As soon as Cleveland was seated in the presidential chair, he had to deal with a tremendous onslaught of office seekers.In ordinary business affairs, a man responsible for general policy and management would never be expected to fritter away his time and strength in receiving applicants for employment.The fact that such servitude is imposed upon the President of the United States shows that American political arrangements are still rather barbaric, for such usages are more suitable to some kinglet seated under a tree to receive the petitions of his tribesmen than they are to a republican magistrate charged with the welfare of millions of people distributed over a vast continent.Office seekers apparently regard themselves as a privileged class with a right of personal access to the President, and any appearances of aloofness or reserve on his part gives sharp offense.The exceptional force of such claims of privilege in the United States may be attributed to the participation which members of Congress have acquired in the appointing power.The system thus created imposes upon the President the duties of an employment agent, and at the same time engages Congressmen in continual occupation as office brokers.
The President cannot deny himself to Congressmen, since he is dependent upon their favor for opportunity to get legislative consideration for his measures.
It was inevitable that numerous changes in office should take place when the Democratic party came into power, after being excluded for twenty-four years.It may be admitted that, in a sound constitutional system, a change of management in the public business would not vacate all offices any more than in private business, but would affect only such leading positions as are responsible for policy and discipline.Such a sensible system, however, had existed only in the early days of the republic and at the time of Cleveland's accession to office federal offices were generally used as party barracks.The situation which confronted President Cleveland he thus described in later years:
"In numerous instances the post-offices were made headquarters for local party committees and organizations and the centers of partisan scheming.Party literature favorable to the postmaster's party, that never passed regularly through the mails, was distributed through the post-offices as an item of party service;and matter of a political character, passing through the mails in the usual course and addressed to patrons belonging to the opposite party, was withheld; disgusting and irritating placards were prominently displayed in many post-offices, and the attention of Democratic inquirers for mail matter was tauntingly directed to them by the postmaster; and in various other ways postmasters and similar officials annoyed and vexed those holding opposite political opinions, who, in common with all having business at public offices, were entitled to considerate and obliging treatment.In some quarters, official incumbents neglected public duty to do political work and especially in Southern States, they frequently were not only inordinately active in questionable political work, but sought to do party service by secret and sinister manipulation of colored votes, and by other practices inviting avoidable and dangerous collisions between the white and colored population."**Cleveland, "Presidential Problems," pp.42-43.
The Administration began its career in March, 1885.The Senate did not convene until December.Meanwhile, removals and appointments went on in the public service, the total for ten months being six hundred and forty-three which was thirty-seven less than the number of removals made by President Grant in seven weeks, in 1869.
In obedience to the statute of 1869, President Cleveland sent in all the recess appointments within thirty days after the opening of the session.They were referred to various committees according to the long established custom of the Senate, but the Senate moved so slowly that three months after the opening of the session, only seventeen nominations had been considered, fifteen of which the Senate confirmed.
Meanwhile, the Senate had raised an issue which the President met with a force and a directness probably unexpected.Among the recess appointments was one to the office of District Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama, in place of an officer who had been suspended in July 1885, but whose term of office expired by limitation on December 20, 1885.Therefore, at the time the Senate took up the case, the Tenure of Office Act did not apply to it, and the only question actually open was whether the acting officer should be confirmed or rejected.Nevertheless, the disposition to assert control over executive action was so strong that the Senate drifted into a constitutional struggle over a case that did not then involve the question of the President's discretionary power of removal from office, which was really the point at issue.
