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After President James A. Garfield was assassinated in 1881, Congress passed and President Chester A. 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 we’d call a spoils system or a patronage system ruled the day. One reason Garfield was murdered was because the assassin was denied a consulship in Paris.
Patronage 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.
The Pendleton Act, which initially applied only to a small minority of federal jobs, made it illegal to fire or demote government officials for political reasons. It created the U.S. Civil Service Commission 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.
Much of the political battle over patronage in the 1870s-1880s was between two factions of the Republican Party, the Stalwarts and the Half-Breeds. Stalwarts 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 Half-Breeds 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.
In a recent American Economic Review article, “Strengthening State Capacity: Civil Service Reform and Public Sector Performance during the Gilded Age,” 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.•
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Bohanon and Horowitz are professors of economics at Ball State University. Send comments to ibjedit@ibj.com.
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