ed by a senate vote that is silenced or a bill that isn't passed. The United States actually lost the opportunity to buy Cuba for $30 million because Congress refused to appropriate funding for fear President Buchanan would use the money as a personal "slush fund."
John T. Noonan Jr.'s massive study of bribery through history shows that the United States was formed by men with a particular desire to prevent bribery from becoming a national pastime, and he notes that the "founding fathers were to show an awareness. . . of the harm to impartial justice that bribery could do." Corruption on the part of the executive was on the minds of the revolutionaries who developed the various state constitutions and declarations of rights. Virginia openly acknowledged the danger of bribery, while Massachusetts and Maryland also showed an understanding of the issue. None of these three states, however, enacted bribery statues with reference to judges. They placed their reliance on the common law, and only special situations such as the bribing of nava
...