What is the Pendleton Civil Service Act of 1883?
The Pendleton (investment) Civil Service Reform Act (ch. 27, 22 Stat. 403) of 1883 United States federal law established the United States Civil Service Commission, which placed most federal government employees on the merit system and marked the end of the so-called spoils system. The act provided for some government jobs to be filled on the basis of competitive exams. Started during the Chester A. Arthur administration, the Pendleton Act served as a response to President James Garfield’s assassination by Charles Julius Guiteau. The Act was passed into law on January 16, 1883. The Act was sponsored by Senator George H. Pendleton, Democrat of Ohio, and written by Dorman Bridgeman Eaton, a staunch opponent of the patronage system who was later first chairman of the United States Civil Service Commission. The most famous commissioner was Theodore Roosevelt (1889-96). The law only applied to federal government jobs: not to the state and local jobs that were the basis for political machine
