page_title: Rutherford B. Hayes
section_title: Civil service reform
hierarchical_section_title: Rutherford B. Hayes / Presidency (1877–1881) / Civil service reform
caption_attribution_description: English: Page of Puck magazine with cartoon showing Chester Arthur kicked out of the New York Custom House, by man holding paper "charges," in front of sign pointing to Washington. "Another president who had a rise in the world - From the toe-path to the White House"
context_page_description: Rutherford Birchard Hayes was the 19th president of the United States from 1877 to 1881, after serving in the U.S. House of Representatives and as governor of Ohio. A lawyer and staunch abolitionist, he had defended refugee slaves in court proceedings during the antebellum years.
  The Republican Party nominated Hayes as its candidate for the presidency in 1876, where he won through the Compromise of 1877 that officially ended Reconstruction by leaving the South to govern itself. In office he withdrew military troops from the South, ending Army support for Republican state governments in the South and for the efforts of African-American freedmen to establish their families as free citizens. Hayes promoted civil-service reform, and attempted to reconcile the divisions left over from the Civil War of 1861–65 and the Reconstruction Era of 1865–77.
  An attorney in Ohio, Hayes served as city solicitor of Cincinnati from 1858 to 1861. When the Civil War began, he left a fledgling political career to join the Union Army as an officer. Hayes was wounded five times, most seriously at the Battle of South Mountain in 1862.
context_section_description: Hayes took office determined to reform the system of civil service appointments, which had been based on the spoils system since Andrew Jackson's presidency. Instead of giving federal jobs to political supporters, Hayes wished to award them by merit according to an examination that all applicants would take. Hayes's call for reform immediately brought him into conflict with the Stalwart, or pro-spoils, branch of the Republican party. Senators of both parties were accustomed to being consulted about political appointments and turned against Hayes. Foremost among his enemies was New York Senator Roscoe Conkling, who fought Hayes's reform efforts at every turn.
  To show his commitment to reform, Hayes appointed one of the best-known advocates of reform, Carl Schurz, to be Secretary of the Interior and asked Schurz and Secretary of State William M. Evarts to lead a special cabinet committee charged with drawing up new rules for federal appointments. Treasury Secretary John Sherman ordered John Jay to investigate the New York Custom House, which was stacked with Conkling's spoilsmen. Jay's report suggested that the New York Custom House was so overstaffed with political appointees that 20% of the employees were expendable.
  Although he could not convince Congress to prohibit the spoils system, Hayes issued an executive order that forbade federal office holders from being required to make campaign contributions or otherwise taking part in party politics. Chester A. Arthur, the Collector of the Port of New York, and his subordinates Alonzo B. Cornell and George H. Sharpe, all Conkling supporters, refused to obey the order. In September 1877, Hayes demanded their resignations, which they refused to give. He submitted appointments of Theodore Roosevelt, Sr., L. Bradford Prince, and Edwin Merritt—all supporters of Evarts, Conkling's New York rival—to the Senate for confirmation as their replacements. The Senate's Commerce Committee, chaired by Conkling, voted unanimously to reject the nominees. The full Senate rejected Roosevelt and Prince by a vote of 31–25, and confirmed Merritt only because Sharpe's term had expired.
  Hayes was forced to wait until July 1878, when he fired Arthur and Cornell during a Congressional recess and replaced them with recess appointments of Merritt and Silas W. Burt, respectively. Conkling opposed confirmation of the appointees when the Senate reconvened in February 1879, but Merritt was approved by a vote of 31–25 and Burt by 31–19, giving Hayes his most significant civil service reform victory.
  For the remainder of his term, Hayes pressed Congress to enact permanent reform legislation and fund the United States Civil Service Commission, even using his last annual message to Congress in 1880 to appeal for reform. Reform legislation did not pass during Hayes's presidency, but his advocacy provided "a significant precedent as well as the political impetus for the Pendleton Act of 1883," which was signed into law by President Chester Arthur. Hayes allowed some exceptions to the ban on assessments, permitting George Congdon Gorham, secretary of the Republican Congressional Committee, to solicit campaign contributions from federal officeholders during the Congressional elections of 1878. In 1880, Hayes quickly forced Secretary of Navy Richard W. Thompson to resign after Thompson accepted a $25,000 salary for a nominal job offered by French engineer Ferdinand de Lesseps to promote a French canal in Panama.
  Hayes also dealt with corruption in the postal service. In 1880, Schurz and Senator John A. Logan asked Hayes to shut down the "star route" rings, a system of corrupt contract profiteering in the Postal Service, and to fire Second Assistant Postmaster-General Thomas J. Brady, the alleged ringleader. Hayes stopped granting new star route contracts but let existing contracts continue to be enforced. Democrats accused him of delaying proper investigation so as not to damage Republicans' chances in the 1880 elections but did not press the issue in their campaign literature, as members of both parties were implic
caption: Hayes kicking Chester A. Arthur out of the New York Custom House
exif: {}