cies rulers sometimes endeavor to corrupt the people--In
democracies rulers frequently show themselves to be corrupt--In the
former their vices are directly prejudicial to the morality of the
people--In the latter their indirect influence is still more pernicious.

A distinction must be made, when the aristocratic and the democratic
principles mutually inveigh against each other, as tending to facilitate
corruption. In aristocratic governments the individuals who are placed
at the head of affairs are rich men, who are solely desirous of power.
In democracies statesmen are poor, and they have their fortunes to make.
The consequence is that in aristocratic States the rulers are rarely
accessible to corruption, and have very little craving for money; whilst
the reverse is the case in democratic nations.

But in aristocracies, as those who are desirous of arriving at the head
of affairs are possessed of considerable wealth, and as the number of
persons by whose assistance they may rise is comparatively small, the
government is, if I may use the expression, put up to a sort of auction.
In democracies, on the contrary, those who are covetous of power are
very seldom wealthy, and the number of citizens who confer that power is
extremely great. Perhaps in democracies the number of men who might be
bought is by no means smaller, but buyers are rarely to be met with;
and, besides, it would be necessary to buy so many persons at once that
the attempt is rendered nugatory.

Many of the men who have been in the administration in France during
the last forty years have been accused of making their fortunes at
the expense of the State or of its allies; a reproach which was rarely
addressed to the public characters of the ancient monarchy. But in
France the practice of bribing electors is almost unknown, whilst it is
notoriously and publicly carried on in England. In the United States
I never heard a man accused of spending his wealth in corrupting
the populace; but I have often heard the probity of public officers
questioned; still more frequently have I heard their success attributed
to low intrigues and immoral practices.

If, then, the men who conduct the government of an aristocracy sometimes
endeavor to corrupt the people, the heads of a democracy are themselves
corrupt. In the former case the morality of the people is directly
assailed; in the latter an indirect influence is exercised upon the
people which is still more to be