The internal improvements scheme generated patronage opportunities galore. One observer noted that the statute “would never have passed had it not been for the multitude of new offices which it created, and the confident expectation that the friends of the measure [in the legislature] would fill those offices.” Soon after the bill’s passage, the chairman of the committee which reported it to the legislature received an office under the law worth $3,000 a year. Most of the men appointed to the board of public works were “party leaders who had never been conspicuous for any thing but their blind devotion to the dominant party.” None “had the least experience in the important duties assigned them,” but because “they had done something for ‘the party,’” they “had to be provided for, and if they knew nothing else, they knew that they got good salaries, and that was of course satisfactory.” A case in point was Democrat John A. McClernand, who broke with his party to support the measure and as a reward was named treasurer of the Illinois and Michigan Canal.
Source: Abraham Lincoln ∶ A Life ▫𓂃
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