PRESIDENT andrew JACKSON APPOINTS
A political SUPPORTER as AUDITOR OF
THE TREASURY DEPARTMENT

JACKSON, ANDREW. (1767-1845). Seventh President of the United States (1829-1837). Autograph Letter Signed, “Andrew Jackson”, as President. One full page, quarto. Washington, D.C., October 6, 1836. Very fine condition. Headed “Private” and addressed on integral address leaf to “The Honorable J. Miller, Member of Congress, Sundesburg, Perry County, Pennsylvania.” Jackson writes:

“Dear Sir, Your letter of October first has just been received. The resignation of the first auditor has been received and accepted to the effect on the first day of November next. Your resignation as Member of Congress must be received before your appointment can be made out and sent you. The first clerk in the first auditor’s office can be authorized to do the duties of the first auditor for a few days, and if your resignation reaches me by the 20th of November I can make out your appointment, and you can be here ready to take charge of the office by the first of December next. This office must be filled by the first of December, and will be filled by your appointment as soon as your resignation is announced. I am respectfully yours, Andrew Jackson. P.S. Answer to this will be expected on its receipt.”

Throughout his political career, Andrew Jackson initiated and enforced a “rotation” policy for government appointments. Explaining that government office was not the prerogative of an elitist class, Jackson’s policy ostensibly opened government employment to all Americans, This policy, dubbed the “spoils system” by the Jacksonian Senator William L. Marcy of New York, was supposed to democratize American institutions at every level. For its supporters, rotation in office ensured that the federal government did not develop a class of corrupt civil servants set apart from the people. In hindsight, and for many of Jackson’s political opponents at the time, the spoils system proved to be much less democratic than portrayed in Jacksonian rhetoric.

The partisan politics veiled behind the ‘democratic rotation’ of the spoils system had been active as early as 1821, when Jackson, then servings as governor of the newly acquired territory of Florida, had actively procured jobs for his friends and political supporters. Still, Jackson denied that political criteria motivated his appointments, stating that honesty and efficiency were his only goals. After his election, this policy continued unabated, with Jackson accepting an officeholder’s support for Adams, his opponent for the presidency, as evidence of unfitness, and relying exclusively on recommendations from his own partisans when making political appointments; at the core, offices were doled out as rewards for political service, and government positions were divided among individuals, some of them very unsavory characters, who supported Jackson. Only months before the end of his last term in office, Jackson, still actively practicing the spoils system on which his fame partially rests, appointed Pennsylvania representative in Congress, Jacksonian Jesse Miller, First Auditor of the Treasury Department. Miller, unlike some of Jackson’s appointments, proved to be an effective politician (Jackson’s most infamous appointee, Samuel Swartwout, absconded with over $1 million in government funds). Miller maintained the post until 1842, at which point he continued his political career as canal commissioner and secretary of state of Pennsylvania.

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