The Deadly Story of the U.S. Civil Service

What It Covers

The 1881 assassination attempt on President James Garfield by a deranged office-seeker exposed the corruption of America's spoils system, triggering the creation of the modern merit-based federal civil service through the Pendleton Act.

Key Questions Answered

• •Spoils System Origins: Federal jobs were distributed as political rewards to party loyalists rather than qualified candidates. After the Civil War, the federal government expanded exponentially, creating thousands of patronage positions that fueled corruption and inefficiency across all government departments.
• •Presidential Access Crisis: Office-seekers could walk directly into the White House daily to petition the president for jobs. Garfield spent hours managing these requests instead of governing, demonstrating how the patronage system consumed executive time and created dangerous security vulnerabilities that enabled his assassination.
• •Pendleton Act Framework: The 1883 civil service reform established competitive merit-based testing for federal positions, initially covering 10 percent of jobs but eventually expanding to millions of workers. This created professional career civil servants who serve across administrations rather than political appointees serving party interests.
• •Chester Arthur's Transformation: Vice President Arthur, a spoils system beneficiary who ran New York's Custom House with nearly 1,000 patronage jobs, reversed his position after becoming president. He endorsed civil service reform in his first State of the Union, breaking with his political mentor and enabling the Pendleton Act's passage.