Mirabeau Lamar campaign address, August 1838

Splendid edifices, with all their luxuries, whether
of Government or individuals are but monuments
of perverty [poverty] vice and misery, which everywhere ac-
cumulate and gather around them as they rise.
Be ours a happier lot. Upon the government
devolves the duty and deep responsibility of
setting a wise and salutary example. Let
it discard at once and forever, the false & vicious
notion that splendor and magnificence are neces-
sary to governmental influence and dignity—
and that specious tinsel exterior, which either in
the moral or physical world, smiles only to deceive.
The Republican patriot (Franklin) required no pomp
extravagance or peagantry [sic] to sustain himself at one
of the most shewy [showy], luxurious, and brilliant courts of
Europe. Without borrowing any aid from the
ostentatious displays of wealth, he not only commanded the
esteem and admiration of all by the native
and inherent dignity of moral and intellectual
worth but also by the steady and inflexible
adherence to sincerity in his conduct and
to simplicity in his manners did much
to stregthen [sic] that new-born love of liberty which
subsequently burst forth among the French people
with such wild frenzied fury[.] Like character-
istics in a nation must produce similar results
and render it equally conspicuous, dignified