'Lean, (appointed by Mr. Monroe) who was understood to be a supporter of the new administration; a vacancy, however, having occurred in the supreme court, by the death of Mr. Justice Trimble,*

* Justice Trimble died in August, 1828. At the opening of the session, in December of that year, Mr. Adams nominated Mr. Crittenden, of Kentucky, to fill

the vacancy. The opposition, who were in the majorthe vacancy. The opposition, who were in the major

ity in the Senate, refused to allow the nomination to be acted upon.

371

Mr. M'Lean was nominated to fill his place, and was confirmed by the Senate on the 7th of March. That body, having acted on all the nominations presented to them, closed their extra session on the 18th of the same month.

The new administration came into power under favorable auspices. General Jackson had been very little in public life, was not committed to any particular line of policy, and was known to have counselled Monroe, (p. 309,) to discard party lines and distinctions, and to act in all respects as the president of the whole United States. He was consequently at liberty to mark out a truly national policy, and to conduct the government on principles which recognized the rights and privileges of both majority and minority among the people. "Retrenchment and reform," were the rallying cries of the party during the election, and retrenchment and reform the president was bound, of course, to see carried into effect wherever it was necessary. The only question to be settled was, what was meant by these terms; whether, on the one hand, the introducing of economy, prudence, simplicity, and such like, into the management and conduct of public affairs, with the utmost and stringent responsibility of public officers; or, the other, the removing of honest, capable men, who were not political adherents, and the appointing of others in their places, who were political adherents and supporters. It may well be believed, that the holders of office, and the seekers of office, looked with no little anxiety for the practical

on

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settlement of this question of reform, of which Jackson had spoken in his Inaugural address.

The president did not leave the country long in doubt, as to what he and the democracy understood by the needed "reform." It consisted in an extensive removal of officers who were, politically considered, known, or believed, to be friends and supporters of Mr. Adams at the last election, and the appointment of others in their places who had been active in securing the election of General Jackson; thus opening the door to the conviction, that office under the government is to be the reward of partizanship, that "to the victors belong the spoils," and that from the highest office in the state, down to the very humblest and most insignificant, no man can be deemed qualified except he be, out and out, a member and supporter of the dominant party. In carrying out his views on this subject, the president reached the following result, before the meeting of Congress in the present year. Four new ministers plenipotentiary had been appointed, two new chargés d'affaires, and four new secretaries of legation; the marshals and district-attorneys had been changed in sixteen states, forty-eight collectors, surveyors, naval officers, and appraisers had been removed, to make way for other men, and twenty-six receivers and registers in western land offices; twenty-one new consuls had been appointed; and in the department at Washington alone, forty-six changes had been made. Altogether, in the course of the nine months of the recess, a hundred and sixty-seven removals and re-appoint

ments, in which the Senate could have no voice, had taken place.

The postmaster-general, having now become a member of the cabinet, the pruning knife of "reform" was very vigorously, applied in that department. Within the year that the work was begun, four hundred and ninety postmasters had been displaced, and others appointed in their room. And to show how the discrimination was made, we may mention, that in eleven states or territories which had voted for Adams, there were three hundred and nineteen removals, while in seventeen states or territories which had supported Jackson, there were only a hundred and sixty-one removals. Thus, during the first year of the new administration, nearly seven hundred changes in gov ernment officers were brought about in this wise; and it became tolerably plain, what was meant by the president, and the party who placed him in his lofty position, by "retrenchment and reform."*

In thus narrating this matter, our object is to give a simple statement of fact. We are well aware, that the course of the president was held to be defensible, and was energetically defended by the democratic press; and

*In contrast with this procedure on the part of Jackson, it deserves to be noted, that, although Mr. Jefferson began the system which has since been carhe removed only thirty-nine in the course of eight years; John Adams, during his four years, removed ten; Washington removed nine; Madison, five; Mon roe, nine; and John Quincy Adams, two; making the sum total of removals by six presidents, only seventy four, and most of these for sufficient cause.

ried out so fully, (see pp. 16-18 of the present volume,)

converts elections into scrambles for office, and degrades the government into an office for rewards and punishments; and divides the people of the Union into two adverse parties each in its turn, and as it becomes dominant, to strip and proscribe the other. 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 election 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."*

The twenty-first Congress assembled for its first session on the 7th of December, 1829. There was a large gathering of the members of both Houses, and the strength of the new administration was shown by the re-election of Andrew Stevenson, as speaker of the House, by a hundred and fifty-two votes, against twenty-one given to William D. Martin, and eighteen scattering. On the next day, the first annual message of President Jackson was received and read to the two Houses. It was very long, drawn up

1829.

evidently with much care, and gave an elaborate view of the foreign relations and domestic concerns of the United States. Among the principal measures recommended were; an amendment of the Constitution on the subject of electing the president, in order that it might be done by the people, without the intervention of electors, and that he should be ineligible for a second term ;* a review and alteration of the judiciary law, so as to extend the circuit court to all the states; a discontinuance of building ships of the larger classes, and the collecting and storing of materials instead; a gradual reduction of duties on articles of general consumption, which are not the production of the country; the re-organizing the department of state; etc. A few extracts from this elaborate message, in which Jackson's policy is clearly shadowed forth, may serve to put before the reader the views of the president on the various great questions at issue at that date.

In connection with his proposed amendment to the Constitution, Jackson set forth his views on the subject just spoken of, and which had excited considerable noise already, we mean his extensive removals from office. "There are, perhaps, few men who can for any great length of time enjoy office and power, without being more or less under the influence of feelings unfavorable to the faithful discharge of their public duties. Their integrity may be proof against improper considerations, immediately

Benton's "Thirty Years' View," vol. i., pp. 159163. For some interesting remarks, which Mr. Benton criticizes, see M. De Tocqueville's "Democracy in America," vol. i., chapters viii. and xvii.

* Andrew Jackson, however, like Thomas Jefferson, whose sentiments on this point he reiterates, was prevailed upon to consent to be elected for a second term.