[Our aldermen] seem to look upon taxation as the great business of life, and the ability to squeeze the greatest amount of taxes out of a given amount of property as the highest evidence of political ability.
The besetting sin of American society is a mania for office. Men will abandon a business worth two thousand dollars a year for an office worth one thousand, and they are ready to ruin the public interests, for the honor of ruling the public. They array the poor against the rich, and assume the honor of leading the former, because they are most numerous. This class of men are constantly endeavoring to get into some small office, as a steppingstone to a higher one; and they educate those who have nothing to believe that the way to get the property of the rich is to break them down by taxation; and, to get the votes of such, they promise to assess a new tax, or increase the old ones.
You missed a subtle, but important, change. Most politicians now have no business to abandon, they move right from college or grad school into government. Feeding at the public trough is now a “career” complete with higher than average salaries overly-generous benefits. When The Fall of the American Republic is written, the coming of the professional politician will be assigned a considerable amount of the blame.