Charity and the good ol' Constitution

"Where do you find in the Constitution any authority to give away the public money in charity?"

It might be a question out of today's headlines, but it isn't.

No doubt, it could rightly be asked in the health-care debate, but it goes well beyond that. In every disaster, in every disturbance, the federal government today is ready with a checkbook at hand to help those in need. Hurricane Katrina? California fires? Montana snowstorms? They've all been declared disasters in order to justify federal spending to help out the victims and to speed recovery. The average number of disaster declarations reached as high as 130 during the George W. Bush administration, an increase of almost 50 percent over the Clinton era.

Of course, no one could be against helping the innocent victims of natural or manmade disasters, could they? Well, no. Not anyone in their right mind, at least. Charity is one of the highest impulses of mankind, and our desire to help and protect each other is a noble heritage that we all cherish.

But that does not ans-wer the original question:

"Where do you find in the Constitution any authority to give away the public money in charity?"

That question was asked not of President Obama nor of Sen. Max Baucus or Rep. Nancy Pelosi, but of the less well-known Tennessee congressman, David Crockett.

It was a question that Rep. Crockett was not well-prepared to answer, but his constituent wanted to know why he had voted to spend federal funds for the relief of families that had been left homeless as the result of a ravaging fire in Georgetown. Crockett had actually seen the fire and gone to help rescue women and children and to fight the flames, so he was more than happy a bill came before Congress to aid those victims further. As he himself said, "We put aside all other business, and rushed it through as soon as it could be done."

Again, sort of reminiscent of the "rush" to pass health-care 'reform" in the current Congress, but whereas we are talking about spending a trillion dollars or more for health-care reform, the fire relief was the relatively paltry sum of $20,000.

That's because this was back in the 1820s, and Rep. Crockett was none other than the American folk hero, Davy Crockett, "king of the wild frontier." Crockett served three terms in Congress altogether before being killed defending the Alamo in Texas.

But back to our story, which comes from an 1884 biography, "The Life of Colonel David Crockett" by Edward S. Ellis, it is instructive to note the puzzlement of Rep. Crockett when he was challenged by his constituent Horatio Bunce while out stumping for votes. Bunce told Crockett in no uncertain terms that he could not vote for him again.

"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. In either case you are not the man to represent me," Bunce said in the story, as allegedly recounted by Crockett.

By today's mainstream-media standards, Bunce would clearly be known as a right-wing extremist, and if he expressed his concerns at a town-hall meeting this summer he would have been labeled "un-American."

Even Crockett, before finding out what was on Bunce's mind, said, "I had been making up my mind that he was one of those churlish fellows who care for nobody but themselves, and take bluntness for independence."

But that was before the Tennessee farmer had asked his devastating question, which Crockett described colorfully as a 'sockdologer!" which roughly translated means a comment that could set a person to thinking.

And think, Crockett did, trying in vain to find some justification for his vote in favor of the $20,000 in charity.

"When I began to think about it, I could not remember a thing in the Constitution that authorized it. I found I must take another tack, so I said: '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.'"

But Horatio Bunce, a one-man "Tea Party" of his day, was having none of it. Rather than be hornswoggled by Crockett's attempt to deflect the argument away from the Constitution, he circled right back to it:

"In the first place," he said, 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… [W]hile you 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 $20,000,000 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 the 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."

Now, how this applies to health care is quite simple. There's no difference between giving money to individual citizens because they have lost their house in a fire or giving money to citizens because they have fallen ill. It is, to use Horatio Bunce's word, "charity." It is, thus, not surprising that the recipients of this government-funded charity, who would number in the millions, have taken to acting as if they are entitled to health-care assistance, whatever you wish to call it.

Likewise, the victims of the fire who were the beneficiaries of Congress' generosity with other people's money were happy to have it, and so were the average and well-to-do citizens who might otherwise have been asked to contribute to a fire-relief fund. Bunce lectured Crockett accordingly:

"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."

The well-spoken farmer concluded his presentation thusly: "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."

That, ladies and gentleman, is a powerful statement, which has been amply demonstrated to be true in the subsequent 180 years. Those folks who today meretriciously dismiss the constitutional argument as an irrelevancy in the health-care debate show just how far off course we have gotten.

The only hope we have now is that our congressional representatives and senators have a smidgen of the integrity of Davy Crockett, who having been instructed in the truth was man enough to accept it.

"Well, my friend, you hit the nail upon the head when you said I had not sense enough to understand the Constitution," he told his accuser. "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."

Bunce wryly shot back at Crockett: "Yes, Colonel, you have sworn to that once before," referring to his sacred vow to uphold the Constitution, a vow that not only he but all congressmen and elected representatives take, whether they have read the Constitution or not.

In this day and age, the only congressman I know of who follows Crockett's example as a born-again constitutionalist is Ron Paul, who never votes for a bill without first confirming in his own mind that Congress is authorized by the Constitution to pass such a law. Most of the rest of them just ask themselves how popular the bill will be, and whether it will help or hurt their efforts to be re-elected.

Yes, the Constitution is a relatively old document, but it is not moldy, and if we think of it as quaint and irrelevant, we do so at the ultimate cost of our liberty. That would be unconscionable.

Let's hope that this story of Rep. David Crockett and a plain old U.S. citizen who held him accountable helps to remind each and every one of us that America's exceptional quality is partly based on the fact that we are ruled from the bottom up. It is "we the people," not "we the governed."

It is important also to remember that solutions to most American problems are to be found in American lore and history - if one could but be bothered to look. Although times change, human nature doesn't, nor does the nature of our republic, as long as it stands fast and hews to the line of the Constitution.

n Frank Miele is managing editor of the Daily Inter Lake and writes a weekly column. E-mail responses may be sent to edit@dailyinterlake.com