[417] in libertarians
Not yours to give
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Raymie Stata)
Wed Nov 16 13:25:48 1994
To: objectivism@MIT.EDU, libertarians@MIT.EDU
From: Raymie Stata <raymie@larch.lcs.mit.edu>
Date: Wed, 16 Nov 94 13:10:05 EST
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From: InfoBot@andronix.org
From: F_GAUTJW@CCSVAX.SFASU.EDU "J.W. Gaut - AARC - Mathematics & Statistics"
Subject: The Education of Davy Crockett
THE U.S. CONSTITUTION DOES NOT AUTHORIZE ANY GOVERNMENT SERVANT TO
MISAPPROPRIATE EVEN $1.00 OF YOUR MONEY FOR CHARITY TO OTHER
PERSONS OR TO OTHER NATIONS.
NOT YOURS TO GIVE
from: The Life of Colonel David Crockett
compiled by: Edward S. Ellis (Philadelphia, Porter & Coates, 1884).
IS GOVERNMENT "CHARITY" REALLY THEFT?
One day in the United States 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 David Croquet 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 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 the 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 house 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 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 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 wanting 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 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 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 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 your 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 $2,000,000 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 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 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 your 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-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 know 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 word but 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 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 know 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 know before, and they and my friend introduced me around
until I had got pretty well acquainted -- at least, they 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 on 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 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."
-- The Foundation for Economic Education Inc., U.S.A.
... False philanthropy leads to legalized plunder
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