Thomas Jefferson Quotes
Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct.
Thomas Jefferson, 1743-1826, 3rd President of the United States (Democratic Republican, VA), Letter 1820
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
The House Majority Leader Tom Delay, with a history of ethics violations, got caught in some very serious ones and convinced the House majority leadership to change the rules of the Ethics Committee to prevent the minority from initiating any investigations or inquiries. The Ethics Committee was the only House committee that has an equal number of majority and minority members and before this change, either side would initiate an inquiry.
Commenting on an FBI sting operation to uncover government corruption:
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.
Corruption was rife in the Congo before the French or Belgians ever arrived there. However, it is the case that French business and diplomatic culture is much more tolerant of third world corruption than most other industrial democracies and actively engage in bribery efforts to a degree that other nations do not.
At the turn of the century, there was a moral norm in much of the country that buying and stealing votes in elections were not moral transgressions and was acceptable in the heat of political contests.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-1910
Thomas Jefferson was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He had previously served as the second vice president of the United States under John Adams between 1797 and 1801. The principal author of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson was a proponent of democracy, republicanism, and individual rights, motivating American colonists to break from the Kingdom of Great Britain and form a new nation; he produced formative documents and decisions at both the state and national levels.
