Corruption was Crazy during 19th Century

Guest Post by Martin Armstrong

Hillary is really detestable. But politics was exceptionally corrupt after the Civil War because there was no real effective opposition. The political scandals were just one after the other.

The scandals were so numerous that Puck Magazine ran this cartoon picturing the Grant Administration as just a circus.


The Whiskey Ring was diverting tax money on whiskey to private accounts shared by government officials. Can you imaging you owe $100,000 in taxes and the IRS Agent says here, wire the money to my account and we will call it just $50,000.

There were too many scandals all involving corruption that was off the charts. It was literally one scandal after another. Mark Twain’s book, The Gilded Age, was  a satire of greed and political corruption in post-Civil War era in America history.

I have given up any hope on career politicians. They cannot possibly represent the people for their votes are always for sale. Republics never last because they have always turned into Oligarchies. Hillary is filthy rich, yet she has worked only for government. Nobody asks how!

 

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Anonymous
Anonymous

Corruption is always present in government.

Corrupt people seek power, and the people usually seem to tolerate -sometimes even encourage- it.

Maybe the amount of corruption we see in government reflects the amount we find among the people.

Ed
Ed

People pursuing their own interests aren’t necessarily corrupt by that measure. They haven’t taken an oath to the constitution, then violated that oath. Politicians are corrupt when they willingly betray the trust placed in them.

There’s a difference. Don’t excuse the corruption among politicians by saying that the people they betray are also corrupt. That’s like saying that abuse of the citizenry by politicians is deserved.

Mike Murray
Mike Murray

Between the Reconstruction and the Pacific Railroad Acts there was the entire South as well as much of the West to plunder. The Railroad Acts, from 1850 to 1871, gave more than 175 million acres of public land (more than 1/10th of the United States, and larger than Texas) to the railroads.
Even the criminal bastards in office today can only dream of such an opportunity.

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