I have been listening to a great series of courses on American History by Eric Daniels. Currently I am in the 4th of the series, The History of America – Part 4: The Industrial Republic, 1877-1920, which is discussing a pivotal period in history when we really started to move towards becoming a mixed economy, welfare state.
During one of the lectures in this course he quotes Daniel Webster, who served two times as Secretary of State and twice declined the offer to be Vice President saying,