The nepotism of Rome was little known in our country, and I do not
doubt that Washington, when declining to make the Presidential office
a personal perquisite, was governed by that instinct of duty and
patriotism which rendered him so preëminent. Through all the perils of
a seven years’ war he had battled with that kingly rule which elevates
a whole family without regard to merit, fastening all upon the nation,
and he had learned that this royal system could find no place in a
republic. Therefore he rejected the claims of relations, and in nothing
was his example more beautiful. His latest biographer, Washington
Irving, records him as saying:--
“So far as I know my own mind, I would not be in the remotest
degree influenced in making nominations by motives arising from the
ties of family or blood.”[88]
Then again he declared his purpose to “discharge the duties of the
office with that impartiality and zeal for the public good which ought
never to suffer connections of blood or friendship to intermingle so as
to have the least sway on decisions of a public nature.”[89]
This excellent rule of conduct is illustrated by the advice to his
successor with regard to the promotion of his son, John Quincy Adams.
After giving it as his “decided opinion” that the latter “is the most
valuable public character we have abroad,” and promises to be “the
ablest of all our diplomatic corps,” Washington declares:--
“If he was now to be brought into that line, or into any other
public walk, I could not, upon the principle which has regulated my
own conduct, disapprove of the caution which is hinted at in the
letter.”[90]
Considering the importance of the rule, it were better for the country
if it had prevailed over parental regard and the extraordinary merits
of the son.
In vindicating his conduct at a later day, John Adams protested against
what he called “the hypersuperlative public virtue” of Washington,
and insisted: “A President ought not to appoint a man because he is
his relation; nor ought he to refuse or neglect to appoint him for
that reason.”[91] With absolute certainty that the President is above
all prejudice of family and sensitive to merit only, this rule is not
unreasonable; but who can be trusted to apply it?
Jefferson developed and explained the true principles in a manner
worthy of republican institutions. In a letter to a relation
immediately after becoming President, he wrote:
“The public will never be made to believe that an appointment of
a relative is made on the ground of merit alone, uninfluenced by
family views; _nor can they ever see with approbation offices,
the disposal of which they intrust to their Presidents for public
purposes, divided out as family property_. Mr. Adams degraded
himself infinitely by his conduct on this subject, as General
Washington had done himself the greatest honor. With two such
examples to proceed by, I should be doubly inexcusable to err.”[92]
After his retirement from the Presidency, in a letter to a kinsman, he
asserts the rule again:--
“Towards acquiring the confidence of the people, the very first
measure is to satisfy them of his disinterestedness, and that he is
directing their affairs with a single eye to their good, and not to
build up fortunes for himself and family; and especially that the
officers appointed to transact their business are appointed because
they are the fittest men, not because they are his relations. So
prone are they to suspicion, that, where a President appoints a
relation of his own, however worthy, they will believe that favor,
and not merit, was the motive. I therefore laid it down as a law of
conduct for myself, never to give an appointment to a relation.”[93]
That statement is unanswerable. The elect of the people must live so as
best to maintain their interests and to elevate the national sentiment.
This can be only by an example of unselfish devotion to the public weal
which shall be above suspicion. A President suspected of weakness for
his relations is already shorn of strength.
In saying that his predecessor “degraded himself infinitely by
his conduct on this subject,” Jefferson shows the rigor of his
requirement. Besides the transfer of his son, John Quincy Adams, from
one diplomatic mission of lower grade to another of a higher, John
Adams is responsible for the appointment of his son-in-law, Colonel
Smith, as surveyor of the port of New York, and his wife’s nephew,
William Cranch, as chief-justice of the Circuit Court of the District
of Columbia,--both persons of merit, and the former “serving through
the war with high applause of his superiors.”[94] The public sentiment
appears in the condemnation of these appointments. In refusing another
of his relations, we have already seen[95] that John Adams wrote:
“You know it is impossible for me to appoint my own relations to
anything without drawing forth a torrent of obloquy.” But this torrent
was nothing but the judgment of the American people unwilling that
republican institutions at that early day should suffer.
Thus far John Adams stands alone. If any other President has made
appointments from his own family, it has been on so petty a scale as
not to be recognized in history. John Quincy Adams, when President, did
not follow his father. An early letter to his mother foreshadows a rule
not unlike that of Jefferson:--
“I hope, my ever dear and honored mother, that you are fully
convinced from my letters, which you have before this received,
that upon the contingency of my father’s being placed in the first
magistracy I shall never give him any trouble by solicitation
for office of any kind. Your late letters have repeated so many
times that I shall in that case have nothing to _expect_, that
I am afraid you have imagined it possible that I _might_ form
expectations from such an event. I had hoped that _my mother_ knew
me better; that she did me the justice to believe that I have not
been so totally regardless or forgetful of the principles which my
education had instilled, nor so totally destitute of a _personal_
sense of delicacy, as to be susceptible of a wish tending in that
direction.”[96]
To Jefferson’s sense of public duty John Quincy Adams added the
sense of personal delicacy, both strong against such appointment of
relations. To the irresistible judgment against this abuse, a recent
moralist, of lofty nature, Theodore Parker, imparts new expression,
when he says, “It is a dangerous and unjust practice.”[97] This is
simple and monitory.