The Evolution of the Civilian Officials System in the United States of America The Evolution of the Civilian Officials System in the United States of America

The U.S. Constitution of 1787, did not make clear provisions for the selection of civilian officials. In terms of the criteria for the appointment of officials, President George Washington focused on prestige and gentry, emphasizing good birth and upbringing. After Washington, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson two presidents during his term of office, focusing on "talent", that is, the selection of officials mainly to see whether they have received a university education. Thus, the United States was founded in the early years of the government positions in the hands of those who are well educated, noble family, and have a position in society and their cronies, known as the "gentleman's government" period. Once these "gentlemen" were appointed to official positions, they were quite stable and were generally not replaced. However, in the "gentleman's government" period, not entirely in accordance with the above criteria for the selection of officials, with the emergence of two-party politics in the United States, political parties have been the first signs of separation of the dirty system. After Washington's death, he appointed a number of officials according to his own will. Jefferson's time, in accordance with the "gentleman" standard selection of officials, has begun to implement a certain range of political parties to separate the dirty system. Jefferson's successors, following in the footsteps of their predecessors, also "left positions for their friends" in order to honor their own friends and political followers.

From the process of historical development, the system of political parties has a certain historical progress: it is a denial of aristocratic politics, private ownership of official positions, which provides more citizens with more opportunities to participate directly in the government; it has also had a positive impact on the formation and development of the two-party system in the U.S., which has strengthened party unity and cohesion, solved the problem of political parties and candidates for election campaign funds, and prompted the government to implement policies favorable to the party. government to pursue policies favorable to the party and keep the party organization alive. Of course, pointing out the usefulness of the system of separating political parties does not mean that we deny its drawbacks. In any case, it is not a sound, perfect and scientific system of appointing and removing officials, and it is based on the incumbent's "loyalty" to the ruling party rather than his or her ability.

With the expansion of U.S. territory, the federal government's institutions have expanded dramatically, and administrative affairs have become increasingly complex, and the Jacksonian era's "public office is very simple" has become a thing of the past. Political parties are more and more exposed to its serious harm: first, in the dirty system, the president and ministers as a gift to reward politicians and friends and relatives, the result is that every new president to power, it will bring a major upheaval in the appointment and dismissal of officials, the formation of the "once a son, once a minister" situation, affecting the continuity of government work. Secondly, under the system of separation of duties, some capable and wise party officials have been replaced, while some political opportunists, braggarts and even corrupt elements have entered government positions at all levels. They were short-sighted and morally bankrupt, and at the very beginning of their service as officials, they were worried that they would be replaced after a few years, and thus they made use of their power to corrupt the law, enrich themselves at the expense of the public and the private coffers. This seriously tarnished the image of civil officials and lowered their prestige and efficiency. Thirdly, under the dirty system, whenever a new president assumed office, he was surrounded by a large number of drilling job-seekers. It was feared that the death of the ninth president, William Harrison, who fell ill only one month after his inauguration, was not unrelated to the busyness in allocating posts brought about by the system of dividing the dirty. The sixteenth President, Abraham. Abraham Lincoln served, in the struggle against the threat of secession of the southern states from the Union, on the deep for the poor job seekers suffer; the most victimized than the twentieth President James Garfield, due to the uneven distribution of the dirty, was a job seeker attempted to be shot, become a casualty of the system of the dirty. In short, the system became a system of official mauve, improper employment; waste of public money, inefficiency; partisan chaos, political turmoil. After the completion of the Industrial Revolution in the United States, the bourgeoisie needed a stable and efficient civil official system. 1883, Congressman Pendleton proposed a civil official system bill based on the British civil official system and combining with the characteristics of the United States, introducing the free competition mechanism in the industrial era into the selection and recruitment of civil officials, breaking the principle of political parties being divided up into fat, and gradually forming the principle of civil official appointment based on the performance appraisal system, the Pendleton Act marked the formal establishment of the civil official system in the United States. The Pendleton Act marked the formal establishment of the U.S. civil service system.

After entering the stage of monopoly capitalism, the U.S. social and economic base underwent profound changes, and new requirements were put forward for the civil official system. The Class of Positions Act of 1923 strengthened the management of civil officials and established a systematic categorized performance appraisal system; the Hatch Act of 1939 established the principle of not being allowed to take part in political activities and not being allowed to use the principle of sealing the official's promise to canvass for votes; and the Performance Appraisal Law was implemented in 1950, and the Training Law was enacted in 1958, which was followed by the Pendleton Law. In 1958, the Training Act was enacted, and in 1962, the Federal Wage Reform Act was passed, forming a relatively complete civil service system with the performance appraisal system as its core. 1978, the U.S. Congress passed the Civilian Officials Reform Act, which summarized the civil service system that had been in place in the U.S. for 95 years, and focused on perfecting the incentive mechanism of the civil service system, injecting new vitality into the U.S. civilian system, and the government has introduced a number of reform measures since then. Since then, the U.S. government has introduced a number of reform measures to form a relatively complete and efficient civil service system.