Not Yours To Give

The following excerpt is from "Not Yours To Give" by Col. David Crockett US Representative from Tennessee. This work was originally published in "The Life of Colonel David Crockett," by Edward Sylvester Ellis.

The concepts, ideas, principles and simple understanding of the Constitution contained in this passage are astounding. They should be revolutionary on a personal level to all Americans. How far have we come? Do we even understand our government and how it was meant to function. In the end, the question must be this...are freedom and libery important to us? If the answer is yes then we have such work to do...America is the last best hope on earth but we must on occasion take a moment to clear our heads and remember what has made us great. Never forgeting the past but always focusing on the future.

And so it is told -- A bill was taken up in the House of Representatives appropriating money for the benefit of a widow of a naval officer. More than one flowery 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 suffering of the living, if there be, as any man in this House, but we must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for 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 not the power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member on 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 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 ever 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 emblance of authority to appropriate it as 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 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 houseless, 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 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 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 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 sockdolger...I begged him tell me what was the matter."Well Colonel, it is hardly worthwhile 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 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 you 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 honest he is.'" 'I admit the truth of all you say, but there must be some mistake. Though I live 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 you voted for a bill to appropriate $20,000 to some sufferers by 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 the same 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 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 at 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 country 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 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 necessity of 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 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 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 ernest 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 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 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-bye. 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 for a heart brim-full 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 confidence in me stronger than I had ever 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 up to 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 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 $20,000 when weighed 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."

A Modest Proposal for Modern America

The bright shinning bastion of modern, open-minded and dare I say progressive thought - San Francisco has done it! Just when so many of us may have begun to believe it was not possible they have taken the next great leap forward in the evolution of the species. Forward thinking liberals and the great leaders of the animal rights movement have finally joined together for the benefit of us all.


These super beings of intellectualism and taken a step closer to Nirvana by proposing that all cats and dogs that choose to continue their co-habitation with their hommo sapien caretakers (or partners if you prefer) within the city be educated and then directed to be spade or neutered. Granted, we must lay aside momentarily a grave concern as to whether the terms spay or neuter are even appropriate...as we must never allow any animal to be deprived of its right to choose its gender affiliation freely without allowing a bigoted and male centric society to pre-impose a gender on any being. But I digress that is a crusade that we must temporarily set aside for another time while we celebrate and pay homage to the imminent and glorious victory for equality, freedom and justice in San Francisco.


Finally, ignorant and hateful pet owners will now be educated and then gently prompted by their intelligent and caring governmental officials to do that which they have known all along was truly the right thing anyway. All pet owners will be able join together hand-in-hand in a glorious popular movement to free their cats and dogs from the burden and stigma of unwanted pregnancies. Think of it...no more mother cats having to scrounge in alleyways to find just enough food to feed their babies. No more free loading dead beat dad dogs coercing female dogs into having sex and then abandoning their families as soon as the pups start yapping. No more overcrowding in community vet clinics or humane shelters. No more poor kittens without the opportunity to go to a good obedience school. No more poor little pups who live in an overcrowded kennel without the chance play in the best dog parks or eat organic dog food. Come to think of it if this works...no more unruly kittens or puppies anywhere...no more untrained little runts running around chewing up my Birkenstocks or peeing on my feet outside of Starbucks. No more of those annoying little untrained, mutts and mangy kittens...period. Well, I guess it would mean no more dogs or cats at all I suppose...


But that is not the point, this is a glorious victory for animal rights and progressive thought. It is right. It is good. Better not to have any dogs or cats than to have some of them be homeless or live in poverty. Better to have never lived then to be forced to deal with child bearing and child rearing and what about the canine rape epidemic and societies bias against homosexual and transgender dogs and cats. Better that there be no future generations of dogs and cats than to have them live in a world filled with poverty and war and global warming and republicans who will want to make clothes out of them or use them for cosmetics testing in some lab. Far better that they not exist than be brought into an imperfect world, right?


Surely, the brilliant leaders of San Fran have thought of this and they have developed a program for selective breeding...they must have. We could take the very best and brightest hommo sapien caretakers and have them apply for a license to form a civil union with the very best and brightest cats and dogs perfectly selected for breeding. The male animals would have their semen extracted in a hospital and the females would be artificially inseminated. Eliminating the puritanical constraints of sexual activity for breeding purposes only which merely robs "it" (if you know what I mean) of pleasure anyway. Then shortly after child-birth, I mean animal birth, the little ones would be removed from their parents care and placed in public obedience boarding schools to be raised by highly trained scientists and developmental experts. After bearing one litter, all females would be surgical freed from the strain of future pregnancies and all males would have a similar procedure after enough semen had been extracted to ensure continuation of their positive traits in future generations. Thus freeing this super beings of animal intellectualism to pursue their careers, find themselves and have multiple partners of whatever gender they prefer to co-habitate with.


Clearly, the city officials in San Francisco have thought of this whole program and will be announcing it very soon. We can only hold our breath and wait for the next glorious announcement from San Fransisco...I for one am hoping that they will soon take on the growing and alarming pet health insurance crisis. After all, don't all cats and dogs have a right to free or affordable quality health care? And then they can take on the corporate fat cats of the pet food manufacturing industry that do not use all organic or vegan ingredients and intentionally market fattening foods to kittens and puppies. Or better yet they can seek stiffer regulations for the manufacturing facilities with production methods that utilize carbon producing energy.

Well, more to follow on these exciting developments but know I have got go and let our dog out...I think it just peed on the carpet again...maybe we will move to San Fransisco. Does anyone know if they will even let you drive an old gas guzzling pickup truck with a "What would Reagen do?" bumper sticker on it inside the city limits? I guess it might be fun to find out.

When Traditional American Values Seem Crazy

I was watching the Republican Presidential debate this week and I was happy to see the surprising presence of a new face. Standing on the far left of the stage meticulously dressed in a dark suit, white shirt and deep red tie was none other than Alan Keyes. I was surprised and excited. Alan Keyes is a new and late comer to this primary season but he is not new to Presidential politics. He is a brilliant scholar and renowned debater. True his greatest political achievement was a surprising third place finish in the 2000 Iowa Caucus, but nevertheless I was excited to see him on the stage.

Agree or disagree with his politics...Alan Keyes is a straight shooting hard charging statesman. He says what he believes and he will not apologize for it. He said seemingly unheard of things in the debate...like he believes that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights...I found myself thinking, "is he allowed to say that on television?" I mean sure all the candidates in both parties pay lip service to faith and mention God, but this guys talks about God as if he were real and involved in the affairs of man.

I have to say that I am glad that Alan Keyes is back in the race because love him or hate him you sit up and listen to what he has to say. He certainly had me thinking and maybe that is good for the process. After all when did quoting the founding fathers start to sound crazy or even unusual?