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Quote of the Day: ‘This Was a Sockdolager’
When I was growing up, Davey Crockett was a Disney character played by Fess Parker. I even had the coonskin hat. It wasn’t until much later that I learned that he was a real person who had a real role in American history. In fact, it would be good if we had more of his type now. We also need more like Horatio Bunce.
The following is a summary from a more extended article from the Foundation for Economic Education and I recommend reading it and remembering that, as the article says, “the precise rendering and some of the detail are fictional.”
Among other things, Crockett was a member of Congress representing Tennessee for two terms.
One day in the House, a bill was taken appropriating money for the benefit of a widow of a distinguished naval officer. The bill was about to pass when Davey Crockett rose to speak against it. Part of his speech was :
Every man in this House knows it is not a debt. We cannot, without the grossest corruption, appropriate this money as the payment of a debt. We have not the semblance of authority to appropriate it as a charity. Mr. Speaker, I have said we have the right to give as much money of our own as we please. 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.
When asked later why he opposed the bill, he told of a time several years earlier when several congressmen noticed a fire in Georgetown. After seeing the destruction, the next day they passed a bill for $20,000 for the relief of the victims.
Then, as he described it:
The next summer, when it began to be time to think about the election, I concluded I would take a scout around among the boys of my district. I had no opposition there, but, as the election was some time off, I did not know what might turn up. When riding one day in a part of my district in which I was more of a stranger than any other, I saw a man in a field plowing and coming toward the road. I gauged my gait so that we should meet as he came to the fence. As he came up, I spoke to the man. He replied politely, but, as I thought, rather coldly.
I began: ‘Well, friend, I am one of those unfortunate beings called candidates, and–’
‘Yes, I know you; you are Colonel Crockett, I have seen you once before, and voted for you the last time you were elected. I suppose you are out electioneering now, but you had better not waste your time or mine. I shall not vote for you again.’
This was a sockdolager . . . I begged him to tell me what was the matter.
I should stop and point out that a “sockdolager” is “a forceful blow.” The farmer was Horatio Bunce. He went on to point out that the bill to support the fire victims was against the Constitution.
“‘It is not the amount, Colonel, that I complain of; it is the principle. In the first place, 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 intrusted to man, particularly under our system of collecting revenue by a tariff, which reaches every man in the country, no matter how poor he may be, and the poorer he is the more he pays in proportion to his means. What is worse, it presses upon him without his knowledge where the weight centers, for there is not a man in the United States who can ever guess how much he pays to the government. So you see, that while you are contributing to relieve one, you are drawing it from thousands who are even worse off than he.”
Crockett agreed and promised to say that his vote was wrong to other voters in the district and Bunce agreed that if he did, Bunce would help him win. Crockett fulfilled his promise and so did Bunce.
Like I said, we need more voters like Bunce and more congressmen like Davey Crockett who pay attention to them and the Constitution.
P.S. I don’t think any members of Congress took him up on his challenge for private charity.
Published in Group Writing
Mr. Bunce was evidently a Madisonian.
We need to go back to when we were mostly Republicans.
Sockdologising likely was nearly the last word President Abraham Lincoln heard. During the performance of Tom Taylor’s “Our American Cousin,” assassin John Wilkes Booth (who knew the play well) waited for the laugh-line “Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, you sockdologising old man-trap.” Amid the noise as the audience responded, Booth fired the fatal shot.
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Thanks – I learn the most amazing things on Ricochet.
Of course not. While it’s hard for me to give or even spend my hard earned money, it’s very easy to spend or give away your money. Double easy if I’m any kind of beneficiary which of course Congress is when they spend your money to buy the votes of your fellows.
And Republicans need to learn how to be much, much more republican.
Funny: I can’t read that without my mind putting the words in the mouth of Fess Parker.
I know. I heard it in his voice, too.
I hear this – the theme song : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txcRQedoEyY . When I looked Davey Crockett up on Wikipedia, I was amazed that Disney only had 5 episodes.
It was only a few years ago I read Crockett’s autobiography: Fascinating, fun and enjoyable read from another time.
I could only remember the first verse.
The words were somewhat more politically incorrect.
The Ballad Of Davy Crockett https://g.co/kgs/ZrZaco
I remember being entranced in the Davy Crockett phenomenon, and I proudly wore my coonskin cap everywhere I could (they made me remove it at Cub Scouts and church). Still had it when I received my first (CO2-propelled, single-shot, bolt-action pellet) gun and went stalking around in the woods out behind our house.
Jim Bowie was at the Alamo, too, and we kids all coveted Bowie knives. Once we had them, we trundled out to an old abandoned chicken coop and practiced our throwing. Hatchets too, as I recall. Got pretty good at it, for kids.
No one was ever hurt. We were maybe 6 to 10?
Can you imagine this today?
Crockett, as frontiersman, settler, and elected official, all roles that seem to me to represent the best of early Americans, some of whose spirit we could certainly use today.