Abraham Lincoln Quotes

[Martin] Van Buren says he considers it as a misfortune when any office to be filled by him becomes vacant, and thinks patronage rather a burden than a benefit.

Appointments to office were not to be made nor expected merely as rewards for partisan services, nor merely on the nomination of members of Congress, as being entitled in any respect to the control of such appointments.

No man who ever held the office of President would congratulate a friend on obtaining it. He will make one man ungrateful, and a hundred men his enemies, for every office he can bestow.

I am not in Washington as a statesman. I am there as a very well paid messenger boy doing your errands. My chief occupation is going around with a forked stick picking up little fragments of patronage for my constituents.

State services become a means to politicians for placing their tools or dependants, and for giving good, fat sinecures …

Every single administration in American political history has put cronies and pals and donors into political positions. But normally those people become the ambassador to Liechtenstein or the deputy undersecretary of commerce.

One of the primary reasons I first ran for Congress was to be a voice for our troops, veterans and military families.

I'm wondering how many elected figures any of us could find who do not, in the front or back of their minds, remember who does them favors, who doesn't.

The American people do not want ambassadorships or any other position handed out to save a party money.

Lincoln owes a higher duty to the country…than to fritter away the priceless opportunities of the Presidency in listening to the appeals of competing office—hunters.

All the anxious politicians of his party have been looking upon him as certainty, at no distant day, to be the President of the United States. They have seen in his round, jolly, fruitful face, post offices land offices, marshalships, and cabinet appointments, chargeships and foreign missions, bursting and sprouting out in wonderful exuberance ready to be laid hold of by their greedy hands.

As the Laws now stand, an old Officer, a Man who has often ventured his Life, and often spilt his Blood, in the Service of his Country, may be dismissed, and reduced, perhaps, to a starving Condition, at the arbitrary Will and Pleasure, perhaps at the Whim of a favourite Minister; so that by the present Establishment of our Army, the Reward of a Soldier seems not to depend upon the Services done to his Country, but upon the Services he does to those who happen to be the favourite Ministers at the Time

I will not dismiss, or drop from Executive offices, able and faithful political opponents to provide for my own partisans.

For the sake of advantage which is to be gained from the public revenues and from office, men want to be always in office.

A mistake to be avoided is to appoint all your campaign operatives to government jobs. Campaigning and governing are different specialties.

It is a handicap to any man to succeed a member of his own party as President. He has little patronage with which to reward his personal supporters.

Before I was elected President I thought the chief pleasure of it would be to give honors and offices to old friends. But you know you can't do that when you're President of the United States; you have to get the best men.

Veterans should not have to fight for the benefits that they have already earned.

Why not grant a moratorium to those who sustain this Nation in time of peace and fight its battles in time of war?

Can you let me know what positions you have at your disposal with which to reward deserving Democrats?

A crowd of persons came in as soon as my office was opened. Among them were several ladies who called to pay their respects. None who called had any business of more importance than an ardent desire to serve their country, provided they could be appointed to a good office. As I has none of these to dispose of, they were, of course, disappointed.

Civil servants and government functionaries do not write memoirs because they hope to get more government jobs or assignments.

It may be useful to remember that a peacetime political machine is built essentially on patronage.

Patronage is almost a wicked word. By itself it could well-nigh defeat democracy.

It bodes very ill for government when men are exalted to places of high trust through their own solicitations. He only fills a place with dignity who is invited to it by his fellow citizens from the experience they have had of his adequate abilities.