[1] The author of the law was Secretary of the Treasury William H. Crawford; it was introduced into the Senate by Mahlon Dickerson of New Jersey.
[3][4] Congress asserted a right to remove officers, ostensibly to create a blank slate for incoming presidents as well as to weed out poor performers.
[7] Though a loss of executive power was feared, these limited terms frequently served to benefit the presidency.
[7] President Andrew Jackson enforced this law believing a system of rotation in office was a democratic reform and would make civil service responsible to the popular will.
When the Senate considered a bill to repeal the Four Years' Law on February 13, 1835, Senator Samuel Southard argued that by allowing the president to renominate officers for another term once their current one ended, the act encouraged corruption.