Corruption
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Corruption constitutional
Using public power for private gain. At the Founding this had a broader meaning than today's narrow focus on bribery.
Technical: In founding-era political-legal usage, corruption encompassed a broad decay of civic virtue and the use of office for improper private or factional advantage — wider than the modern quid-pro-quo bribery frame.
Founding-era note: Founding-era 'corruption' was a broad structural concern (dependence, self-dealing, loss of public virtue), documented in the ratification debates and The Federalist, not limited to explicit bribery.
A dictionary entry is reference: it describes how a term is used. It is not itself binding law. Why that matters →
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