They thought there was plenty of simple thieving too

Birth of the Modern by Paul Johnson, page 906. Sound like today?

A case can be made for describing the Monroe presidency . . . as the first great era of corruption in American history. Indeed, the word itself was used with increasing frequency. Many Americans came sincerely to believe that their government, both administration and Congress, was corrupt, and this at a time when, in Britain, the traditional corruption of the 18th-century Walpoleian system was being slowly but surely extruded from public life. . . . by corruption Americans of the 1820s did not mean simply the use of bribes and stealing from the public purse. They also meant the undermining of the constitutional system by secret deals, the use of public office to acquire power or higher office, and the giving of private interests priority over public welfare. But they thought there was plenty of simple thieving too.