The North had gone money-mad, and glory be to him who had the gold, and no questions asked. Men with old fashioned notions of morality, like Jonathan Worth, looked upon the scene following the election of 1868 with pessimism. 'Money has become the goddess of the country,' he wrote, 'and otherwise good men are almost compelled to worship at her shrine.' The proof was manifest in the fact that legislators, State and National, 'are bribed by money or controlled by corrupt rings.' The Capital in Washington fairly teemed with lobbyists who were received on terms of familiarity by legislators and given the privilege of the floor. Even the conservative William M. Evarts was impressed with 'the decline of public morality which presages revolution,' and Godkin, of "the Nation,' was sure that in New York it had 'confessedly never been so low.'
from pages 267-268, The Tragic Era
from pages 267-268, The Tragic Era