When Colonel Davy Crockett was in the U.S. Congress (sometime between 1827 and 1835), a bill came up to appropriate money for support of a widow whose husband had been a decorated naval officer. It seemed the bill, for such a worthy cause, would sail through unopposed. That was until Crockett rose to speak in opposition. He told his House colleagues of how he had once voted for a similar bill and felt very good about himself for doing so, until he later ran into a wise constituent named Horatio Bunce while roaming the hinterlands of his district campaigning for re-election.
Colonel Crockett continued to tell how he ran into Mr. Bunce in a field, introduced himself, and asked him for his vote. Bunce replied that he would never give it, precisely because of Crockett’s “yes” vote on that charity appropriation, a provision of $20,000 in federal aid to victims of a fire in Georgetown (DC). Mr. Bunce, you see, felt that such a vote was an abuse of the Constitution. An incredulous Crockett asked him to explain why his compassionate vote violated the U.S. Constitution. Below is Colonel Crockett’s account of their dialogue:
“My papers say that last winter you voted for a bill to appropriate $20,000 to some sufferers by a fire in Georgetown. Is that true!"
"Certainly it is, and I thought that was the last vote for which anybody in the world would have found fault with."
"Well, Colonel, where do you find in the Constitution any authority to give away the public money in charity!"
"Here was another sockdologer; for, when I began to think about it, I could not remember a thing in the Constitution that authorized it. I found I must take another tack, so I said:
"Well, my friend; I may as well own up. You have got me there. But certainly nobody will complain that a great and rich country like ours should give the insignificant sum of $20,000 to relieve its suffering women and children, particularly with a full and overflowing Treasury, and I am sure, if you had been there, you would have done just as I did."
"It is not the amount, Colonel, that I complain of; it is the principle. In the first place, the Government ought to have in the Treasury no more than enough for its legitimate purposes. But that has nothing to do with the question. The power of collecting and disbursing money at pleasure is the most dangerous power that can be entrusted to man, particularly under our system of collecting revenue by a tariff, which reaches every man in the country, no matter how poor he may be, and the poorer he is the more he pays in proportion to his means. What is worse, it presses upon him without his knowledge where the weight centers, for there is not a man in the United States who can ever guess how much he pays to the Government. So you see, that while you are contributing to relieve one, you are drawing it from thousands who are even worse off than he. If you had the right to give anything, the amount was simply a matter of discretion with you, and you had as much right to give $20,000,000 as $20,000. If you have the right: to give to one, you have the right to give to all; and, as the Constitution neither defines charity nor stipulates the amount, you are at liberty to give to any and everything which you may believe, or profess to believe, is a charity, and to any amount you may think proper. You will very easily perceive, what a wide door this would open for fraud and corruption and favoritism, on the one hand, and for robbing the people on the other. No, Colonel, Congress has no right to give charity. Individual members may give as much of their own money as they please, but they have no right to touch a dollar of the public money for that purpose. If twice as many houses had been burned in this county as in Georgetown, neither you nor any other member of Congress would have thought of appropriating a dollar for our relief. There are about two hundred and forty members of Congress. If they had shown their sympathy for the sufferers by contributing each one week's pay, it would have made over $13,000. There are plenty of wealthy men in and around Washington who could have given $20,000 without depriving themselves of even a luxury of life. The Congressmen chose to keep their own money, which, if reports be true, some of them spend not very creditably; and the people about Washington, no doubt, applauded you for relieving them from the necessity of giving by giving what was not yours to give. The people have delegated to Congress, by the Constitution, the power to do certain things. To do these, it is authorized to collect and pay moneys, and for nothing else. Everything beyond this is usurpation, and a violation of the Constitution."
"So you see, Colonel, you have violated the Constitution in what I consider a vital point. It is a precedent fraught with danger to the country, for when Congress once begins to stretch its power beyond the limits of the Constitution, there is no limit to it, and no security for the people. I have no doubt you acted honestly, but that does not make it any better, except as far as you are personally concerned, and you see that I cannot vote for you."
For the very interesting details and happy ending to this story, please follow the link at the bottom of this post. Suffice it to say that Crockett declared he would put up a week’s worth of his own salary and challenged every colleague to do the same, and Congress voted down the charity bill before them. Whether they all anted up, I can’t say.
There’s little I can add to Mr. Bunce’s eloquence and logic on this subject. I simply encourage you to carefully consider the principles he presents. How much more loathe should Congress be to spend money not their own on “charity” for corporations and municipalities whose woes are largely self-inflicted, and at a time when we are trillions of dollars in debt. May God grant us not politicians, but statesmen of wisdom and character, like Davy Crockett, who value what is right more than re-election.
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This story appeared in The Life Of Colonel David Crockett, by Edward S. Ellis, published by Porter & Coates in 1884. Now in the public domain. Quoted from the website of Advocates for Self-Government at http://www.theadvocates.org/library/christian-crockett.html.
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