Speech of Senator Miller, December 14, 1882

But what is the present condition of the service in England? Instead of the Crown exercising this power and giving out the civil appointments of the Government for the benefit of the aristocracy or of any privileged class, they are to-day free and open to competition to every person within the realm.

Is this undemocratic? Does this tend to aristocracy? No, I think not; and it is precisesly the same in this country. If there can be an aristocracy in offic-holding, if there can be an office-holding class in a republic, we have it to-day, and we have had it for fifty years. How are the offices obtained to-day? Are the offices in our Departments here open alike to the sons of the farmer and the mechanic everywhere without exception? Not at all. No man can have his case heard, as we know full well, save he comes backed by the political influence of his district. By this measure we propose to make it possible for the son of the poorest man in America to present himself here in the capital of the nation or elsewhere and be examined for a civil office, and it will not be necessary that he shall procure any local influence, political or otherwise. He will simply have to come here with a good character, possessed of intelligence and ability, and then his chances will be equal to those of the rich or more favored.

The Senator from Georgia warned us against building up this office-holding class, and referred us to Roman history, to the pretorian guards which surrounded the emperor, and who were there for the purpose of preserving the government, but which finally took the government and sold it to the highest bidder. If this office-holding class could ever have any control in politics it can have it only when it belongs absolutely and completely to one party. Then it can be wielded as an army; then it can be thrown wherever the leaders of the party see fit to throw it...

If there is any danger, then, from an office-holding class it can only be when all the offices belong to one party. But by this bill it is proposed to open the doors to the members of all political parties. If the bill go into operation one generation will not have passed before the minor civil offices of the Government will be filled by members from all parties, from persons holding all shades of political opinion. Then when we come up to a Presidential election, instead of this army of office-holders being used to secure the election of the party in power, it will be divided against itself. Then the evil which the Senator from Goeorgia fears will have disapperaed. But by the system which he proposed to keep in operation, which is that all this vast army of office-holders are to be removed at every election, or at least at every election where it carried by the opposing party, we shall always have the danger he so much fears. We have it now; and as I said a moment ago many Democratic Senators on this floor have used that as one of the strongest arguments against the Republican party, and charged that it was unjustly and unfairly using the civil offices of this Government to keep itself in power.

From The Congressional Record. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1882. 283.