So you see, while you are contributing to relieve one, you are drawing it from thousands who are even worse off than he… The fact is, it wasn’t yours to give.
We talked about the Idea of America in honor of Independence Day yesterday. The idea is simple. You can be whoever you want to be in America. It’s the land of opportunity.
That opportunity only persists if individual liberty is respected, however. And as I alluded to yesterday, a century of public education has diminished our understanding of liberty in this country. The story of Colonel David Crockett’s time as Tennessee’s representative in Congress shines light on that fact…
Col. Crockett is better known as Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier in modern books and movies. But Crockett isn’t just a fictional character. He was a real person.
Crockett lived from 1786 to 1836. He was a colonel in the Tennessee militia. And he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1827. There, Crockett learned an important lesson on the nature of liberty and the role of government. That lesson comes to us from an account compiled by 19th-century author Edward Ellis.
The account starts when members of the House were debating a newly presented bill. It proposed to appropriate money from taxpayers for the benefit of a distinguished naval officer’s widow.
Several Congressmen had given passionate speeches in support of the bill. It seems even back then Congress fancied the idea that it could be all things to all people. The Speaker was just about to put the bill to a vote when Crockett stood up.
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.
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.
Crickets. Not a single Congressman responded to Crockett’s call for independent charity. But most of them did vote against the bill. That almost certainly wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for Crockett’s speech.
Later, a friend approached Davy and asked him why he opposed such a well-intentioned bill. Crockett responded by recounting a bill he had voted for several years earlier. It appropriated $20,000 in taxpayer money to provide relief to people impacted by a fire in Georgetown.
Crockett thought highly of the bill at the time. He figured it was the humane thing to do.
That is, until he went out campaigning for re-election in his district that next summer. As he was making his rounds, Crockett saw a man plowing his field one sunny afternoon. He timed his walk to meet the man as he neared his fence. Crockett began to introduce himself, but the man cut him off.
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.
Naturally, Davy asked the man why. What changed? How did he lose the man’s confidence?
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.
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?
Crockett responded that it was. And he suggested that nobody should object to spending a small amount of money to support victims of a fire. The man responded:
It is not the amount, Colonel, that I complain of. It is the principle… The power of collecting and disbursing money at pleasure is the most dangerous power that can be entrusted to man.
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, 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. 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.
So, 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.
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. The fact is, it wasn’t yours to give.
Food for thought as we honor America this week.
-Joe Withrow
P.S. For those who find little-known historical events like this one interesting, I would highly recommend Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom. Real history is so much more insightful than what we learned in our school textbooks.
If you would like to review Liberty Classroom’s course listings, just go right here: Tom Woods Liberty Classroom Course Listing