core competence

Might be the VERY FIRST that wasn't.

I'll give the founding fathers the benefit of the doubt that they weren't. The notion of a representative government such as ours was so new and different than anything else at the time, I think the mechanisms of corruption at that time had no way to infiltrate. The leaders were staunchly against personal enrichment through government service.

It took decades for the pervasive rot of corruption to infiltrate.

I thought that myself, right after posting that. They seemed to be morally just people. Was thinking in the here and now.

All good! I didn't want to cone off as pedantic or argumentative, only a conversation. 👍