The Private Bond and the Public Trust, Navigating Friendship in Political Life

“ What a stupid mistake do we commit in not separating our public life from our social one, so as to show that our opinions upon measures of state are disconnected with all the sentiments we maintain for our private friendships. ”

“ Public matters belong to the people, and so long as a proper and necessary measure of decency is observed, so long as private characters are not defamed, so long as homes and those who occupy them are not made wretched by infamous innuendoes, so long as the pen of the literary journalist is not employed for the purpose of scandal and blackmail--too often, we regret to say, convertible terms--the people's rights in this respect must be observed. ”

“ There, they stand exhibited to public view, every turn of their conduct, private and public, becomes a subject of general scrutiny. Ten thousand eyes are rivetted upon them, for one that is fixed upon individuals in private life. And though it often happens that some of them are suspected whose lives are perfectly pure, none who have deviated from the paths of virtue can long keep their fall concealed. Can the same be said of the other departments of life? No. Now and then indiscretion, accident, or a total abandonment of decency brings to light the misconduct of an individual ”

“ In our times, from the highest class of society down to the lowest, every one lives as under the eye of a hostile and dreaded censorship. Not only in what concerns others, but in what concerns only themselves, the individual, or the family, do not ask themselves—what do I prefer? ”

“ If citizens in the private walks of life are obnoxious to censure on this account, what should be the measure of disapprobation of such conduct in those who aspire to high trusts and exalted stations in the government. Generally, what may pass only as a reproach on a private citizen, operates in the minds of a virtuous community and a free people, as a total disqualification and unfitness for office. ”

“ But pride, vanity, egotism, so unamiable and offensive in private life, are vices which partake of the character of crimes in the conduct of public affairs. The unfortunate victim of these passions cannot see beyond the little, petty, contemptible circle of his own personal interests. All his thoughts are withdrawn from his country, and concentrated on his consistency, his firmness, himself. ”

“ On one side is the private fact that my wife, without my knowledge, borrowed money from Fleetwood just before I appointed him to an important post; on the other side is his public record and mine. I want people to see both sides and judge between them, not in the red glare of a newspaper denunciation, but in the plain daylight of common-sense. Charges against the private morality of a public man are usually made in such a blare of headlines and cloud of mud-throwing that the voice he lifts up in his defence can not make itself heard. ”

“ But even if some are found who think it mean to prefer money to friendship, where shall we look for those who put friendship before office, civil or military promotions, and political power, and who, when the choice lies between these things on the one side and the claims of friendship on the other, do not give a strong preference to the former? It is not in human nature to be indifferent to political power; and if the price men have to pay for it is the sacrifice of friendship, they think their treason will be thrown into the shade by the magnitude of the reward. ”

“ This is why true friendship is very difficult to find among those who engage in politics and the contest for office. Where can you find the man to prefer his friend's advancement to his own? And to say nothing of that, think how grievous and almost intolerable it is to most men to share political disaster. You will scarcely find anyone who can bring himself to do that. ”

“ To the Framers, corruption was fundamentally about the misuse of a position of public trust for any improper private benefit. It thus went to the heart of their conception of public service. As a leading historian recounts, "a corrupt political actor would either purposely ignore or forget the public good as he used the reins of power." [26] Because men and women are not angels, corruption could not be fully eradicated, even in virtuous officials, but "its power can be subdued with the right combination of culture and political rules." ”

“ When the Faction has any job of lucre to obtain, or of vengeance to perpetrate, their way is, to select, for the execution, those very persons to whose habits, friendships, principles, and declarations, such proceedings are publicly known to be the most adverse; at once to render the instruments the more odious, and therefore the more dependent, and to prevent the people from ever reposing a confidence in any appearance of private friendship, or public principle. ”

“ I will next take an example of the conflict between two impulses, each having for its object the good of others, from the very familiar case of a man having to appoint to, or vote in the election to, a vacant office or situation. The interests of the public service or of some institution require that the most competent candidate should be preferred. But a relative, or a friend, or a political ally is standing. Affection, therefore, or friendship, or loyalty to party ties often dictates one course of conduct, and regard for the public interests another. ”

“ There is nothing so apt to agitate the passions of mankind as personal considerations whether they relate to ourselves or to others, who are to be the objects of our choice or preference. Hence, in every exercise of the power of appointing to offices, by an assembly of men, we must expect to see a full display of all the private and party likings and dislikes, partialities and antipathies, attachments and animosities, which are felt by those who compose the assembly. ”

“ A dangerous mass of private and personal interest is thrown into the scale, and selfishness usurps the place of patriotism and a sense of public duty.
V. Distribution of so many and such valuable offices as party rewards degrades parties from organizations upon principle, for patriotic political ends, to mere combinations for expediency and for personal ends. Because of the power and patronage of the President; and the centralizing effects of federal legislation, all State and local elections are subordinate to the quadrennial agitation for the highest federal officer. ”

“ Our quarrel with them begins when they quit this deep natural ground at the bidding of some leader, and obeying personal considerations, throw themselves into the maintenance and defence of points nowise belonging to their system. A party is perpetually corrupted by personality. ”

“ There can be nothing more immoral than the doctrine that a public man elevated to power should reward with office every villain that helped him to rise, and should do so all the more when the villanies of the "friend" are exposed and denounced. ”

“ The "spoils system," which consists in rewarding service to party by opportunity to plunder the country: which pays public servants first for their service to party, and secondly for service to the country: which makes usefulness to party rather than serviceableness to the country the basis of appointment and promotion, is the worst evil of our political life. "Public office is a public trust." Men who so regard it are the only men fit for it. Office so held is one of the most honorable forms of service which a man can render to his fellow-men. ”

“ If he seeks or accepts the aid of one, he must ask or accept the aid of multitudes. Between the principle of which much has been said in the newspapers, that a President of the United States must remember those to whom he owes his elevation, and the principle of accepting no aid on the score of friendship or personal kindness to him, there is no alternative. ”

“ On the earth, when our shame is even public, and when degraded in the minds of men, in consequence of some striking fault, yet there are always some friends grounded in our favour, whose esteem and society recompense us, in some measure, for the public contempt, and whose kindnesses assist us in sustaining the inveteracy of the general censure: but, on this occasion, the presence of our friends will be the object by far the most insupportable to our shame. ”

“ If, then, this is the case with the first flaw, the first doubt, the first speck that dims the sun of friendship, so that we are ready to turn our backs on our sworn attachment and well-known professions the instant we have not all the world with us, what must it be when we have all the world against us; when our friend, instead of a single stain, is covered with mud from head to foot; how shall we expect our feeble voices not to be drowned in the general clamour? how shall we dare to oppose our partial and mis-timed suffrages to the just indignation of the public? ”

“ A public man was never either praised or suffered to escape censure because he was a private acquaintance. He once told me that the being obliged to censure those with whom he stood in personal relations was the least agreeable feature of his profession. ”

“ One of the ideas which I have so often to cope with is that friendship, as it is generally understood, is an injustice and a blunder, which only allows you to distinguish the good qualities of a single person, and blinds you to those of others who are perhaps more deserving of your sympathy. I fancy to myself at times, like my ancient masters, that friendship is a larceny committed at the expense of society at large, and that, in a more elevated world, friendship would disappear. ”

“ It is certain that a man cares more for the opinion of his friends and immediate associates, than for that of all the world besides. The censure of ten thousand may be outweighed by the approval of ten. ”

“ Let good men of all parties require honesty, integrity, veracity, and morality in politics, and there, as powerfully as anywhere else, the requisitions of public sentiment will ultimately be felt.
9. A corrupt public sentiment produces dishonesty. A public sentiment, in which dishonesty is not disgraceful; in which bad men are respectable, are trusted, are honored, are exalted—is a curse to the young. The fever of speculation, the universal derangement of business, the growing laxness of morals, is, to an alarming extent, introducing such a state of things. ”

“ A man in the same sense forfeits his character for political integrity, whose love of truth truckles to his false shame and cringing complaisance, and who tampers with his own convictions, that he may stand well with the world. A man who sells his opinion merely to gain by his profligacy, is not a man without public principle, but common honesty. ”

“ Common fame is, therefore, my lords, no sufficient ground for such a censure as this, a censure that condemns a man long versed in high employments, long honoured with the confidence of his sovereign, and distinguished by the friendship of the most illustrious persons in the nation, to infamy and contempt, unheard, and even unaccused; for he against whom nothing is produced but general charges, supported by the evidence of common fame, may be justly esteemed to be free from accusation. ”

“ Nevertheless, it is the upright who are now become the general butt of the malignity of public discourses; and we may safely say, that virtue gives birth to more censurers in the world than vice.
I do not add, that if these slanders, which you term light, be highly criminal in their motives and circumstances, they are still more so in their consequences; I say their consequences, my brethren, which are always irreparable. You may expiate the crime of voluptuousness by mortification and penitence; the crime of hatred by love for your enemy ”

“ If a man found himself so rich-natured that he could enter into strict relations with the best persons and make life serene around him by the dignity and sweetness of his behavior, could he afford to circumvent the favor of the caucus and the press, and covet relations so hollow and pompous as those of a politician? ”

“ He carefully weighed in his judgment the question, the success of which party or candidate would be most beneficial to the public good, and then awarded his support or opposition according to the conviction so formed, unawed by power or popular clamor, and unbiased by favor or personal friendship—and in all this there was no man more dutifully respecting the constituted authorities, or more kindly heeding the opinions of others, or more loyal as a friend to his friends. ”

“ If in such cases we excuse and forget, why not also excuse and forget corrupt transactions that have been more than repaid by general brilliant conduct of affairs of state? No answer to this second question, however, can avoid the distinction that while certain kinds of personal immorality may affect the value of a man’s public service to an infinitesimal degree only, corruption in any part of his political career strikes directly at whatever efficiency he may possess as a public servant. ”