Rotation in office
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Rotation in office started with the election of Andrew Jackson. Government jobs were given to people that helped the party during the election. Term "rotation" deals with the coming and going of individuals through these office positions over time (see Spoils System).
In this "Age of the Common Man" it was believed that every man had the ability to serve in office. This led to the rotation of government positions.
To avoid corruption in office rotation was also encouraged.
President Jackson sought to make government more sensitive to the will of the people through his principle of "rotation in office." Proclaiming that no person should regard officeholding as a right, Jackson declared all intelligent citizens equally qualified to serve and announced his intention to protect the nation from a permanent, aristocratic officeholding clique by removing long-term officeholders. Although only a minority of federal officials (estimated at no more than ten percent) were actually removed by Jackson, his political foes charged him with seeking to corrupt the civil service for political reasons and dubbed his principle of "rotation in office" the "spoils system"
