Volume 17 — LOCALITY IN APPOINTMENT TO OFFICE.

Remarks in the Senate, April 21, 1869.

The Senate having under consideration a resolution requesting from the heads of Departments “information of the names, age, and compensation of all inferior officers, clerks, and employés in their respective Departments at Washington, showing from what States they were respectively appointed,” &c., Mr. Abbott, of North Carolina, moved the following addition:—

“Resolved further, That in the opinion of the Senate the distribution of the official patronage of the Government not embraced in local offices in the States should be made as nearly equal among all the States, according to their representation and population, as may be practicable; and that to confine such patronage to particular States or sections, either wholly or partially, is both unjust and injudicious.”

On the latter resolution Mr. Sumner spoke as follows:—

MR. PRESIDENT,—If I have rightly read the history of my country, there was before Vicksburg an army commanded by three generals from Ohio,—General Grant, General Sherman, and General McPherson. Now, if I rightly understand the proposition of the Senator from North Carolina, he would require that the generals in command of our Army should be taken geographically,—not according to their merits, not according to their capacity to defend this Republic and to maintain with honor its flag, but simply according to the place of their residence,—and no three generals should be in command from one State. Do I understand the Senator aright?

Mr. Abbott. My amendment reads, “as far as practicable.”

Mr. Sumner. Very well,—“as far as practicable.” I would inquire of my friend whether fitness for office or service in other departments of the Government does not depend upon capacity, talent, preparation, as much as in the Army? I ask the Senator if it is not so?

Mr. Abbott. The purpose of this amendment was not to override all such considerations; it was to give an expression of the sense of the Senate that States should not be ignored in the distribution of this sort of patronage. Nothing in it prevents three generals from Ohio being in the command of one army, or the appointment of three Cabinet officers from Ohio; but it is simply to express the sense of the Senate that these things ought to be done with something like fairness and justice, as between the different States.

Mr. Sumner. I take it there is no Senator who does not accept the general idea of the Senator from North Carolina, that all things should be done in fairness, and that all parts of the country, every portion of this great Republic, should be treated with equal respect and honor. That is clear. But first and foremost above all is the public service: that must be maintained; it must not be sacrificed; and how can it be maintained, unless you advance to prominent posts in this service those who are the most meritorious, and who can best discharge the duties of the post?

I merely throw out this remark, and call attention to this point, that Senators may see to what this proposition tends. If it were fully carried out, it would reduce the public service of this country to one dead level. Men would go into it merely because they lived in certain places, not because they had a fitness for the posts to which they were advanced. Perhaps I am mistaken, but I see no reason why there should be three Ohio generals in command before Vicksburg, and not three Ohio citizens in eminent civil service. To my mind the attainments and the talents required in civil service are as well worthy to be recognized as those that are required in military service, and I see no reason for a rule that shall allow talent to be taken without any reference to geographical limit in the military service which is not equally applicable to the civil service.

Now, as to our friends who have recently come into this Chamber, I beg them to understand, that, so far as I am concerned, there is no disposition to deny or to begrudge them anything to which, according to geographical proportions, they may be entitled; but I beg them to consider that time is an essential element of this transition through which we are passing.

Mr. Fessenden. Will my friend allow me to make a suggestion to him?

Mr. Sumner. Certainly.

Mr. Fessenden. I merely wish to allude to the notorious fact that for half a century before the Rebellion the proportion of persons in civil office in the Departments in Washington from the Southern States was very nearly, if not quite, two to one to those from all the other States. They had the control, and had pretty much all the offices, for years and years.

Mr. Sumner. We are now in a process of transition, and I was observing that time is an essential element in that process. What the Senator from North Carolina aims at cannot be accomplished at once. The change cannot be made instantly. The men are not presented from the States lately in rebellion in sufficient numbers, in sufficient proportion, with competency for these posts. I know that there are gentlemen there fit to grace many of these posts, but I know also that there is not relatively the same proportion of persons fit for the civil service as there is in the other parts of the country; and our friends from the South, it seems to me, must take this into consideration kindly, and wait yet a little longer.