El Comandante used his Machiavellian bag of tricks to fuel a spoils system and political juggernaut that Venezuelans worshiped.
The vicious aspects of the spoils system did not appear for a generation.
Since then every administration has succumbed, in whole or in part, to the spoils system.
If not in origin, is the spoils system essentially American in any other sense?
If Jackson did not inaugurate the spoils system, he at least gave it a mission.
Fourth, lack of civil service has perpetuated the spoils system.
It is often said that Jefferson established the “spoils system” by his changes in the civil service.
Moreover, the flourishing condition of the spoils system served to aggravate the antagonism between the two departments.
The basic principle of the law is the elimination of the spoils system, and the substitution of the merit system.
For the first time since the establishment of the spoils system a new party came into control of the government.
The practice of appointing applicants to public offices as a reward for their loyalty to the political party in power. The term comes from a statement by a senator in the 1830s: “To the victor belong the spoils.” Reform of the system commenced in the 1880s with the introduction of merit as the basis of appointment to office. (See James A. Garfield, machine politics, and patronage.)
