Davey Crockett, Constitutional Scholar?
(Continued)

“It is not the amount that I complain of,” Bunce emphasized. “It is the principle. If you had the right to give anything, the amount was just a matter of discretion with you, and you had as much right to give $20 million as $20,000…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.”

Bunce advised Crockett that his vote was a violation of the Constitution “fraught with danger” for the future of the country as it opened the door wide for corruption and favoritism on the one hand, and stealing from the people on the other. Bunce helped Crockett see his mistake, and Crockett was honest enough to then go around the district and admit his mistake to as many of his constituents as he could reach. And he got reelected.

Nearly 200 years later, it does not take a magnifying glass to see that the integrity of Bunce and Crockett did not prevail for long. The door to corruption and favoritism has been kicked off its hinges and through it has been flowing a torrent of congressional sleaze that is today choking our liberty and drowning us in debt.

According to a report released last November by the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP), www.opensecrets.org, 237 congressmen are millionaires; about one percent of Americans are millionaires compared to 44 percent of their representatives in Washington.

Wouldn’t it have been inspiring, for instance, to see Nancy Pelosi, among the 25 richest in Congress, backed by the richest Republican-Darrell Issa, offering to donate some of their own money, and inviting their colleagues to do the same, to start a trust fund to help poor people get medical care? It is not hard to imagine Americans following such a shining example and adding their own voluntary contributions to said fund. But giving their own money to a cause is a not as easy as giving ours.

As Davy Crockett put it, “There are in the House some very wealthy men…yet not one of them responded to my proposition” to give their own money to help the widow. “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 get it.”

Thanks to my brother, John, for providing the inspiration, and most of the words, for this column.

DAVID PRANGE is with ITW/QMI, suppliers of Full Throttle and Heartland products to the fast lube industry. He is available for training on a wide variety of topics and can be reached at 800.378.7891 or: daveprange@aol.com

Back
[ 1 ] [ 2 ]

[Printer-friendly version]