
ALT The deepest harm is not the sum of what has already been taken, but what the country is being asked to accept. Left unanswered, the methods catalogued in these pages do not expire with this anniversary; they become a manual, usable against any institution, any commemoration, any store of public trust a future administration finds inconvenient or lucrative. So, the question this record calls to answer is larger than the conduct of any one official. It is whether a self-governing people, shown in detail how the corruption of its own founding milestone was carried out, will shrug and conclude that this is simply how things are done now. The semiquincentennial was meant to remind Americans of what they hold in common. Let the record of how it was abused remind them of what they must never consent to lose.







































