Politics & Power Quote by Ambrose Bierce

Bierce takes a dignified old Roman title and drags it through the back alley of Gilded Age patronage. A "consul" ought to evoke public service and diplomatic gravitas; in his mouth, it becomes the political equivalent of being paid to stop bothering everyone. The joke is engineered like a trap: you start with the respectable definition you think you know, then he snaps the hinge shut with "having failed to secure an office from the people" - a blunt reminder that democratic consent is the one credential the character lacks.

The intent is less to mock diplomacy than to expose a system that treats government posts as consolation prizes. Bierce's key move is the conditional: the Administration grants the job "on condition that he leave the country". Exile becomes a perk, not a punishment, and the state quietly admits the appointee's real value is negative. He's not being sent abroad because he's gifted at representing the nation; he's being exported because he's inconvenient at home. That flips the usual patriotic narrative of foreign service into a cynical personnel strategy: quarantine the disappointed, reward the loyal, keep the domestic machine humming.

Context matters. Bierce wrote in an era when consular positions were often spoils, handed out to party men, failed candidates, and well-connected hangers-on. His definition distills a broader accusation: American politics sells the appearance of merit while operating on transaction and removal. The line lands because it feels like a secret said out loud - comedy as an instrument for naming what polite civic language tries to hide.