JOHN FUND ON THE TRAIL

Davy Crockett, Libertarian
The king of the wild frontier was also a champion of limited government.

Monday, April 12, 2004 12:01 a.m.

The new Disney film "The Alamo" has revived interest in Davy Crockett, the frontiersman-turned-celebrity who then entered politics and thus became an early American version of Arnold Schwarzenegger before he died fighting Santa Anna's legions in 1836.

Crockett is the main hero in the new film, but he also comes in for some debunking. Billy Bob Thornton plays Crockett as neither a homespun hero (Fess Parker's TV portrayal) or a laconic he-man (John Wayne's take on the legend in a 1960 film). Instead, he appears as a rejected candidate and relentless self-promoter who seeks a fresh start running for office in a new, independent Texas.

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. That's much too harsh. David Crockett (he shunned his nickname) was an American archetype--the self-made man who always championed the commoner. "He knew instinctively the right combination of backwoods person and gentleman politician to adopt," says historian William C. Davis. His success inspired Abraham Lincoln in his rise from backwoods lawyer to the White House, and his celebrity attracted the notice of Alexis de Tocqueville.

In Congress he championed the rights of squatters, poor settlers who claimed and built on undeveloped Western land but were barred from buying it if they didn't already own property. In 1830, he broke with President Andrew Jackson and opposed his Indian Removal Act because it uprooted 60,000 members of peaceful tribes and brutally forced them across the Mississippi River. "Several of my colleagues got around me, and told me how well they loved me, and that I was ruining myself," Crockett recounted in his autobiography. "I told them it was a wicked, unjust measure, and that I should go against it, let the cost to myself be what it might."

Indeed, his growing opposition to what he considered the headstrong policies of "King Andrew the First," cost him dearly. President Jackson, a fellow Tennesseean, urged Crockett's constituents to "not disgrace themselves" by re-electing him. Jackson's allies crafted a blatant gerrymander to drive Crockett from office, but he nonetheless survived. Then in 1834 he stumbled badly when he took time away from a congressional session to promote his book in a three-week tour of the Northeast. He lost his re-election bid, 51% to 49%, to a war hero with a wooden leg. He then famously told his constituents, "You may all go to hell, and I will go to Texas." He did just that and his death the next year at the Alamo ensured his place among America's heroes.

Almost forgotten in the mystique of his legend is Crockett's commitment to the principles of limited government. 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." Rep. Ron Paul, a Republican of libertarian bent, whose district includes some of the historic sites in the battle for Texas independence, recommends it as a guide for how elected officials should interpret the Constitution. Crockett's heroism at the Alamo is matched by the good common sense that he exhibits in this excerpt from the Ellis book:

One day in the House, a bill was taken up appropriating money for the benefit of a widow of a distinguished naval officer. Several beautiful speeches had been made in its support. The speaker was just about to put the question when Rep. David Crockett arose:

"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.

"I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has not the power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member on 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. 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."

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.'

" '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.'

"Now, sir," concluded Crockett, "you know why I made that speech yesterday. . . . You remember that I proposed to give a week's pay. There are in that House many very wealthy men--men who think nothing of spending a week's pay, or a dozen of them, for a dinner or a wine party when they have something to accomplish by it. Yet not one of them responded to my proposition. Money with them is nothing but trash when it is to come out of the people."

Following his death at the Alamo, the voters of Tennessee came to regret their rejection of David Crockett. Indeed, they elected his son, John Wesley Crockett, to his old congressional seat in the very next election. His father's life story is not just one of sacrifice on the battlefield of the Alamo but also one of courage and principle in the political arena.

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