Greg Laden

“It almost seemed as if Buchanan’s regime was leasing the country’s name, as his friends enriched themselves and presided over a machinery of government that was lubricated with bribery, brandy, and insider deals. In New York, a lawyer, George Templeton Strong, wrote in his diary that he felt like he was reliving “the Roman Empire in its day of rotting.”
― Ted Widmer, Lincoln on the Verge: Thirteen Days to Washington