Hat Tip to Ayla Jean

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Not Yours To Give by Colonel David Crockett

Compiled by Edward S. Ellis

One day in the House of Representatives, a bill was taken up appropriating money for the benefit of a widow of a distinguished naval officer. Several beautiful speeches had been made in its support. The Speaker was just about to put the question when Crockett arose:

"Mr. Speaker--I have as much respect for the memory of the deceased, and as much sympathy for the sufferings of the living, if suffering there be, as any man in this House, but we must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for a part of the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living. I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has no power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member upon this floor knows it. We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of the public money. Some eloquent appeals have been made to us upon the ground that it is a debt due the deceased. Mr. Speaker, the deceased lived long after the close of the war; he was in office to the day of his death, and I have never heard that the government was in arrears to him.

Every man in this House knows it is not a debt. We cannot, without the grossest corruption, appropriate this money as the payment of a debt. We have not the semblance of authority to appropriate it as a charity. Mr. Speaker, I have said we have the right to give as much money of our own as we please. I am the poorest man on this floor. I cannot vote for this bill, but I will give one week's pay to the object, and if every member of Congress will do the same, it will amount to more than the bill asks."

He took his seat. Nobody replied. The bill was put upon its passage, and, instead of passing unanimously, as was generally supposed, and as, no doubt, it would, but for that speech, it received but few votes, and, of course, was lost.

Later, when asked by a friend why he had opposed the appropriation, Crockett gave this explanation:

"Several years ago I was one evening standing on the steps of the Capitol with some other members of Congress, when our attention was attracted by a great light over in Georgetown . It was evidently a large fire. We jumped into a hack and drove over as fast as we could. In spite of all that could be done, many houses were burned and many families made homeless, and, besides, some of them had lost all but the clothes they had on. The weather was very cold, and when I saw so many women and children suffering, I felt that something ought to be done for them. The next morning a bill was introduced appropriating $20,000 for their relief. We put aside all other business and rushed it through as soon as it could be done.

"The next summer, when it began to be time to think about the election, I concluded I would take a scout around among the boys of my district. I had no opposition there, but, as the election was some time off, I did not know what might turn up. When riding one day in a part of my district in which I was more of a stranger than any other, I saw a man in a field plowing and coming toward the road. I gauged my gait so that we should meet as he came to the fence. As he came up, I spoke to the man. He replied politely, but, as I thought, rather coldly.

"I began: 'Well, friend, I am one of those unfortunate beings called candidates, and--'

"'Yes, I know you; you are Colonel Crockett, I have seen you once before, and voted for you the last time you were elected. I suppose you are out electioneering now, but you had better not waste your time or mine. I shall not vote for you again.'

"This was a sockdolager . . . I begged him to tell me what was the matter. 

"'Well, Colonel, it is hardly worth-while to waste time or words upon it. I do not see how it can be mended, but you gave a vote last winter which shows that either you have not capacity to understand the Constitution, or that you are wanting in the honesty and firmness to be guided by it. In either case you are not the man to represent me. But I beg your pardon for expressing it in that way. I did not intend to avail myself of the privilege of the constituent to speak plainly to a candidate for the purpose of insulting or wounding you. I intend by it only to say that your understanding of the Constitution is very different from mine; and I will say to you what, but for my rudeness, I should not have said, that I believe you to be honest. . . . But an understanding of the Constitution different from mine I cannot overlook, because the Constitution, to be worth anything, must be held sacred, and rigidly observed in all its provisions. The man who wields power and misinterprets it is the more dangerous the more honest he is.'

"'I admit the truth of all you say, but there must be some mistake about it, for I do not remember that I gave any vote last winter upon any constitutional question.'

"'No, Colonel, there's no mistake. Though I live here in the backwoods and seldom go from home, I take the papers from Washington and read very carefully all the proceedings of Congress. 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?'

"'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 intrusted 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.'

"I tell you I felt streaked. I saw if I should have opposition, and this man should go to talking, he would set others to talking, and in that district I was a gone fawn-skin. I could not answer him, and the fact is, I was so fully convinced that he was right, I did not want to. But I must satisfy him, and I said to him:

"'Well, my friend, you hit the nail upon the head when you said I had not sense enough to understand the Constitution. I intended to be guided by it, and thought I had studied it fully. I have heard many speeches in Congress about the powers of Congress, but what you have said here at your plow has got more hard, sound sense in it than all the fine speeches I ever heard. If I had ever taken the view of it that you have, I would have put my head into the fire before I would have given that vote; and if you will forgive me and vote for me again, if I ever vote for another unconstitutional law I wish I may be shot.'

"He laughingly replied: 'Yes, Colonel, you have sworn to that once before, but I will trust you again upon one condition. You say that you are convinced that your vote was wrong. Your acknowledgment of it will do more good than beating you for it. If, as you go around the district, you will tell people about this vote, and that you are satisfied it was wrong, I will not only vote for you, but will do what I can to keep down opposition, and, perhaps, I may exert some little influence in that way.' 

 "'If I don't,' said I, 'I wish I may be shot; and to convince you that I am in earnest in what I say I will come back this way in a week or ten days, and if you will get up a gathering of the people, I will make a speech to them. Get up a barbecue, and I will pay for it.'

"'No, Colonel, we are not rich people in this section, but we have plenty of provisions to contribute for a barbecue, and some to spare for those who have none. The push of crops will be over in a few days, and we can then afford a day for a barbecue. This is Thursday; I will see to getting it up on Saturday week. Come to my house on Friday, and we will go together, and I promise you a very respectable crowd to see and hear you.'

"'Well, I will be here. But one thing more before I say good-by. I must know your name.'

"'My name is Bunce.'

"'Not Horatio Bunce?'

"'Yes.'

"'Well, Mr. Bunce, I never saw you before, though you say you have seen me, but I know you very well. I am glad I have met you, and very proud that I may hope to have you for my friend.'

"It was one of the luckiest hits of my life that I met him. He mingled but little with the public, but was widely known for his remarkable intelligence and incorruptible integrity, and for a heart brimful and running over with kindness and benevolence, which showed themselves not only in words but in acts. He was the oracle of the whole country around him, and his fame had extended far beyond the circle of his immediate acquaintance. Though I had never met him before, I had heard much of him, and but for this meeting it is very likely I should have had opposition, and had been beaten. One thing is very certain, no man could now stand up in that district under such a vote.

"At the appointed time I was at his house, having told our conversation to every crowd I had met, and to every man I stayed all night with, and I found that it gave the people an interest and a confidence in me stronger than I had every seen manifested before.

"Though I was considerably fatigued when I reached his house, and, under ordinary circumstances, should have gone early to bed, I kept him up until midnight, talking about the principles and affairs of government, and got more real, true knowledge of them than I had got all my life before.

"I have known and seen much of him since, for I respect him--no, that is not the word--I reverence and love him more than any living man, and I go to see him two or three times every year; and I will tell you, sir, if every one who professes to be a Christian lived and acted and enjoyed it as he does, the religion of Christ would take the world by storm.

"But to return to my story. The next morning we went to the barbecue, and, to my surprise, found about a thousand men there. I met a good many whom I had not known before, and they and my friend introduced me around until I had got pretty well acquainted--at least, they all knew me.

"In due time notice was given that I would speak to them. They gathered up around a stand that had been erected. I opened my speech by saying:

"'Fellow-citizens--I present myself before you today feeling like a new man. My eyes have lately been opened to truths which ignorance or prejudice, or both, had heretofore hidden from my view. I feel that I can today offer you the ability to render you more valuable service than I have ever been able to render before. I am here today more for the purpose of acknowledging my error than to seek your votes. That I should make this acknowledgment is due to myself as well as to you. Whether you will vote for me is a matter for your consideration only.'

"I went on to tell them about the fire and my vote for the appropriation and then told them why I was satisfied it was wrong. I closed by saying:

"'And now, fellow-citizens, it remains only for me to tell you that the most of the speech you have listened to with so much interest was simply a repetition of the arguments by which your neighbor, Mr. Bunce, convinced me of my error.

"'It is the best speech I ever made in my life, but he is entitled to the credit for it. And now I hope he is satisfied with his convert and that he will get up here and tell you so.'

"He came upon the stand and said:

"'Fellow-citizens--It affords me great pleasure to comply with the request of Colonel Crockett. I have always considered him a thoroughly honest man, and I am satisfied that he will faithfully perform all that he has promised you today.'

"He went down, and there went up from that crowd such a shout for Davy Crockett as his name never called forth before.

"I am not much given to tears, but I was taken with a choking then and felt some big drops rolling down my cheeks. And I tell you now that the remembrance of those few words spoken by such a man, and the honest, hearty shout they produced, is worth more to me than all the honors I have received and all the reputation I have ever made, or ever shall make, as a member of Congress.

"Now, sir," concluded Crockett, "you know why I made that speech yesterday.

"There is one thing now to which I will call your attention. You remember that I proposed to give a week's pay. There are in that House many very wealthy men--men who think nothing of spending a week's pay, or a dozen of them, for a dinner or a wine party when they have something to accomplish by it. Some of those same men made beautiful speeches upon the great debt of gratitude which the country owed the deceased--a debt which could not be paid by money--and the insignificance and worthlessness of money, particularly so insignificant a sum as $10,000, when weighted against the honor of the nation. Yet not one of them responded to my proposition.

Money with them is nothing but trash when it is to come out of the people. But it is the one great thing for which most of them are striving, and many of them sacrifice honor, integrity, and justice to obtain it."

Holders of political office are but reflections of the dominant leadership--good or bad--among the electorate.  

Horatio Bunce is a striking example of responsible citizenship. Were his kind to multiply, we would see many new faces in public office; or, as in the case of Davy Crockett, a new Crockett.  

For either the new faces or the new Crocketts, we must look to the Horatio in ourselves!

http://fee.org/nff/not-yours-to-give/

Thank you Jim,

I appreciate the time and the dedication you give to all who chooses to read your threads. I personally love reading them and learning more about our patriotic ancestors.

God Bless You Jim

And God Bless America and our Veterans!

If Obama proves unable to stand tall for America on principle, he will weaken America and place us all in great danger

Defending American Liberty: It’s still about Communism

At the 1964 Republican Convention, Barry Morse Goldwater said this about Liberty during a stirring speech where he accepted the Republican Nomination:

“Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. ... Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”

I remember well that the Democrat Party and Bill Moyers branded Barry Goldwater as a dangerous fanatic who would blow up the world. They made this smear throughout the 1964 Campaign, despite the facts that Goldwater was not only a distinguished Senator and a very good friend of the late JFK, but also that Barry Goldwater was a General in the US Air Force Reserve!

In 1964, America was confronted with the relentless advance of Communist tyranny thoughout the world. The Soviet Union and Communist China were fighting proxy wars and propaganda wars all over the world through client nations. Liberal Elites constantly reminded us that if we had only treated Joe Stalin and the Soviets better in the aftermath of World War II that we would have avoided the Cold War and the Nuclear Arms race entirely. If President Truman had not used the Atom Bomb on Japan, they argued, we might well have avoided the Nuclear Arms Race. We would have all been singing “Kumbaya” in the 60s instead of fighting a Communist Proxy War in the jungles of Vietnam. Many  readers may have experienced this line of reasoning, or similar ones, from their Liberal professors in college, even to this day.
 
The true lesson was that Communism was not monolithic. The Soviets were, in fact, not eight feet tall. The Russian and Chinese Soviets were experts at “brinkmanship” I think JFK came to understand this all too well. He was assassinated by a Castro sympathizer and assassin, Lee Harvy Oswald. Oswald may well have been part of an ethereal communist cabal that evaporated went back under their rocks from whence it came once the deed was done.
 
But I digress.
 
Barry Goldwater’s “extremist rhetoric” [a favorite Left Wing smear] words were certainly no more extreme than most of the writings of Paine, Jefferson, Hamilton or Madison before and during our Revolution. Take your time and read but a few randomly selected quotes from each of these ardent patriots and judge for yourself:
 
“It is part of the American character to consider nothing as desperate.” - Thomas Jefferson
 
“The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time.” - Thomas Jefferson
 
“The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God.” - Thomas Jefferson

“A thousand years hence, perhaps in less, America may be what Europe now is. The innocence of her character, that won the hearts of all nations in her favor, may sound like a romance and her inimitable virtue as if it had never been. The ruin of that liberty which thousands bled for or struggled to obtain may just furnish materials for a village tale or extort a sigh from rustic sensibility, whilst the fashionable of that day, enveloped in dissipation, shall deride the principle and deny the fact.” - Thomas Paine
 
“A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice.”  - Thomas Paine
 
“I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ‘Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.” - Thomas Paine
 
“The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of Divinity itself, and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power.” - Alexander Hamilton
 
“The loss of liberty to a generous mind is worse than death; and yet we know there have been those in all ages who, for the sake of preferment or some imaginary honor, have freely lent a helping hand to oppress, nay, to destroy, their country.” Alexander Hamilton
 
“Do not separate text from historical background. If you do, you will have perverted and subverted the Constitution, which can only end in a distorted, bastardized form of illegitimate government.” - James Madison

“I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.” -James Madison
 
These quotes speak to the mind of some of the foremost patriots of that era. Not one of these men was timid in defense of Liberty and Freedom. I am growing more skeptical as to whether most Americans have the “right stuff” to defend our freedom and liberties. In a sad, but almost laughable commentary on modern Americans, most voters seem to think [as indicated in the recent election] that the machinery and the bureaucracy of National Government is the guarantor of said freedom and liberties.
 
Not too many years after Goldwater spoke his words, the nation was tired of LBJ’s and Nixon’s failure to pursue victory in Vietnam without a strategy or a determination to win. I often heard people say that in retrospect, they wished they had voted for Goldwater. After more than 50,000 American lives lost, Americans had time to reflect. To this day, I believe that Barry Goldwater would have won that war against totalitarian aggression. Read his indictment of the Democrat policies on appeasement of communism during his 1964 acceptance speech:

“Now, I needn’t remind you, or my fellow Americans regardless of party, that Republicans have shouldered this hard responsibility and marched in this cause before. It was Republican leadership under Dwight Eisenhower that kept the peace, and passed along to this administration the mightiest arsenal for defense the world has ever known.

And I needn’t remind you that it was the strength and the unbelievable will of the Eisenhower years that kept the peace by using our strength, by using it in the Formosa Strait, and in Lebanon, and by showing it courageously at all times.

It was during those Republican years that the thrust of Communist Imperialism was blunted. It was during those years of Republican leadership that this world moved closer not to war but closer to peace than at any other time in the last three decades.

And I needn’t remind you - but I will - that it’s been during Democratic years that our strength to deter war has been stilled and even gone into a planned decline. it has been during Democratic years that we have weakly stumbled into conflicts, timidly refusing to draw our own lines against aggression, deceitfully refusing to tell even our people of our full participation and tragically letting our finest men die on battlefields unmarked by purpose, unmarked by pride or the prospect of victory.

Yesterday it was Korea; tonight it is Vietnam. Make no bones of this. Don’t try to sweep this under the rug. We are at war in Vietnam. And yet the president, who is the commander in chief of our forces, refuses to say-refuses to say, mind you-whether or not the objective over there is victory, and his secretary of defense continues to mislead and misinformation the American people, and enough of it has gone by.

And, I needn’t remind you - but I will - it has been during Democratic years that a billion persons were cast into Communist captivity and their fate cynically sealed.

Today, today in our beloved country, we have an administration which seems eager to deal with communism in every coin known-from gold to wheat, from consulates to confidence, and even human freedom itself.

Now, the Republican cause demands that we brand communism as the principal disturber of peace in the world today. Indeed, we should brand it as the only significant disturber of the peace. And we must make clear that until its goals of conquest are absolutely renounced and its rejections with all nations tempered, communism and the governments it now controls are enemies of every man on earth who is or wants to be free.”

Wow! It is no wonder that the anti-Communist Ronald Reagan was inspired by Barry Goldwater to change parties and become a Republican.

We live in interesting times. I don’t believe Communism died in 1991. It was discredited. So, the Communists have adapted. They no longer call themselves Communists, just as Democrats avoid the adjective “Liberal.” They have cleverly infiltrated Interest Groups, Professions, and Organizations from which to wield their collectivist, socialist revoultionary influences and bullying tactics. Hard-boiled revolutionaries are predominating the Left-wing of the Democrat Party. Progressivism, Environmentalism, Higher Education, Teachers’ Unions, Activist Organizations like ACORN, the AARP, Organized Labor and Government Workers’ Unions have all adopted the “mass” politics techniques of classical Marxism.

Examples, Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, are just a tip on that iceberg; extreme Leftists in powerful and prestigious positions in American Education.

We must face up to both of these challenges. But before we can totally isolate and cure the cancerous ideas of Collectivist Socialism at home, we must also defeat Totalitarianism resolutely and in detail around the world. Otherwise the cancer will return.

So also today, make no bones about it. We are at war in the world; a war against Islamic Fascism overseas, and a war against ideas alien to American Constitutional Government at home. Parsing words about US intentions at home or overseas are not strategies for survival in a dangerous world. Historians, for example, now suggest that Red China believed they had a free hand in Korea because of a misstatement of US Foreign Policy by then Secretary of State Dean Acheson [under Truman]. More recently, a diplomatic blunder by our Ambassador to Iraq in 1990, may have signaled Saddam Hussein that he had a free hand to invade Kuwait. Similary, President Obama negotiating with dictators without precondition, is a recipe for the next international calamity. It is one thing to make fine speeches, to talk the talk. It is quite another to back up your rhetoric by walking the walk.

American President Theodore Roosevelt said in a Chicago Speech in April 1903:

“There is a homely old adage which runs: ‘Speak softly and carry and big stick; you will go far.’ If the American nation will speak softly, and yet build and keep at a pitch of the highest training a thoughly efficient navy, the Munroe Doctrine will go far.”

The Patriots I quoted above walked the walk and talked the talk. The eyes of the world are on President-elect Obama. Here is his big chance on the biggest stage to show that he is a freedom loving Constitutionalist American. If he shows he is up to that task we will prevail in Iraq and Afgahanstan, and we will counter the growing undemocratic influences in our own hemisphere. If Obama proves unable to stand tall for America on principle, and without regard to the whims of world public opinion, he will weaken America and place us all in great danger.

I wish the new president well. More importantly, I hope he will be sanguine and zealous in the protection of our interests. Sadly, I have my doubts.

As my father once opined regarding American Strength: “Better Brinkmanship than Chickenship.”
 
WILLIAM R. MANN
LTC, USA [Retired]
Aut pax aut bellum!

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