Spoils System, The

The, a phrase used to designate a system of appointing candidates to public office as a reward for political service rendered to the party in power. Its antithesis is the merit system, by which persons are selected for public service by reason of their fitness to discharge the duties to which they are assigned. The phrase, "spoils system," probably had its origin in a speech made in 1832 by Senator Marcy of New York in which, speaking of the politicians of the day who were demanding offices for their supporters, he said: "When they are contending for victory, they avow the intention of enjoying the fruits of it. If they are defeated, they except to retire from office. If they are successful, they claim, as matter of right, the advantages of success. They see nothing wrong in the rule that to the victor belong the spoils of the enemy." See Civil Service Reform

This phrase designates a theory of politics and a use of official authority--more especially that of appointment and removal--according to which the merits of candidates and the general welfare are subordinated to the selfish interests of individuals, factions, or parties. The range of this subordination is very great. It extends all the way from the case of a party which, honestly holding none but its followers to be fit for a clerkship, selects the best of them, but bars the gates of office against all others, down to the faction leaders, who, excluding all but their own henchmen, corruptly make promotions for money, and promise places for votes; all the way from the great officer who, hardly conscious of wrong, accepts for the party the offerings of his subordinates, down to the official robber who mercilessly demands the places or the money of those serving under him; all the way from the head of a bureau or a department who requests more clerks, that they may work for his party, or serve as waiters or coachmen in his own family, down to the legislators who vote appropriations in aid of their reelection and city aldermen who bribe electors by corrupt contracts, and conciliate thieves, gamblers, and grog-shop keepers by winking at their offenses.--Cyclopedia of Political Science.