Dating back to the Presidency of Abraham Lincoln it was common for distillers and corrupt Internal Revenue agents to make false whiskey production reports and pocket unpaid tax revenue. However, during the early 1870s, the corruption became more organized by distillers, who used the illegally obtained money for bribery and illegal election financing, to the point where every agent in St. Louis was involved in corruption. This organized network, known as the Whiskey Ring, extended nationally and involved "the printing, selling, and approving of forged federal revenue stamps on bottled whiskey."