From page 369 of Gordon Wood's The Creation of the American Republic: 1776-1787 (1969):
"The legislatures, it was repeatedly claimed, were becoming simply the instruments and victims of parties and private combinations, puppets in the hands of narrow-minded, designing men."
Wood is referring to conditions in the 1780s. But isn't it striking how similar this sounds to criticisms we hear of Congress today?
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1 comment:
An excellent point. It just goes to show that what Richard Hofstadter dubbed 'the paranoid style in American politics' has been around since the nation's inception.
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