acknowledge the corn: to admit a fault or mistake
A popular mid-nineteenth-century expression. Variants were admit the corn, confess the corn, and own the corn. Long shaggy dog stories have been concocted to explain the origin of this phrase, which could still be heard as late as the early twentieth century. The most widely quoted explanation first appeared in the Pittsburgh Commerical Advertiser around 1850. It describes how a young man from the Louisiana countryside arrived in New Orleans with two flatboats, one full of corn and the other of potatoes. He hoped to sell these at the next day's market. Sadly, this corncracker was drawn into a big-city betting game and gambled away his worldly wealth, including the two flatboats full of produce.
Arriving disconsolate back at the dock, he was staggered by a further disaster. The boat carrying the corn had sunk, taking its cargo to the bottom of the river. The unfortunate young man spent a miserable night, but by the next morning he had a plan. When the winner of the previous night's gambling came around to the dock to collect his winnings, the farm boy was ready for him. "Stranger," he declared grandly, "I acknowledge the corn—take 'em; but the potatoes you can't have, by thunder!"
As beguiling as this etymology is, the one proposed by linguist Jeffrey Alan Hirschberg in the journal American Speech is more likely. Hirschberg points out that corn was a common slang term for whiskey (corn liquor), so acknowledging the corn probably originated as an admission that the speaker was "corned," or drunk. Defendants often admitted as much, as in this statement reported in the Philadelphia Spirit of the Times: "Your honor, I confess the corn. I was royally drunk."