Public Trust Quotes
In the 19th century, most people, like Spooner, saw the combination of money and politics as per se corrupting—much like the view of John McCain in the 21st century. Howver, by then all of politics had been dependent on money. However, distrust of government and politicians prevailed, with money paying a large part of the distrust. Spooner was against the government levying taxes and thought that governments should be financed by the voluntary contributions of money or labor of the citizens. His idea was something like a religious and biblical tithing.
This quotation did not appear in the first edition, but did in later editions.
See Charles James Fox, John Milton, Grover Cleveland, George Mason, Henry Clay, Benjamin Disraeli and Woodrow Wilson for similar expressions of this idea.
There is no written record of this speech nor any official eye wittness accounts. It is generally attributed however to Lincoln though some identify it with the famous promoter, Phineas Taylor Barnum, 1810-1891.
This is an important quotation because it was believed by most of the Founding Fathers and the American public until relatively recently. Presidential candidates would not think of publicly campaigning. The view was that anyone who was ambitious for power and authority should not be trusted with it. The idea was first stated by Plato and has been a major view of Western politics since. Many still believe it, but no one has come up with a practical alternative in a large jurisdiction where there is no way to know about the possible candidates without their initiative. Earlier American presidential candidates, although they did not campaign as we know it, got associates to do their campaigning for them. At Presidential nominating conventions, candidates would not even attend. Abraham Lincoln for example never attended the convention at which he got nominated, but he had associates lining up delagates and he was managing their efforts behind the scenes.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-1910
See Charles James Fox, John Milton, Jeremy Bentham, Grover Cleveland, Henry Clay, Benjamin Disraeli and Woodrow Wilson for similar expressions of this idea.
