{"id":149,"date":"2025-06-17T09:10:50","date_gmt":"2025-06-17T13:10:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/people.bsu.edu\/econbriefs\/?p=149"},"modified":"2025-06-17T09:10:50","modified_gmt":"2025-06-17T13:10:50","slug":"the-pendleton-act-ending-the-spoils-system-by-dr-cecil-bohanon-and-dr-john-horowitz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/people.bsu.edu\/econbriefs\/2025\/06\/17\/the-pendleton-act-ending-the-spoils-system-by-dr-cecil-bohanon-and-dr-john-horowitz\/","title":{"rendered":"The Pendleton Act: Ending the Spoils System \u2013 by Dr. Cecil Bohanon and Dr. John Horowitz"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">After President James A. Garfield was assassinated in 1881, Congress passed, and President Arthur signed the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act into law in 1883. Before <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Pendleton_Civil_Service_Reform_Act\"><span data-contrast=\"none\">the Pendleton Act<\/span><\/a><span data-contrast=\"auto\">, federal government jobs were given to friends, relatives, and supporters of the winning political party as a reward for helping the party win the election. What we\u2019d call a spoils system or a patronage system ruled the day. One of the reasons that Garfield was murdered was because the assassin was denied a consulship in Paris, France.\u00a0<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;335559731&quot;:720}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Spoils_system\"><span data-contrast=\"none\">Patronage<\/span><\/a><span data-contrast=\"auto\"> is as old as the Republic. In much of the 1800s, the Post Office had more employees than any other branch of the federal government, including the War Department. Postal employees were typically chosen for their political loyalty, not their qualifications or administrative competence. Patronage helped elect politicians and ensured a cadre of loyal party operatives in the federal government.\u00a0<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;335559731&quot;:720}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">The Pendleton Act, which initially only applied to a small minority of Federal jobs, made it illegal to fire or demote government officials for political reasons. It created the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/United_States_Civil_Service_Commission\"><span data-contrast=\"none\">United States Civil Service Commission<\/span><\/a><span data-contrast=\"auto\"> to select Federal employees based on merit rather than relationships and abolished mandates that government employees contribute to their political parties. It also pioneered competitive civil service examinations to select federal employees.\u00a0<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;335559731&quot;:720}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Much of the political battle over patronage in the 1870\u2019s-80\u2019s was between two factions of the Republican Party, the Stalwarts and the Half-Breeds. <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Stalwarts_(politics)\"><span data-contrast=\"none\">Stalwarts<\/span><\/a><span data-contrast=\"auto\"> wanted strong measures against unrepentant Confederate rebels, advocated for the rights of African Americans, and supported patronage and machine politics. Patronage created job opportunities for African Americans and political support for the party. The <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Half-Breeds_(politics)\"><span data-contrast=\"none\">Half-Breeds<\/span><\/a><span data-contrast=\"auto\"> favored a merit system and civil service reform. The Stalwarts used Half Breed as a term of derision for those they viewed as Republicans in name only. A self-proclaimed Stalwart shot Garfield, who supported a merit system, leading to the passage of the Pendleton Act.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;335559731&quot;:720}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">In a recent American Economic Review article, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aeaweb.org\/articles?id=10.1257\/aer.20230019&amp;from=f\"><span data-contrast=\"none\">Strengthening State Capacity: Civil Service Reform and Public Sector Performance during the Gilded Age<\/span><\/a><span data-contrast=\"auto\">, the authors examined how the Pendleton Act affected Post Office operations in various American cities. They found that Civil Service reform increased productivity and reduced delivery errors, partly by lowering employee turnover. They also found that local partisan newspapers declined in cities where post office jobs were filled through merit rather than patronage. The authors write that protecting civil servants from political interference is considered part of a well-functioning government.\u00a0<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;335559731&quot;:720}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After President James A. Garfield was assassinated in 1881, Congress passed, and President Arthur signed the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act into law in 1883. Before the Pendleton Act, federal government jobs were given to friends, relatives, and supporters of the winning political party as a reward for helping the party win the election. What [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":112,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[511],"tags":[1462,1066,1450,1453,1458,1455,1457,1451,1459,1449,1452,1460,1454,1456,1461],"class_list":["post-149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","tag-administrative-efficiency","tag-american-politics","tag-civil-service-reform","tag-federal-employment","tag-gilded-age","tag-government-reform","tag-half-breeds","tag-james-garfield","tag-merit-based-hiring","tag-pendleton-act","tag-political-patronage","tag-post-office","tag-public-sector","tag-stalwarts","tag-u-s-history"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The Pendleton Act: Ending the Spoils System \u2013 by Dr. Cecil Bohanon and Dr. John Horowitz - Econ Briefs<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/people.bsu.edu\/econbriefs\/2025\/06\/17\/the-pendleton-act-ending-the-spoils-system-by-dr-cecil-bohanon-and-dr-john-horowitz\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Pendleton Act: Ending the Spoils System \u2013 by Dr. Cecil Bohanon and Dr. John Horowitz - Econ Briefs\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"After President James A. 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