You must be much older than I thought my friend!
*laughs* Not first-hand, mind.
While he fought for freedom during the American Revolution, he was also flawed.
During the first four years of the Revolution, he lost every single major battle. Oops.
I draw attention to the
Philadelphia Aurora - an anti-federalist newspaper (i'd usually note, beware of bias, but it wasn't a journalist that wrote this). In 1795, the Clerk of Congress wrote under the pseudonym "A Calm Observer" and gave a breakdown of funds embezzled from the treasury on top of the constitutionally-allowed sum of $25'000.
In the first year, he drew exactly 25K - honest enough. Let's go further, though. If you can stomach it.
Year 2: $30'150 - Oops.
Year 3: Maybe he felt a bit guilty because he took a bit less than allowed in the third year - only $24'000.
Year 4: Seems he made up for the previous year here - he took $26'000.
At the beginning of the second term, Congress passed an act, paying the president quarterly. ($6'250 every three months).
But during the first quarter, Washington took $11'000 from the treasury.
The Clerk lost access to the paperwork beyond this point but he does make one notable statement in conclusion of the article he wrote:
A Calm Observer said:
If the precedent which this donation from the treasury furnishes, were to be allowed in favour of other public officers, how many hundred thousand dollars per annum would thus be lawlessly taken from the public treasury and saddled upon the people?
Just so you don't think, for whatever reason, that my political position has anything to do with this, or that, for some obscene and unexcusable reason, you think i may be lying about this, i'll leave my source as well:
Shaking the Foundations: 200 Years of Investigative Journalism in America - by Bruce Shapiro. (Thunder's Mouth Press and Nation Books, 2003).
