I have in my library a book written by a man called John Noonan, provocatively titled “BRIBES”. The author links prosecutions for bribery to society’s yearning for purity. As sexual purity has decreased as a social objective (he says) insistence on purity in government has gone up. After studying the problem over the centuries, Noonan says that our judgment about corruption in public life should never rest on a statistical basis, guaged by the number of laws enacted or convictions obtained. The only real index is the degree of intolerance in society about bribes.

I believe we have to fight corruption not merely with laws, but with education, persuasion, instilling the fear of God and the like. But will the fight succeed? I don’t know, but Noonan says it will. He claims that “the nature of bribes is contrary to the nature of human power in its full development.” And he ventures a prediction — “just as slavery was once a way of life and now, has become obsolete and incomprehensible, so the practice of bribery in the form of the exchange of payment for official action will become obsolete.”

True, slavery has become obsolete and incomprehensible. But let us recall how slavery got abolished — the anti slavery amendment in the US Constitution (the thirteenth amendment) provided that slavery should not exist within the United States; and empowered Congress to enforce it by appropriate legislation. It was passed in the very last session of the US Congress after the November 1864 elections, which reduced the Democrat majority in the House from 64 to 35, and the new Republican members who were opposed to the Constitutional Amendment could not take office until March 1865 when the new Congress was to be convened. In his presidential message to the old Congress, Lincoln asked the House to pass the amendment. But it required two more votes to make up the two-thirds majority to enable it to be sent to the state legislatures. President Lincoln then said: “these votes must be procured.” He said — ‘I am President of the United States, clothed with immense power. The abolition of slavery by constitutional provision settles the fate, for all coming time, not only of the millions now in bondage, but unborn millions to come ... a measure of such importance that those two votes must be procured. I leave it to you to determine how it shall be done; but remember that I am President of the United States clothed with great power, and I expect you to procure those votes’. His party understood the significance of his remark. The votes were duly “procured”; the constitutional amendment was passed, and slavery got abolished!

... contd.