"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." | Quote by: | Davy Crockett
(1786-1836) American hunter, frontiersman, soldier and politician |
Source: | 1827, spoken on the floor of Congress concerning a proposed relief bill for the widow of a naval officer. |
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