" In The Federalist, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay not only wrote anonymous letters in favor of the proposed new Constitution; they were so eager to disguise their “interest” that they pretended they had never attended the Convention in the first place. Hamilton and colleagues would have wondered at our preference for billionaires; the founders considered rich people the most “interested” of all. Eighteenth-century leaders were extremely anxious to show their disinterest; a number of them even gave away their fortunes and bankrupted themselves. (Boy, did they ever care.) This passion for disinterest continued through the early nineteenth century, when politicians clamored to claim an impoverished childhood in a log cabin. The up-by-the-bootstraps story showed a man’s ability to make it on his own, beholden to no one. "

― Jay Heinrichs , Thank You for Arguing: What Aristotle, Lincoln, and Homer Simpson Can Teach Us About the Art of Persuasion