National Rottenness

National Rottenness

Congress has inflicted frightful punishments on its members--now you know that.  When they tried Mr. Fairoaks, and a cloud of witnesses proved him to be--well, you know what they proved him to be--and his own testimony and his own confessions gave him the same character, what did Congress do then?....Congress intimated plainly enough, that they considered him almost a stain upon their body; and without waiting ten days, hardly, to think the thing over, they rose up and hurled at him a resolution declaring that they disapproved of his conduct!  Now you know that. –Colonel Beriah Sellers, The Gilded Age, Mark Twain,...