The First Amendment forbids widespread loyalty purges.

We will not know the extent or the success of President Donald Trump’s purge of the federal bureaucracy for some time. There ...

But essentially he's emulating Jackson, the president Steve Bannon taught him was supposed to be his inspiration. Not that he is likely aware of that. But he has certainly created a spoils system ...

FELLER: The rise of the spoils system during and after Jackson’s presidency – it wasn’t all Jackson’s doing – was attendant upon the rise of political partisanship in the United States ...

It’s an imperfect comparison, as I learned from Daniel Feller, a professor emeritus of history at the University of Tennessee, who has written extensively about Jackson and the spoils system of ...