Word: spoilsmen
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...whole nation. The Jacksonian concept did not immediately prevail. During the Civil War, the Senate was subservient to Lincoln. But with war's end and Lincoln's death, it rapidly reasserted itself and achieved its pinnacle of power if not prestige. Its leaders were party bosses and spoilsmen; in the burgeoning economy of the Reconstruction Era, many a robber baron found that a state legislature could be bought and, with it, a Senate seat. When one Senator seriously proposed a bill unseating those Senators whose places had been purchased, Senator Weldon Heyburn of Idaho replied: "We might lose...