Sunday, March 22, 2009
With almost a trillion taxpayer dollars being used to bailout the financial industries and other private sectors, members of Congress should heed a lesson from one of their own —Congressman Davy Crockett from Tennessee.
Crockett, who would die a hero at the Alamo, reportedly learned a lesson about government bailouts from Horatio Bunce, a constituent of Crockett’s.
Not unlike our current crop of Fedzilla elected officials, Congressman Crockett had voted to appropriate $20,000 in taxpayer dollars to the victims of a large fire in nearby Georgetown.
While on the re-election campaign trail, Crockett came upon Bunce, who said he had voted for him once before but would not vote for him again. Crockett asked why. Bunce replied:
“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. The Constitution, to be worth anything, must be held sacred, and rigidly observed in all its provisions.
“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. Well, Colonel, where do you find in the Constitution any authority to give away public money in charity? 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.
“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 . . . a precedent fraught with danger . . . 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.”
Words of contrition
Crockett was dumbfounded.
“I could not answer him,” he said. “I was so fully convinced that he was right.”
Crockett said to Bunce, “Well, my friend, you hit the nail upon the head when you said I had not sense enough to understand the Constitution. If you will forgive me and vote for me again, if I ever vote for another nonconstitutional law, I wish I may be shot.”
Legend or truth, the lesson is what is important.
Are we going to continue to let Fedzilla run amuck, blow our tax dollars without regard to the Constitution or our will, and sink America further into debt? Or are we going to be like Horatio Bunce and demand Fedzilla be put on strict diet?
When you boil down this previous election, it was about socialism vs. free market and the role of the federal government. Americans spoke: In Fedzilla we trust.
While travelling around America in the 1830s, French statesman Alex de Tocqueville observed, “The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.”
Pogo was right: We have met the enemy and he is us.
Ted Nugent is a Waco-based musician and television show host.
