Chu Hwang - University of Virginia
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.
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 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]
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 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.
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 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 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.
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.
The People’s Bureaucracy
Andrew Jackson and the Development of Bureaucratic America
Chu Hwang
Professor Milkis
GFAP 331
30 April 2002
-----------------------
[1] Max Weber, The Theory of Social and Economic Organization, trans. A.M. Henderson and Talcott Parsons (New York: Free Press, 1947), 330-1.
[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.
[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.
[9] Nelson, 760.
[10] 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.
[12] Milkis and Nelson, 111.
[13] Wood, 320.
[14] Ibid., 304-5.
[15] Crenson, 80-2.
[16] Nelson, 762-3.
[17] Ibid., 763.
[18] Milkis and Nelson, 127.
[19] Crenson, 107.
[20] Ibid., 109-110.
[21] Ibid.
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