But an error of judgment, or of good taste, on their part, is very far from being corruption.

Henry Clay was a gambler.

Other eminent statesmen both in this country and in Europe have made no secret of even worse vices than that.

They are undoubtedly to be disapproved, in some cases severely condemned.

But the people always have made and always will make a distinction between such offences and the final unpardonable guilt of corruption in office.
James G.Blaine was a man of many faults and many infirmities.
But his life is a part of the history of his country.