civil service: In the United States

Owing doubtless in part to the spoils system so strongly established in the Jacksonian era, the United States lagged far behind other nations in standards of civil service competence and probity. Agitation for reform began shortly after the Civil War. In 1871, Congress authorized the President to prescribe regulations for admission to public service and to appoint the Civil Service Commission, which lasted only a few years. The scandals of President Grant's administration lent weight to the arguments of reformers George W. Curtis, Dorman B. Eaton, and Carl Schurz. President Hayes favored reform and began to use competitive examinations as a basis for appointment to office.

The assassination of President Garfield in 1881 by a disappointed office seeker precipitated the passage of the Pendleton Act in 1883, reestablishing the Civil Service Commission after a nine-year lapse. The commission draws up the rules governing examinations for those positions that Congress places in the classified civil service. All Presidents since Cleveland have expanded the classified list, and the great majority of federal employees during peacetime are now classified. In 1939 the merit system was extended to sections of state administration receiving federal grants. The Hatch Act of 1940 forbade campaign contributions by officeholders, with the intention of divorcing the civil service from politics. A 1993 revision of the act allows most civil servants to engage in political activity on their own time.

Appointive power is shared by the President, who appoints the heads of all government departments and may remove his appointees at will; by Congress, which controls its own employees; and by the Civil Service Commission and departmental-appointing officers, in whose charge are vacancies in the classified service. Important changes were made in the structure of the U.S. civil service as a result of the reports issued (1949, 1955) by the two commissions known as the Hoover Commission. The organization of the government bureaucracy was streamlined by the creation of the General Services Administration, combining the operations and activities of some 60 government agencies.

Sections in this article:

• Introduction
• In Other Countries
• In the United States
• General Development
• Bibliography

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