Posted: 8/18/2019
It is one of those speeches most past and present politicians never want you to learn about!
If I had to choose between the much too famous and very overrated Lincoln’s Gettyburg address and Crockett’s little known “ Not Yours To Give ” speech, I gladly take the latter! I have intentionally picked the Gettysburg Address, because, as I have argued here in my blog, to me President Lincoln and the totally unnecessary American Civil War is probably the best identifiable point in time in U.S. history when Big Government first clearly emerged and after which it expanded ever since.
The David Crockett reportedly gave this speech in the U.S. House of Representatives and it is recapitulated in Chapter 8 “A sensible and timely view of a certain constitutional question”, p. 137-140 of a book by Edward Sylvester Ellis (see S1; emphasis added). The speech is believed to be given by David Crockett on 4/22/1828 (S3). Unfortunately, speeches in the U.S. House of Representation were not officially transcribed at that time to my understanding.
Here is finally the speech by David Crockett (emphasis added):
“I was one day in the lobby of the House of Representatives when a bill was taken up appropriating money for the benefit of a widow of a distinguished naval officer [Stephen Decatur]. Several beautiful speeches had been made in its support, rather, as I thought, because it affords the speakers a fine opportunity for display than from the necessity to convince anybody, for it seemed to me that everybody favored it. The Speaker was just about to put the question when Davy Crockett 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 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. This government can owe no debts but for services rendered , and at a stipulated price. If it is a debt, how much is it? Has it been audited, and the amount due ascertained? If it is a debt this is not the place to present it for payment, or have its merits examined. If it is a debt we owe more than we can ever hope to pay , for we owe the widow of every soldier of the war of 1812 precisely the same amount. There is a woman in my neighborhood , the widow as gallant a man who ever shouldered a musket. He fell in battle. She is as good in every respect as this lady, and is as poor. She is earning her daily bread by her daily labor, and if I were to introduce a bill to appropriate five or ten thousand dollars for her benefit , I should be laughed at, and my bill would not get five votes in this House. There are thousands of widows in this country just such as the one I have spoken of; but we never hear of any of these large debts to them. Sir, this is no debt. The government did not owe to the deceased when he was alive; it could not contract it after he died. I do not wish to be rude, but I must be plain.
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 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.”
The book continuous: “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.” (S1; emphasis added)
One may add that the widow of Stephen Decatur was very persistent: “Decatur's widow, Susan, tried for several years to receive a pension from the U.S. Government. By an act of Congress on March 3, 1837, she was granted a pension retroactive to Decatur's death.” (S5; emphasis added) So by 1837, the U.S. Congress had already forgotten the speech given by David Crocket (unfortunately never officially transcribed)!
It is also important to note in this context that Stephen Decatur did not die while in service, but in a duel. Decatur had no good reason to accept this particular duel from a naval officer he had court-martialed (that is another story)!
Even if Edvard Sylvester Ellis completely invented this speech it does not affect or diminish its tremendous importance! What is the importance of this speech :
An early and strong rebuke of the coming welfare state
Crocket exposed the many silly ways our elected representatives would abuse taxpayers’ money
Emphasis on individual responsibility and to set a personal example for charity. If you give to a charitable cause, others will follow
Although little known, this speech deserves to be right up there with other, famous orations like the famous Pericles’ Funeral Oration
P.S. The same chapter (i.e. XIII) of the book (S1) contains more very interesting discussions about the U.S. Constitution following the Not Yours To Give speech. It turns out that Crocket learnt from a previous mistake! Here are more excerpts (emphasis added):
“Well, Colonel [Crockett] where in the Constitution do you find any authority to give away the public money in charity”
“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. … The power of collecting and disbursing money at pleasure is the most dangerous power that can be intrusted to man … there is not a man in the United States who can ever guess how much he pays to the government. So you see, so while you [member of the U.S. Congress] are contributing to relieve one you are drawing it from the thousands who are even worse off than he. … 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 the one hand, and for robbing the people on the other. No Colonel, Congress has no right to give charity. Individual members [of the U.S. Congress] 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, except as far as you are personally concerned, and you see that I cannot vote for you”
Unfortunately, the United States has come along way to abandon those sound principles!
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