GFAP331-Paper - American Studies @ The University of Virginia

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The Age of Jackson is well known for its emphasis on democracy, equal opportunity, and
the common man. Andrew Jackson, who served as president from 1828 to 1836, championed the
everyday man and called for a limited federal government. Because of the expanding country
and his emphasis on democratic principles, Jackson inadvertently laid the foundation for the
modern day federal bureaucracy. During his term in office, the federal government, particularly
the executive branch, experienced numerous changes that were the first signs of a bureaucratic
administration: the offices became tasks that were disconnected to the individuals appointed to
the positions, a set of strict rules and regulations were enacted as an anti-corruption measure, and
an administrative separation of official duties was established. All of these administrative
changes were made in the name of the people and limited government; however, Jackson did not
realize that his administration had become the precursor to the bureaucratic administration that
blossomed in the twentieth century.
A definition of bureaucracy must be provided, in order to understand how Jackson’s
administration was fundamental to the development of the bureaucratic state. In the late
nineteenth century, German sociologist Max Weber, traced the trends of European
administrations, in particular Germany, and documented their distinguishing characteristics.
These characteristics, which Weber defined as being bureaucratic, include “a continuous
organization of official functions bound by rules;…a sphere of obligations to perform functions
which has been marked off as part of a systematic division of labor;…[and] the organization of
offices follows the principle of hierarchy.”1 Weber identified a hierarchical order bound by rules
and emphasizing the function of the office to be a bureaucratic state. Under Andrew Jackson, the
federal government experienced the development of all these bureaucratic characteristics.
1
Max Weber, The Theory of Social and Economic Organization, trans. A.M. Henderson and Talcott Parsons (New
York: Free Press, 1947), 330-1.
1
One of the last things Jackson would have wanted to do was to create a large hierarchical
federal bureaucracy that had a powerful control over the lives of Americans. In fact, Jackson’s
intentions were opposed to the creation of a hierarchical bureaucracy: “With Jackson’s victory in
the election of 1828, all such ideas [of a rise by merit hierarchy] were swiftly scrapped. For
Jacksonians, the very idea of such an administrative hierarchy revived disturbing memories of
the bureaucratic machinery that the British had established prior to the War of Independence.”2
Indeed, Jackson is remembered by his anti-bureaucratic and anti-institutional themes. Sidney
Milkis and Michael Nelson noted that Jackson had focused on anti-elitism and limited
government, ideas which were popular during the period: “The most important political theme of
the Age of Jackson was the widespread desire for equality of opportunity, the belief that no one
should have special privileges at the expense of anyone else [and] that to eliminate privilege,
political leaders must limit the role of the national government.”3 These themes are
contradictory to the bureaucratic administration established during Jackson’s term but they were
also the driving forces behind all the changes.
One of Jackson’s most prominent ideas was his focus on the common man and an
equality of opportunity for all white males. His belief in the capabilities of the common man
extended to his call for ordinary men to hold federal offices in his first annual message to
Congress: “The duties of all public officers are, or at least admit of being made, so plain and
simple that men of intelligence may readily qualify themselves for their performance… In a
country where offices are created solely for the benefit of the People, no one man has any more
2
Richard R. John, Spreading the News: The American Postal System from Franklin to Morse (Cambridge,
Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1995), 127.
3
Sidney M. Milkis and Michael Nelson, The American Presidency: Origins and Development, 1776-1998
(Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly, 1999), 117.
2
intrinsic right to official station than another.”4 Once in office, he proceeded to act on his word,
as he removed thousands of appointed federal officials for political reasons throughout the
course of his term.5 In place of the removed officials, Jackson filled the positions with loyal
Democrats and people who were not among the elite class as were their predecessors. Historians
Michael Nelson and Gordon Wood have distinguished between the office-holders pre-Jackson
and post-Jackson era. According to Nelson, “the primary object [of the Revolutionary
generation] was to appoint men imbued with ‘fitness of character.’”6 Kinship and class would
determine one’s “fitness of character” and would be the requirements one needed to be
mentioned in recommendation letters between gentlemen in government. The Founders sought
disinterested gentlemen dedicated to public service; their dilemma of whether or not to pay
salaries to officeholders was to ensure the quality of government officials and to limit the
positions to the wealthy elite. They believed that “if the government paid salaries to its
executive officials, it would attract into office the wrong sorts of men, ‘the bold and the violent,
the men of strong passions and indefatigable activity in their selfish pursuits.’”7 Jackson, with
his spoils system, disregarded the elite and respectable gentlemen appointments of previous
presidents and replaced them with his less-gentlemanly party men:
Many of the Jacksonian officeholders were new sorts of democratic men….
Jackson chose what he called ‘plain businessmen’ for his official cabinet. [Some]
were ambitious entrepreneurial go-getters, wealthy but unestablished and
ungenteel. But many others were like the humble grocer in Frankfort, Kentucky,
who became a postmaster—truly obscure men without social position in their
localities; in fact, their appointment to a post office was usually the source of any
social influence they might have.”8
4
First Address to Congress by Andrew Jackson given in Washington, DC [1828] in The Evolving Presidency ed.
Michael Nelson (Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly, 1999), 63.
5
Milkis and Nelson, 127.
6
Michael Nelson, “A Short, Ironic History of American National Bureaucracy,” Journal of Politics 44, no. 3
(August 1982): 757.
7
Gordon S. Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution (New York: Random House, 1993), 287-9, 291.
8
Ibid., 303-4.
3
Jackson’s emphasis on appointing any common man who was a party loyalist to federal offices
meant that these positions had to undergo a change.
In order to satisfy the democratic wants of common party loyalists and to keep the federal
government functional, the jobs had to be simplified. As Nelson noted, Jacksonian Democrats
had the problem of fitting ordinary men into official positions:
Government jobs, though less technical then than now, still were not so simple
that any backwoods party stalwart could perform them at a moment’s notice.
Thus, the Democrats’ dilemma: satisfaction of the party faithful seemed to require
the appointment of incompetent officials whose poor performance eventually
might bring on a popular backlash fatal to the party. After all, more voters send
mail than deliver it.9
To solve this dilemma, the Jacksonians came up with the ingenious ideas of simplifying the jobs
and of placing a system of rotation in office. Simplification of federal officials’ jobs allowed
common men of common intelligence to fulfill the duties of the position. The simplification also
permitted for a rotation in office system: the federal jobs were easy enough that little experience
or training was needed, thus, officials could be readily replaced. Rotation in office allowed
Jacksonian Democrats to please party faithfuls, whom they could easily place and replace in
offices. Rotation and the simplification of duties created a more bureaucratic system: “In this
system individuals could be placed or replaced without upsetting the integrity of the whole. Men
were fitted to the system, not it to men. It was the administrative counterpart of the
interchangeability of machine parts.”10 Positions as federal officials were no longer defined by
the individual holding the office as in previous administrations but rather on the functions and
duties of the office.11 As long as a man could perform the duties of the job—and the jobs had
9
Nelson, 760.
Lynn Marshall, “The Strange Stillbirth of the Whig Party,” American Historical Review 72, no. 2 (January 1967):
455.
11
Matthew A. Crenson, The Federal Machine: Beginnings of Bureaucracy in Jacksonian America (Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1975), 136.
10
4
been simplified so that any common man could perform the functions—he could be appointed.
Thus, in an attempt to appeal to popular democratic ideas and incorporating the common man
into the government, Jackson unintentionally created one of the first signs of a bureaucratic
government.
Jackson’s response to the popular anti-corruption theme of the 1820s also brought about a
more bureaucratized government. There are two explanations for the anti-corruption measures
that President Jackson placed in his administration, both of which correspond to his theme of
popular democracy: his 1828 presidential campaign focused on attacking the “corrupt bargain”
of the 1824 election between John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay, which was reflective of the
corrupt nature of politicians and their use of public office for private interests; and the new
democratic men, not the gentlemen of character from the previous administrations, whom he was
appointing as federal officials needed measures to prevent corruption in office. The 1824
election was marred by the winning of the popular vote by Andrew Jackson but the selection of
John Quincy Adams as president by the House of Representatives and later the appointment by
Adams of Henry Clay, the Speaker of the House, as Secretary of State. Jackson denounced the
seemingly suspicious activity as a “corrupt bargain” and during his bid for the presidency in
1828, focused on the evils of special privileges and corruption of politicians.12 He used the
popular anti-corruption sentiment of the time to win the election of 1828 and in order to fulfill
his stance against “the exploitation of public office for private ends—that is, corruption,”13 his
administration established regulations and the administrative separation of duties that would
decrease corruption in office.
12
13
Milkis and Nelson, 111.
Wood, 320.
5
Rules and regulations were established because of the changing quality of federal
officials. In the past, public officeholders were appointed based on the respectability of their
family and character; however, the new type of men Jackson was appointing was mostly the
common party loyalist. As Wood observed, these unknown public officials needed to be
checked in their offices:
Because many of the Jacksonian officeholders were to be…presumably lacking
the traditional aristocratic concern for personal honor or reputation, the
government had to devise new modern safeguards against corruption. More
formal structures were erected, new administrative rules were adopted, and more
bookkeeping, receipts, and cross-checking were required—all designed to prevent
men from exploiting their offices for personal benefit.14
Samuel Swartwout, whom Jackson appointed as his customs collector in New York City,
revealed the necessity of regulations and checks within a bureaucracy and the need for stricter
rules than Jackson had established. Swartwout, because of his personal control over the New
York Customhouse, was able to embezzle over $1.25 million during his eight-year tenure. Men
like Swartwout, who was an unimportant land speculator but loyal Jackson supporter, filled
public office openings and showed the need for anti-corruption rules and regulations.15 By 1836
federal rules and regulations had become much more stringent that bureaucratic organizations
became much less efficient: a House Ways and Means Committee concluded in an investigation
that the extreme slowness in the releasing of funds was because “in order to prevent
embezzlement five internal clearances had to be made prior to any departmental financial
transaction.”16 This slowness correlates with the excruciating inefficiency of the modern
bureaucracy that Americans often attack. Nelson recognized the irony that Jackson’s
establishment of rules to counter corruption eventually counteracted the popular desire for
14
Ibid., 304-5.
Crenson, 80-2.
16
Nelson, 762-3.
15
6
government efficiency and effectiveness: “The popular political demand for honest bureaucracy
restricted the possibility for efficient and responsive bureaucracy that could satisfactorily meet
other, later popular political demands.”17 Jackson’s attempt to democratize the federal
government resulted in the formation of an often inefficient bureaucratic structure in his
administration, an effect that he never anticipated.
Instrumental to the establishment of rules and regulations in the Jackson administration
was Amos Kendall, whom Jackson had appointed as postmaster general. According to Milkis
and Nelson, during this period “the postal system became the primary source of partisan
favors.”18 As a result of the appointment of common party loyalists to the postal system, the
offices needed simplification and stricter rules and regulations. Under the power of Kendall, the
Jacksonian loyalists who were appointed were placed a highly structured organization. Crenson
described two important features of Kendall’s reform: the administrative separation doctrine and
the espionage system among postal officials. Kendall recognized the potential for corruption and
theft in officials who were supervising both the financial transactions and general
superintendence; thus, he emphasized the importance of separating “the business of settling
accounts from the ministerial duties of the department.”19 By separating the duties of postal
officials and establishing a strict set of regulations of their duties, he attempted to limit
corruption in the offices. Not only were the duties of the offices separated, Kendall also
encouraged Post Office workers to report on infractions of co-workers in order to limit
irregularities such as theft: “Kendall’s plan for keeping the department’s eye on its field
employers was an ingenious device which…would pit postmasters and contractors against one
17
Ibid., 763.
Milkis and Nelson, 127.
19
Crenson, 107.
18
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another in order to achieve automatic regulation.”20 The new regulations and standards were not
just applied to the Post Office, but they were also “extended to the country at large in a grand
system of bureaucratic checks and balances.”21 These bureaucratic standards and regulations
were needed because of the new popular party men in offices, who were not the republican
gentlemen of character who occupied the positions in the past. Ironically, in an attempt to
democratize government by incorporating common party men in his administration, Jackson
created a bureaucratic institution.
The creation of a bureaucratic state in America began with Andrew Jackson’s
administration. Exercising popular leadership and endorsing themes of the common man and
anti-institutionalism, he appointed common party loyalists to public offices and attempted to
structure the offices to be simple and corruption-proof. His emphasis on the common man,
however, backfired, for Jackson had inadvertently laid the foundation for a new institution—the
bureaucracy. Jackson’s administration contained many common features of a bureaucracy, such
as the focus on the interchangeability of officials, regulated duties of the office, and the
administrative separation of official functions. These bureaucratic features Jackson unwittingly
established during his administration are still characteristics of the modern day American
bureaucracy. Jackson’s bureaucratic both fulfilled and undermined his emphasis on a limited
executive and the importance of popular rule.
20
21
Ibid., 109-110.
Ibid.
8
Works Cited
Crenson, Matthew A. The Federal Machine: Beginnings of Bureaucracy in Jacksonian America.
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975.
John, Richard R. Spreading the News: The American Postal System from Franklin to Morse.
Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1995.
Marshall, Lynn. “The Strange Stillbirth of the Whig Party.” American Historical Review 72, no.
2 (January 1967): 445-468.
Milkis, Sidney M. and Michael Nelson. The American Presidency: Origins and Development,
1776-1998. Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly, 1999.
Nelson, Michael. “A Short, Ironic History of American National Bureaucracy.” Journal of
Politics 44, no. 3 (August 1982): 747-778.
--------, ed. The Evolving Presidency. Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly, 1999.
Weber, Max. The Theory of Social and Economic Organization. Translated by A.M. Henderson
and Talcott Parsons. New York: Free Press, 1947.
Wood, Gordon S. The Radicalism of the American Revolution. New York: Random House,
1993.
9
The People’s Bureaucracy
Andrew Jackson and the Development of Bureaucratic America
Chu Hwang
Professor Milkis
GFAP 331
30 April 2002
10
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