Political appointments in the United States federal government until 1883. In 1820 Congress limited federal administrators to four-year terms, which led to constant turnover; by the 1860s and the Civil War, patronage had led to widespread inefficiency and political corruption. Although it used to be confined to cabinet positions, department heads, and foreign ambassadorships, by the 1860s patronage had spread to low-level government positions. This meant that when the incumbent political party lost a presidential election, the federal government underwent wholesale turnover. On July 2, 1881, Charles J. Guiteau, a disaffected and mentally unstable political office seeker, assassinated President James Garfield. This highlighted how much the
Thomas J. Campbell (university president) completing his studies, he returned to St. Francis Xavier College to teach rhetoric in 1876. He left St. Francis in order to study French literature, ecclesiastical history, and theology at Louvain University, Belgium. He was ordained in 1881, and returned to Frederick, Maryland in the US to spend his third year of probation. In 1885 he became the president of the college, and was the youngest president in over a hundred years. He continued the plans for a new science building, and during his administration the first bachelor of sciences degree was awarded. Campbell also wanted to help the mentally