Bottomed on Corruption

Okay, apparently, the Family Research Council's Tony Perkins believes that the Founding Fathers would oppose overturning the Supreme Court’s infamous 2010 Citizens United ruling - the one that effectively makes bribery protected "speech." Alexander Hamilton and John Jay probably yes.

Alexander Hamilton actually advocated corruption. But I imagine most of the others would probably applaud the recent Senate vote that moved the proposed constitutional Amendment forward. For example, it would not be recklessly speculative to suggest that Thomas Jefferson would be on the opposite side of the issue from Hamilton. As I wrote in my book:

Of course, I am not arguing that the founders all agreed. There were reactionaries as well as radicals. For example, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay felt wealth should run the country and they had no problem saying so. In fact, Hamilton had actually advocated corruption as a desirable mechanism toward that end. He was an admirer of the British Parliament in which votes and government posts were then openly bought and sold. It kept the rich in control because only they could afford to buy legislation. Hamilton said, "Purge that constitution of its corruption, and give to its popular branch equality of representation, and it would become an impractical government: as it stands at present, with all its supposed defects, it is the most perfect government that ever existed." This prompted Thomas Jefferson to claim, "Hamilton was not only a monarchist, but for a monarchy bottomed on corruption." If Hamilton were alive today, he would no doubt join the GOP in opposing campaign finance reform."

Mind you, this is the same Tony Perks who thinks that trying to overturn the Citizens United ruling amounts to Christian persecution. It was not Thomas Jefferson, but I seem to recall that somebody famously drove the money changers out of the Temple of Jerusalem with a whip in hand.

I am pretty sure it was not Tony Perkins either.