Eric Nelson Quotes
The chief agent responsible for promoting the passions at the expense of justice turns out to be wealth.
Eric Nelson, Historian & Political Scientist, The Greek Tradition in Republican Thought
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
See {625339} and {622808} for similar conservative views.
Clark, after becoming one of the richest men in America, wanted to go into National Politics, but most people hated him so he could never win elected office. At the time, Montana selected their Senators by a vote of the State Legislature. So Clark bribed enough members of the legislature to become the Senator. However, the bribery scheme became a public scandal and the Senate refused to seat him. So the legislature had another vote in the next legislative session and Clark won again, and that time no one had the evidence of the bribes. But then, more about Clark became known, and he just served the one term.
This quotation so impressed Thomas Jefferson that he wrote it in his Commonplace Book.
President Theodore Roosevelt referred to the same groups similarly. See {638453} and {639956}.
Eric Matthew Nelson is an American historian and Professor of Government at Harvard University.
