This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Tuesday, February 13th, 2018.

I'm Caleb Brown.

The Constitution was written as an anti-corruption document,

and yet we appear to be surrounded by public corruption today

and though public corruption may serve as a silent killer of the economy

what to do about it isn't precisely clear. Frank Buckley is author of The Republic of Virtue, how we tried to ban corruption,

failed, and what we can do about it. We spoke earlier this month.

In your book you characterize the Constitution in some ways as being presented as an anti-corruption document.

What was the corruption that the founders were worried about and how did that sales pitch go over?

Well it went over like gangbusters.

The corruption they were worried about was very simple.

It was British-style corruption, which is the corruption of an executive branch that can bribe members of parliament.

They didn't want a king and in particular they didn't want an executive that could run the show by bribing

everybody or the reverse the congressman who could appoint a president and get him

to do their bidding and and at every moment in the

every moment in the convention which nearly didn't produce a constitution

the thing that brought everybody around was the idea that look we fellas we can do this and banish corruption

And the fellow who basically made that happen more than anyone was Gouverne or Morse very very cleverly

And and, the convention nearly split apart,

and he was the guy who brought everyone together.

So you argue, you also argue, and I admit to being fairly ignorant of the particular history on this that the constitution as it emerged was much more of a governor Morris document than it was

Madisonian. Yeah no there is a Madisonian Constitution. The

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