# "Corporations have been enthroned, and an era of corruption in high places will follow." Lincoln? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 29, 2018, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporations-have-been-enthroned-and-an-era-of-corruption-in-high-places-will-follow-lincoln/816976 "2018-06-29T06:03:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2018, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporations-have-been-enthroned-and-an-era-of-corruption-in-high-places-will-follow-lincoln/816976/1 "2018-06-29T06:03:41Z")
> [@](#): > > I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. . . . corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. Several variations of this quote have been attributed to Abraham Lincoln, but Snope calls it [fake news](https://snopes.com/fact-check/abraham-lincolns-capitalism-prophecy/). However, I have seen several other websites debate its historicity and they’re not as sure as Snopes that it was faked. In my own searches, I found at least three citations that pre-date the disputed one in Snopes: [ul] [li]1901, Democratic Campaign Book: [Democratic Campaign Book: Congressional Election 1906 ... - Democratic Congressional Committee (U.S.) - Google Books](https://books.google.com/books?id=yZFJAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA34&dq=%22As+a+result+of+the+war,+corporations+have+been+enthroned,%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi6kum41vTbAhUJVa0KHSl3A0AQ6AEIMzAC#v=onepage&q=%22As%20a%20result%20of%20the%20war%2C%20corporations%20have%20been%20enthroned%2C%22&f=false%5B/li%5D%5Bli%5D1892), “Imperialism in America: Its Rise and Progress”: [Imperialism in America: Its Rise and Progress - Sarah E. Van De Vort Emery - Google Books](https://books.google.com/books?id=DUcoAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA28&dq=%22As+a+result+of+the+war,+corporations+have+been+enthroned,%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjutden1fTbAhUBi6wKHf95Dx4Q6AEIKDAA#v=onepage&q=%22As%20a%20result%20of%20the%20war%2C%20corporations%20have%20been%20enthroned%2C%22&f=false%5B/li%5D%5Bli%5D1892), speech from Democratic governor of Tennesee, John P. Buchanan: [https://www.loc.gov/resource/rbpe.17503700/?sp=1&st=text[/li][/ul]](https://www.loc.gov/resource/rbpe.17503700/?sp=1&st=text%5B/li%5D%5B/ul%5D) Did Lincoln actually say this? ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2018, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporations-have-been-enthroned-and-an-era-of-corruption-in-high-places-will-follow-lincoln/816976/2 "2018-06-29T06:34:57Z")
First, Snopes did not call it “fake news”. That’s a term that’s only become popular in the past couple of years, and many people and websites, including Snopes, would never use it. It has nothing to do with news sources at all. People who use the term “fake news” are mashing together several ways wrong statements are made. No news sources are writing articles about that quotation. It’s a misattributed quotation, not an incorrect news story. Second, several phrases in the supposed Lincoln quotation don’t sound like they come from the 1860’s. They sound like they come from the 1890’s or the 1930’s (although it’s known to be from earlier than the 1930’s). “Corporations have been enthroned” and “money power” are terms that were more common in those later decades, not during the Civil War. The whole quotation is about class struggle, and that’s not how Lincoln talked about things. Third, no one has found a letter or a speech by Lincoln that includes that quotation. This doesn’t absolutely prove that Lincoln didn’t say such a thing. This just shows that it’s not typical of what Lincoln wrote and that no one has found it in his speeches and letters. It sounds like someone from the 1890’s making up a quotation from Lincoln to buttress their arguments. In any case, what’s the point of absolutely disproving that Lincoln said it? The quotation should be looked at as a simple statement about the economic status of the U.S. Is it true or false? That has nothing to do with who said it. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2018, 7:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporations-have-been-enthroned-and-an-era-of-corruption-in-high-places-will-follow-lincoln/816976/3 "2018-06-29T07:38:49Z")
Regarding the linguistic differences of the 1860s vs latter periods… that’s wonderful input, thank you. Is that something you just happened to know, or is there some standard way to measure/guesstimate the date of a passage by its language use? As for whether it’s “fake news” and why it would matter at all, well, it doesn’t really… it would just be an interesting tidbit about our history. My college history professor actually used the disputed cite to present this quote as truth. That seemed too prescient a thing for Lincoln to have said, so I tried to find more context around the quote. As it turns out, it’s been making the rounds as an occasional meme in support of socialism, and often denounced with equal fervor by conservatives who point out it’s fraudulent. Lincoln is one of those rare historical figures still mostly admired by people across the political spectrum, so anything he says (or is reported to have said) gives undue weight. A fake thing said by a powerful person has a power all its own. Truthiness has nothing to do with believability. Guess how we know that… At the end of the day, it’s just an internet curiosity that I thought would be worth examining. There is a camp firmly believing that Lincoln was a radical revolutionary censored and whitewashed by later historians. There’s another camp who think quotes like the above are liberal revisionism attempting to rewrite Lincoln. It is important to know, also, that there was no primary evidence of this. Is it usually the case that his other speeches and writings are recorded somewhere and easily found, or would this be an unreasonable standard of proof to require of something from the 1860s? ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2018, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporations-have-been-enthroned-and-an-era-of-corruption-in-high-places-will-follow-lincoln/816976/4 "2018-06-29T07:45:47Z")
Here’s an interesting graph… “money power”, “aggregate wealth”, and “corporate power” saw relatively flat use through the 1800s and then peaked in the late 1890s and early 1900s, as you said: [Google Ngram Viewer](https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=money+power%2Ccorporate+power%2Caggregate+wealth&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cmoney%20power%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Ccorporate%20power%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Caggregate%20wealth%3B%2Cc0) ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2018, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporations-have-been-enthroned-and-an-era-of-corruption-in-high-places-will-follow-lincoln/816976/5 "2018-06-29T13:18:23Z")
It’s absurd to attribute it to Lincoln, anyway. Yes, he wrote and spoke a lot about a crisis that was tearing the country apart… but it’s rather a different crisis that he was talking about, and it kind of demanded his full attention. ---
**Author:** ![Enola\_Straight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dec6dc/32.png) [@Enola\_Straight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enola_Straight)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2018, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporations-have-been-enthroned-and-an-era-of-corruption-in-high-places-will-follow-lincoln/816976/6 "2018-06-29T13:18:41Z")
I don’t think there were any corporations in existence at Lincoln’s time. Firms like Trusts may have been around, but not multi-stockholder businesses as we know them today. ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2018, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporations-have-been-enthroned-and-an-era-of-corruption-in-high-places-will-follow-lincoln/816976/7 "2018-06-29T13:29:22Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > It’s absurd to attribute it to Lincoln, anyway. Yes, he wrote and spoke a lot about a crisis that was tearing the country apart… but it’s rather a different crisis that he was talking about, and it kind of demanded his full attention. But I found this quote; > [@Honest Abe](#): > > No, dude, I totes said that. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2018, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporations-have-been-enthroned-and-an-era-of-corruption-in-high-places-will-follow-lincoln/816976/8 "2018-06-29T14:12:10Z")
There’s the quote that’s famous today: _“Don’t believe everything you read on the internet…”_ -Abraham Lincoln ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2018, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporations-have-been-enthroned-and-an-era-of-corruption-in-high-places-will-follow-lincoln/816976/9 "2018-06-29T14:47:55Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **Enola Straight** : > > I don’t think there were any corporations in existence at Lincoln’s time. Firms like Trusts may have been around, but not multi-stockholder businesses as we know them today. Beg pardon? Corporations were instrumental in the pre-independence history of America. The Dutch and British East Indies Companies, perhaps? ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2018, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporations-have-been-enthroned-and-an-era-of-corruption-in-high-places-will-follow-lincoln/816976/10 "2018-06-29T14:58:13Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > Second, several phrases in the supposed Lincoln quotation don’t sound like they come from the 1860’s. They sound like they come from the 1890’s or the 1930’s (although it’s known to be from earlier than the 1930’s). “Corporations have been enthroned” and “money power” are terms that were more common in those later decades, not during the Civil War. The whole quotation is about class struggle, and that’s not how Lincoln talked about things. That was my immediate reaction on reading the quote. It just doesn’t sound like something that anyone, let alone Lincoln, would say in the 1860s (well, maybe Karl Marx). > [@Reply](#): > > Here’s an interesting graph… “money power”, “aggregate wealth”, and “corporate power” saw relatively flat use through the 1800s and then peaked in the late 1890s and early 1900s, as you said: [Google Ngram Viewer](https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=money+power%2Ccorporate+power%2Caggregate+wealth&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cmoney%20power%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Ccorporate%20power%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Caggregate%20wealth%3B%2Cc0) Likewise the word["corporation"](https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=corporation&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Ccorporation%3B%2Cc0) itself. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2018, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporations-have-been-enthroned-and-an-era-of-corruption-in-high-places-will-follow-lincoln/816976/11 "2018-06-29T15:59:00Z")
Lincoln’s own secretary said [he never said it](https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125169095). Well, supposedly Lincoln’s secretary said that.😕 ---
**Author:** ![Flyer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/flyer/32/7298_2.png) [@Flyer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flyer)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2018, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporations-have-been-enthroned-and-an-era-of-corruption-in-high-places-will-follow-lincoln/816976/12 "2018-06-29T16:57:44Z")
In addition, Lincoln was a rather successful lawyer for some time. I really don’t think he would have the attitude that the quote shows. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2018, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporations-have-been-enthroned-and-an-era-of-corruption-in-high-places-will-follow-lincoln/816976/13 "2018-06-29T17:36:10Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Beg pardon? Corporations were instrumental in the pre-independence history of America. The Dutch and British East Indies Companies, perhaps? And by the early 1860s, there were many corporations around: railroads, canals, steel manufacturers, banks, etc. Not all of those were organized as LLCs, but many were. ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2018, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporations-have-been-enthroned-and-an-era-of-corruption-in-high-places-will-follow-lincoln/816976/14 "2018-06-29T18:14:37Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > Lincoln’s own secretary said [he never said it](https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125169095). > > Well, supposedly Lincoln’s secretary said that.😕 Wasn’t she a Kennedy though? ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2018, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporations-have-been-enthroned-and-an-era-of-corruption-in-high-places-will-follow-lincoln/816976/15 "2018-06-29T23:17:48Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > Lincoln’s own secretary said [he never said it](https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125169095). > > Well, supposedly Lincoln’s secretary said that.😕 I’ve heard that too, but couldn’t find a primary source. Do you know of one? (Our current class project is to discuss Lincoln’s views on capitalism. This quote is a cornerstone of it, which is why its veracity would be interesting to discuss in context.) ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2018, 7:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporations-have-been-enthroned-and-an-era-of-corruption-in-high-places-will-follow-lincoln/816976/16 "2018-06-30T07:02:15Z")
If you’re interested in Lincoln’s views, you can read his collected letters and speeches, since they’re all available in various editions. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2018, 8:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporations-have-been-enthroned-and-an-era-of-corruption-in-high-places-will-follow-lincoln/816976/17 "2018-06-30T08:39:18Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > If you’re interested in Lincoln’s views, you can read his collected letters and speeches, since they’re all available in various editions. Sorry if I didn’t make this clear enough originally, but this whole thing was that I didn’t realize Lincoln’s views were disputed (my own ignorance). Something like an “Lincoln Encyclopedia” published 50 years ago would’ve seemed perfectly authoritative to me as a layman, but clearly isn’t. How do you tease apart the legitimate ones from the hoaxes? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2018, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporations-have-been-enthroned-and-an-era-of-corruption-in-high-places-will-follow-lincoln/816976/18 "2018-06-30T12:46:09Z")
Never trust any quote that doesn’t include a date and context. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2018, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporations-have-been-enthroned-and-an-era-of-corruption-in-high-places-will-follow-lincoln/816976/19 "2018-06-30T15:28:00Z")
You say that this question arises because of a class project. You should tell the class that this quotation comes from one book written 68 years ago that quotes from one book written 87 years ago. You should point out all the reasons that we’ve given in this thread why it’s not plausible that Lincoln said any such thing. Then you can perhaps point out that there’s a two-volume edition of Lincoln’s writings published just a few years ago (that can be easily ordered online) that someone who thinks that Lincoln said this quotation can read for themselves to discover what Lincoln’s known writings were like. If someone still insists that the quotation is real, you can say that what Lincoln supposedly said in one dubious quotation ultimately proves nothing about the truth of the ideas in the quotation. Note that I’m talking about the truth of the ideas now, not the source of the ideas. The fact that Lincoln did or didn’t say something about these ideas doesn’t prove that the ideas are true. It’s still worthwhile talking about whether the ideas are correct. It’s not worthwhile anymore talking about the source of the quotation. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2018, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/corporations-have-been-enthroned-and-an-era-of-corruption-in-high-places-will-follow-lincoln/816976/20 "2018-06-30T17:12:46Z")
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