His initial interest in the company need not have concerned the public at all, except that it led him into a conflict with one of the great perils that plagued American democracy in the 1860s, that of government corruption. The elected officials of New York flapped around what they assumed to be the mere corpse of a company, each looking to tear off a piece for himself. Vanderbilt would not let them. The origins of his empire, then, lay not in his godlike foresight, but in his determination to punish the greed of a few foolish men.
