Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. I.djvu/345

 ANDREW JACKSON 287 the senate in 1831 declared that &quot;to the victors be long the spoils.&quot; The system had been perfected in the state politics of New York and Pennsyl vania, and it was probably inevitable that it should sooner or later be introduced into the sphere of national politics. The way was prepared in 1820 by Crawford, when he succeeded in getting the law passed that limits the tenure of office to four years. This dangerous measure excited very little discussion at the time. People could not under stand the evil until taught by hard experience. Jackson did not understand that he was laying the foundations of a gigantic system of corruption, which within a few years would develop into the most serious of the dangers threatening the con tinuance of American freedom. He was very ready to believe ill of political opponents, and to make generalizations from extremely inadequate data. Democratic newspapers, while the campaign frenzy was on them, were full of windy declama tion about the wholesale corruption introduced into all parts of the government by Adams and Clay. Nothing was too bad for Jackson to believe of these two men, and when the fourth auditor of the treasury was found to be delinquent in his accounts it was easy to suppose that many others were, in one way or another, just as bad. In his wholesale removals Jackson doubtless supposed he was doing the country a service by &quot;turning the rascals out.&quot;