I grew up in the 1950’s and, as did many youngsters of my age, I idolized Davy Crockett. Each episode of the Walt Disney produced weekly television of The Adventures of Davy Crockett starring Fess Parker and Buddy Ebsen became fodder for all of the neighborhood kids to act out the following week. Of course, all of us had coon-skinned caps and toy replicas of Old Betsy, Crockett’s cherished rifle. We learned as we grew into adulthood that many of Crockett’s tales were mere myths sprinkled with only a touch of truth as is this week’s story.
To set the stage, here are some truths about David Crockett (1786-1836). He represented Tennessee in the U.S. House of Representatives, served in the Texas Revolution from Mexico, and he died at the Alamo. He grew up in East Tennessee, where he gained a reputation as a “dead-eye” hunter and a consummate storyteller. After rising to the rank of colonel in the militia of Lawrence County, Tennessee, Crockett was elected to the Tennessee state legislature in 1821. Five years later, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. As a congressman, Crockett was a staunch opponent of many of the policies of President Andrew Jackson, especially the Indian Removal Act. After his eventual reelection defeat, Crockett joined the struggle for Texas independence from Mexico and he was one of the defenders of the Alamo slain by the troops of Mexican General Santa Anna.
This story, which has been widely debunked as a fiction, is about a purported speech given by Crockett before the House of Representatives. Even if not not factual, like many parables, it has significance in light of the view of many today that it is the government’s obligation to provide an ever-expanding litany of its people’s wants and needs rather than it being our own responsibility.
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 before the House when Mr. Crockett arose:
“Mr. Speaker–I have as much respect for the memory of the deceased, as much sympathy for the suffering 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 any 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 upon the ground that it is due as a debt to 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 a 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.”
Crockett 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 have, but for that speech, it received but a few votes, and of course, was lost.
Later, when asked by a friend why he had opposed the appropriation, Crockett gave this following 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 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 out 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 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 would 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 startled me…I begged him to 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 the 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 or wounding you. I intended 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 misrepresents it is the more dangerous the more honest he is’
“I admit the truth to 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 carefully all the proceedings in 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 our 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’s not the amount, Colonel, that I complain of; it is the principle. In the first place, the government ought to have in its 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 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 Unites 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 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 five $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 anything 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 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 house had been burned in this county as in Georgetown, neither you nor any 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 suffers by contributing each one week’s pay, it would have made over $13,000. There are plenty of people about Washington who could have given $20,000 without depriving them 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 credible; and the people about Washington, no doubt, applauded you for relieving them of 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 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 could not answer him, for the fact is, I was so fully convinced 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 did not have 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 more hard, sound sense in it than all the fine speeches I have 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 I ever vote for another unconstitutional law I wish I may be shot.”
It may sound reactionary, I know. But we can all feel it. We’ve changed the way we think of ourselves as citizens. We don’t think of ourselves as citizens in the old sense of being small parts of something larger and infinitely more important to which we have serious responsibilities. We do still think of ourselves as citizens in the sense of being beneficiaries–we’re actually conscious of our rights as American citizens and the nation’s responsibilities to us and ensuring we get our share of the American pie. We think of ourselves now as eaters of the pie instead of makers of the pie. So who makes the pie?
…
Something has happened where we’ve decided on a personal level that it’s all right to abdicate our individual responsibility to the common good and let government worry about the common good while we all go about our individual self-interested business and struggle to gratify our various appetites.
– David Foster Wallace
Have an AWE-full Weekend!
William J. “Bill” Bacqué