“We must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living. I will not attempt 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 to appropriate a dollar of the public money.”

No one can say it any better.

I'm with Cal ! ! ! EXCELLENT ! ! !Appropriation of public money for charity, is the act of a theocracy, not a lawfully abiding Representative Republic (limited by the de jure Constitution).

Great quote !!! Ever notice how Congress people are said to be such great humanitarians when they give away other peoples money.

It is error to think of money that belongs to the government as your money. When you earn dollar one a portion of that dollar is the governments not yours. When you purchase or spend dollar one in most jurisdictions a portion of it belongs to government. Now this principle does not exist in the jungle, or from the backwoods that Davey came from.

It is wrong to think of funding relief for a widow of the military as "charity". Obligations of society are not "charity".

Anonymous - It is not the place of government to take the fruits of someone's labor and dole it out to someone else. Nowhere is this allowed in the U.S. Constitution's enumerated and limited powers. Congress does not have that power or authority to be altruistic with the taxpayers money. It is up to the individual to decide and make that choice to help in charitable causes through their community, places of worship, et al. -- and as one individual helping another. Those in Congress who violate their oath and dole out other peoples money are all too often UNLAWFULLY buying votes and playing favorites to the detriment of others. Thus violating their sacred trust. Davey Crockett was upholding his oath of office to adhere wholly to every nuance contained within the four corners of the U.S. Constitution which he swore a sacred oath and thus made a sacred contract to uphold and adhere to.

Wafflerin what way does "our" hard earned money belong to the Government or anyone else who doesn't earn it? It's one thing to pay taxes on goods or services to maintain infrastrucure, it's quite another to be robbed right at your paycheck to service the interest...just the "interest" on loans of worthless paper made to the Government by a private corporation. It's extortion, period.

Waffler, thank you for clarifying your position on how un-American and anti-freedom and rights you are. For one, that means you are a liar (no truth being in you) if you say the government is me or us. I have no right (ownership or otherwise) to you or your labor or, you me/mine. You just made a most clear designation that government is an absolute separate third party in toto aloof from 'We The People'; and, openly made the claim that said third party is an organic hegemony that owns each individual of 'We The People's' being and labor. You are correct, slavery did not / does not exist at natural law, it only exists in socialist theocracies (the de jure U.S.A. is not one of those). I've asked you over the years, where or what is the lawful nexus, actionable event, or operation of law that forcefully and absolutely transfers ownership of the individual sovereign's being and labors to the inorganic concept government (in a Constitutionally limiting Representative Republic - government being the abstract extension of the individual sovereign, united with other individual sovereigns, established and organized for the protection of individual, inalienable rights). You once attempted a poor excuse of social contract but, that is a moral issue, not a lawful or legal one - you never addressed the lawful nexus. Again, what and why is the magical number that superceeds allodial ownership, or inalienable, unalienable, or Creator endowed rights?

The 'A' from Reston, thank you for enlightening us as to your religion's re-defined dogmas. I have my own religion and would enjoy a separate Constitutionally limiting Representative Republic, if it existed anywhere in the world. I really don't want your unconstitutional, statist theocracy, its dogmas, or its enslavement.

Waffler has demonstrated his public schooling well. You see, it isn't YOUR money -- it's the government's, and they will decide how much of it you will get to keep. Waffler worked for the IRS and lives on a government pension -- he lives at the government's pleasure, and he insists that we all accept our fate. How did a free republic of free sovereign states made up of free and sovereign people become working class slaves for Washington DC? Mike is absolutely right -- where and when did America shift from free people to wards of the District of Columbia? What is the legal limit to how much the people may keep of the government's money? I suppose we should be grateful they 'give' us anything! This is communism, little by little. NOTE that it is the American MIND that holds Freedom's fate --what you believe, you receive. Know who you are, and take the needle out of your arm.

Crockett was a great patriot. Too bad he got hung out to dry in San Antonio in 1836 and publicly tortured to death by officers, like General Ramirez y Sesma and others, on the General Staff of Tony Lopez!!

As fate would have it, Lopez would be in Washington D.C. 2 months later, feted as a guest of honor by of all people the President of the United States, Andrew Jackson!