The Unmentionables

David Crockett

"The king of the wild frontier was also a champion of limited government."

Billy Bob Thornton he wasn't!

I alluded to this story in an earlier post without any details. Thank you, John Fund, for printing it all!

"The revisionist historian Jeff Long has gone further and declared that the Crockett who died at the Alamo was an "aging, semiliterate squatter of average talent" who had "accomplished nothing" in his six years in Congress."

Mr. Fund says this is much too harsh. Harsh? How polite. I'd say it's just so much bullshit. And quite obviously movie-goers agree with me, handing Disney yet another loss in their long line of abysmal revisionist-history movies.

This excerpt from Edward Ellis' biography of Crockett also shows the average voter in the 1830's was infinitely smarter than voters of today.

"An 1884 biography of Crockett by Edward Sylvester Ellis published an account of a speech Crockett gave on his views on government called "Not Yours to Give."

"Mr. Speaker--I have as much respect for the memory of the deceased, and as much sympathy for the suffering of the living, if there be, as any man in this House, but we must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for part of the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living."

--snip--

"Later, when asked by a friend why he had opposed the appropriation, Crockett said: "Several years ago, I was one evening standing on the steps of the Capitol with some members of Congress when our attention was attracted by a great light over in Georgetown. It was evidently a large fire. In spite of all that could be done, many houses were burned and many families made houseless. . . . The weather was very cold, and when I saw so many children suffering, I felt that something ought to be done. A bill was introduced appropriating $20,000 for their relief. We rushed it through.

"The next summer, when riding one day in a part of my district. I saw a man in a field plowing. I spoke to the man. He replied politely, but rather coldly.

" 'You are Colonel Crockett. I shall not vote for you again.' "

"I begged him tell me what was the matter."

"'Well Colonel, you gave a vote last winter which shows that either you have not capacity to understand the Constitution or that you are wanting in the honesty and firmness to be guided by it. You voted for a bill to appropriate $20,000 to some sufferers by fire in Georgetown.

" 'Certainly nobody will complain that a great and rich country like ours should give $20,000 to relieve its suffering women and children, particularly with a full and overflowing treasury,' I replied."

"'It is not the amount, Colonel, it is the principle. The power of collecting and disbursing money at pleasure is the most dangerous power that can be entrusted to man. . . . 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. 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.'"

Oh, yeah!