Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 04.djvu/897

* CIVIL-SERVICE REFORM. 791 CIVTL WAR IN AMERICA. adopted and the rules and regulations of the Commission put into elTect, and thus the first vietorr for Civil-Sen-ice Keform was won. These rules, with certain additions to them recom- mendeti by the Commission in the spring of 1872, remained in force until the winter of 1875, when the growing opposition of the politicians in- duced Congress to withhold the annual appro- priation for the working of the system, and the President yielded to party pressure and sus- pended the operation of the Civil-8ervice Rules. The most memorable event in the long strug- gle for the reform of the civil service in the I'nited States was the org-anization of the Ci-il- Ser-ice Reform Association in Xew York in May, 1877. This organization, and the National Civil-Service Reform League into which it de- veloped, under the presidency of Mr. Curtis, instituted an active propaganda for the creation of a public sentiment in favor of the reform, and by its meetings and public addresses, and by the high and disinterested character of the men who were i)rominent in its work, power- fully stimulated the movement. After this the triumph of the reform was not long de- layed. In January. 1883, the bill introduced by Senator Pendleton, of Ohio, which, in the lan- guage of the National Civil-Service Reform League, provided "a constitutional, practical, and effective measure for the remedy of the abuse known as the spoils system," was adopted by overwhelming majorities of both Houses of Congress, and the 'merit system' was an estab- lished fact. The Civil-Serice Law. which went into effect in July, 1883, prohibited the vicious practice of levying assessments for partisan pur- poses u])on members of the civil service of the Government, authorized the appointment of a commission to frame rules and regulations for the civil service, and empowered the President, from time to time, to determine by executive order what classes of the public sersnces should come under the operation of such rules. In the same year a similar bill, applying the same j)rinciples to the civil ser ce of the State of New York, was passed by the Legislature and became a law, and in the following year the sys- tem was extended by statute to the twenty-three incorporated cities of that State. In 1884, also, the new system was adopted in Massachusetts. The reform of the civil service was now secure, but still far from complete. The President (Arthur), who had himself, as a New York politician, been a devoted adherent of the old system, nevertheless administered the new one faithfully: but it was deemed expedient to pro- ceed slowly in its application, and only 14,000 employes of the Government were at first brought within the 'classified sen-ice.' It must he said that the high tide of public feeling which resulted in these sweeping victories for the movement has never been reached again, and that the active hostility of party leaders has greatly retarded its progress. The new system has made gains; it ha= been adopted in whole or in part in a few more States, and it has been extended by executive order of the President to classes of public ser'ants not previously af- fected by it, but in many of the United States the political 'machine' has been strong enough to maintain the old system unimpaired, and in many others there is a complete absence of popular feeling on the subject. In other words. the political development of the American peo- ple has not yet reached the point, attained by the English electorate a generation ago, of rec- ognizing the supreme importance of clean and etiicient administration to tlie welfare of the State. Jluch of the progress of the past twenty years has been due to the cautious initiative of enlightened Presidents, especially of Cleveland. Harrison, and Roosevelt, the last of whom has long been known as a devoted friend of the reform movement, and, as Civil-Ser-ice Com- missioner under President Harrison, did much to connnend the new .system to the American people. The nature of the "merit system' and its operation will be described under that title. The character of the partis;in system will be found discussed in the article on the 'Spoils System.' See also Civil Sebvice; and consult: Eaton. Civil Service in Great Britain: A Uistory of Abuses and Reforms and Their Bearing Upon American Politics (New York. ISSO) ; George William Curtis, Orations and Addresses, vol. ii. (New York, 1804); Theodore Roosevelt. Ameri- can Ideah, part ii. (New York, 1900) ; Bain, Practical Essai/s (London) ; Clarke. Cirii-Ser- vice Law (3d ed., New York, 1897) ; Rogers. '"George William Curtis and Civil-Senice Re- form." in Atlantic Monthly (January, 1893) ; and the reports of the American Civil-Service Reform Association. CIVIL "WAR IN AMERICA. The conflict between the Northern and Southern States of the Union, in 1861-65; ostensibly and immediate- ly occasioned by disagreement between the two sections on the subject of the control of slavery, but perhaps not less the result of long-standing differences in political and economic theories. The public agitation of the Abolitionists; the nomination of anti-slavery candidates for the Presidency, at each election, from 1840; the introduction in Congiess of the 'Wilmot Pro- viso' (q.v. ), in 1846; the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law, in 1850. and the incidents connected with its enforcement ; the repeal of the Mis- souri Compromise in 1854; the 'Dred Scott' case (q.v.) in the United States Supreme Court, in 1S57; the adoption of the Leeompton Constitution for Kansas, in 1858; the John Brown raid at Harper's Ferrj', in 1859 — served to force slaverj* into conspicuous notice as the lead- ing political issue to accentuate the irreconcil- able divergence of beliefs relative thereto, and to intensify the bitterness which rendered a peaceful settlement of the i)roblem still more difficult. The projection into politics of a sec- tional issue ser-ed to divide the only party that still retained a following both North and South — the Democratic — and to bring about the nomination of four Presidential candidates in 1800: Stephen A. Douglas, of Illinois, and John C. Breckenridge, of Kentucky, who were nomi- nated by the two wings of the Democratic Party ; John Bell, of Tennessee, who was nominated by the so-called Constitutional Union Party: and Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois, who was nominat- ed by the Republican Party. Abraham Lincoln was elected President. e.clusively by the votes of the North; and the immediate effect of his election was to precipitate the secessionist move- ment. A State convention met at Charleston. December 17. and on the 20th passed an ordi- nance declaring that "the union now existing between South Carolina and other States, under