Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
In politics and government, a spoils system (also known as a patronage system) is a practice in which a political party, after winning an election, gives government jobs to its supporters, friends , and relatives as a reward for working toward victory, and as an incentive to keep working for the party.
Proponents of the spoils system were successful at blocking meaningful civil service reform until the assassination of President James A. Garfield in 1881. The 47th Congress passed the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act during its lame duck session and President Chester A. Arthur, himself a former spoilsman, signed the bill into law.
At first it covered very few jobs but there was a ratchet provision whereby outgoing presidents could lock in their own appointees by converting their jobs to civil service. Political reformers, typified by the Mugwumps demanded an end to the spoils system. After a series of party reversals at the presidential level (in 1884, 1888, 1892, 1896 ...
FELLER: The rise of the spoils system during and after Jackson’s presidency – it wasn’t all Jackson’s doing – was attendant upon the rise of political partisanship in the United States.
He says that under that "spoils system," the main job requirement for most federal employees was … loyalty. It was a system inaugurated by Democratic President Andrew Jackson. "When he came in ...
The spoils system propagated like a pernicious weed. Leaders of the Whig Party denounced Democratic Party patronage, but practiced it themselves when they came to power in the 1840s, as did the ...
The spoils or patronage system is a practice where government jobs are given, usually after winning an election, to political party supporters, friends and relatives as a reward for working toward victory, and as an incentive to keep working for the party.
The spoils system meant that jobs were used to support the American political parties. This was gradually changed by the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act of 1883 and subsequent laws. By 1909, almost two-thirds of the U.S. federal workforce was appointed based on merit, that is, qualifications measured by tests.