The Obama administration and the Socialist Democrats want to bypass the Electoral College vote and elect our president by popular vote, without passing an amendment to the Constitution.

Election by Popular Vote “vs” Electoral Votes. Election by popular vote means if a candidate wins 51% of the popular vote in California, which has a total of 55 electoral votes, the candidate gets all 55 electoral votes. The 49% of those who voted against him, their votes basically don’t count. So a candidate could win the election with 14 or 15 states, leaving the rest of the country without a voice. This is not how it was intended to be by our Founding Fathers and is 100% uncontitutional!  Our Founding Fathers knew that some states which were less populated may have only 4 Electoral Votes. To insure everyones voice was heard, if each candidate won 50 % of the vote, each candidate recieved 2 Electorial votes from that state. If one candidate won 75% and the other 25% of the votes, this gave one candidate 3 Electoral votes and the other, one. In order to win the presidency 270 electoral votes are needed out of the 538 Electoral votes nationally. It would be very easy for a president to win an election if he won two or three smaller states and received 51% of the votes in 11 of the most populated states. This administration wants you to believe that By Popular Vote means your voice is heard when it means just the opposite, You have No Voice. (How’s that for transparency.)  For the complete article please click here.

Who is behind the election by Popular vote campaign?  First there is Common Cause whose president and CEO is Bob Edgar, former head of the National Council of Churches which has been linked to communist activity. Common Cause is funded by George Soros,  The Arca Foundation,  the Carnegie Corporation of NY, the Beldon Fund, the Joyce Foundation, etc.   Fred Werthiemer, former director of Common Cause, a friend of George Soros, and founder of Democracy 21,  which is behind the DISCLOSE ACT.  Democracy 21 also receives funding from George Soros.  The Brennan Center for Justice whose largest funding comes from George Soros, the Carnegie Corporation, the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Joyce Foundation,  the Pew Charitable Trust, etc.  FairVote, formerly the Center for Voting and Democracy, funded by George Soros’s OSI, the Rockefeller Foundation, Deer Creek Foundation, the Joyce Foundation, the Arca Foundation, etc.  Are you beginning to see a theme?  Soros, a believer in Open Society where the collective good overrides the rights of the individual, is basically funding the Popular Vote campaign.  Soros who believes  we need to reinterrupt the U.S. Constitution to better suit the “age of fallibility” which no longer recognizes the unalienable rights or divine providence.    An Open Society where the U.S. move be removed as a super power and the American people must be subjected to the will and wants of all the world’s people.  Do you truly believe they are pushing this agenda for the good of the U.S. voters?    Read more on Soros and “The Crisis of Global Capitalism” here. 

Each and everyone of us need to contact our Congressman and Senators in protest of this underhanded take over of our Federal Election Process.  We MUST also contact our state Delegates, state Senators and Governers to insure this does not happen in our state elections as well. Contact your Federal Senators here, and your Congressman here. Virginians may contact their state Senator here, their Delegates here and Governor McDonnell here. PLEASE, let your voice be heard now or it may be lost forever.

Obama and his Democratic Socialist are using every dirty trick in the book to try and assure his re-election. Has anyone noticed that Obama and his entourage use our Constitution when it comes to illegals or to advance their agenda, yet ignore and pretend it doesn’t exist when it comes to “We The People?”  WAKE UP AMERICA! Don’t remain sheep being lead to slaughter.

By 2014, under the terms of the stimulus law that Obama signed last year – Electronic Health Records must record not only the traditional measures of height and weight, but also the body mass index: A Measure of Obesity. The law requires everyone’s electronic health records be available – with appropriate security measures – on a national level. Read the entire article here. You can thank Obama’s wife for this one, she’s made obesity her main theme.

Obamacare is nothing more than a piece of unconstitutional legislation that discriminates against the unborn, children of special needs, the elderly (to include anyone over 50), the disabled and the obese.

Have you heard the expression; ‘pretty is as pretty does?’ Well it’s a good thing there’s no legislation against ugly because our government would be in for a world of hurt….But in the mean time, this is what we’re stuck with………

Democratic Socialist of America’s (DSA) National director Frank Llewellyn, writing in the latest issue of the Socialist Democratic Left magazine said, “progressives must use Obama’s health-care legislation “to build support for the elimination of private insurers,” he sarcastically acknowledges that Obamacare will create its own constituency. Llewellyn goes on to say that healthcare will be run by established democratic rules and it opens the possibilities of passing other reforms in this Congress. Their Marxist agenda calls for the emimination of all private insurers, financial regulation, amnesty, more bailouts and massive Federal aid to city and state governments and scaling back our military.

DSA., together with the Communist Party, labor and their Democrat allies will not stop until the entire U.S. economy is under state control and/or direction.

Spring 2007, DSA National Political Committee Member David Green  wrote:

“What distinguishes socialists from other progressives is the theory of surplus value. According to Marx, the secret of surplus value is that workers are a source of more value than they receive in wages.

Our goal as socialists is to abolish private ownership of the means of production. Our immediate task is to limit the capitalist class’s prerogatives in the workplace…”

Obamacare, will not achieve that noble goal, but it is certainly a fine start.

Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is the largest socialist organization in the Unites States. It is one of two official U.S. affiliates of the Socialist International, formed in 1982 from a merger of Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee and the New America Movement.                                                  

Around 2000, the DSA became a National Organization and a  driving force behind the campaign for Socialized Medicine, working closely with its allies  Congressman John Conyers and Senator Bernie Sanders.

Since 1982 DSA has been working for progressive change, helping form and continuing to work with the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

“Like our friends and allies in the feminist, labor, civil rights, religious, community organizing movements, people of color and women, we will work with those movements to strengthen the party’s left wing, represented by the Congressional Progressive Caucus…we will continue to support progressives who have a real chance at winning elections, which usually means left-wing Democrats.”

DSA’s main task is to build grassroots, multi-racial, progressive coalitions.     

 The Employee Free Choice Act (card check) – A DSA Priority

“Our goal as socialists is to abolish private ownership of the means of production.”  Our immediate task is to limit the capitalist class. Our challenge is to convince the public that the ability of working people to organize unions has a direct and positive impact on everyone’s wages, job security, pensions and health care.” Let’s put this in prospective;  By the time they’re through with us.. wining and dining  on a Saturday night will be singing to each other over a pan of fried potatoes.                                                                             

On March 3, 2007 Barack Obama was a featured speaker at a meeting with labor unionist.  The event attracted some of Labor’s big hitters to join Obama on the dais and speak, including Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky (D), an early and big-time supporter of Obama’s in the 2004 Senate Primary and Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) as well as a local favorite for liberals, Dr. Quentin Young.

Dr. Quentin Young, long time friend and neighbor of Obama, joined the Young Communist League as a teenager in the late 30’s and in the 70’s became  associated with a Marxist organization known as the New American Movement. 1982, Dr. Young helped establish the Democratic Socialist of America (DSA) which as the principal U.S. affiliate of the Socialist International, asserts that “Many structures of our government and economy must be radically transformed.”

Young co-founded ‘Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) in 1987 stating “government-run healthcare should be financed by truly progressive taxation.”   English translation: Slaverly by government control. Young met Obama in the home of  ‘Weather Underground’ terriorist Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn in 1995.

DSA believes that the election of Senator Obama to the presidency in November represents a potential opening for social and labor movements to generate the critical political momentum necessary to implement a progressive political agenda… 

DSA and their view of Arizona’s New Law may be viewed here.

One Prominent Member of DSA is Ed Asner ( Actor, activist), and long-time member. In 1984 Asner was a co-sponsor of the ‘Ninth Annual Banquet’ of the Labor Research Association (identified as a front for Communist Party USA), that co-operates with the World Federation of Trade Unions, a soviet international front group.

“Socialist means a thing that will curb the excesses of capitalism: the increasing wealth of the rich and decreasing wealth of the poor. : For me, solidarity, civil liberty, and social justice can all be summed up with three simple letters — DSA.” Ed Asner It’s official. He is as dumb as he looks.

 In 1990 on DSA stationary Asner stated:

 “Arbitary power in the East has met its match and has been relegated to the dustbin of history by the power of the people.  In America that Arbitary power has a name- capitalism. DSA believes in fundamental redistribution of wealth and power in this country”— An actor is self employeed. Asner still has his money, the same as Obama has his money. I guess they only want to redistribute everyone else’s. 

Asner, was an initiator of the International Peace for Cuba Appeal, and affiliate of the Workers World Party (WWP), one of the most hardcore Marxist organizations in the US.  Other members included Congressman John Conyers and Harry Belefont. 

Asner was on the advisory board of the Rosenberg Fund for Children in 2003 along with Angela Davis, who was removed from her teaching position at UCLA in 1969 and in 1970 was placed on the FBI’s most wanted list for murder, kidnapping and conspiracy, and Harry Belefonte who signed a statement circulated by the Partisan Defense Committee, calling for the release of convicted ‘cop-killer’ Mumia Abu-Jamal.                                                                                               

 2004, Asner endorsed an anti-Bush Protest in New York, organized by Not In Our Name, an organization closely associated with the Revolutionary Communist Party and signed a statement circulated by 911 Truth.org calling 9/11 as a possible inside job and in 2009  served on the advisory committee of The Independent Progressive Politics Network. Two of their Affiliate Organizations  are:

Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (CCSD), leader Manning Marble wrote in the ‘British Trotskyist Journal’ explaining Obama’s relationship to the Chicago left: “What makes Obama different is that he’s been a community organiser. He has read left literature, including my works, and he understands what socialism is. A lot of the people working with him are, indeed, socialists with backgrounds in the Communist Party or as independent Marxists. There are a lot of people like that in Chicago who have worked with him for years…”   Must be why Chicago’s called the ‘windy city.’

National Lawyers Guild (NLG) openly socialist, is based in New York, NY and was organized with the assistance of the Communist International in 1936 as a legal action front operated by the Communist Party USA. It is the largest US affiliate of the Soviet-Controlled International Association of Democratic Lawyers. While there are small numbers of Maoists, Trotskyites and independent Marxist “New Leftists” in the organization, the NLG’s international positions and real domestic control lies with the supporters of the Soviet and Cuban Communist regimes. Mama’s don’t let your babies grow up to be lawyers. Let ‘em be cowboys…………….. 

 In 2010 Asner endorsed the Campaign for Peace and Democracy, founded in 1982,  an organization that promotes a progressive and non-militaristic US foreign policy.  See a complete list of endorsers here.

Communist Party USA is America’s oldest and most influential Marxist-Leninist organization.  “The Communist Party USA is the party of and for the U.S. working class, a class which is multiracial, multinational, and unites men and women, young and old, employed and unemployed, organized and unorganized, gay and straight, native-born and immigrant, urban and rural, and composed of workers who perform a large range of physical and mental labor—the vast majority of our society.  Possibilities Under Obama Presidency..   See the entire article here. 

Members of DSA who sit on the Judiciary Committee:  John Conyers, Tammy Baldwin, Jerrold Nadler, Luis Gutierrez, Melvin Watt, Maxine Waters, Hank Johnson, Steve Cohen, Barbara Lee, Robert Wexler, and Linda Sanchez.

US Congress who are DSA members total 70 and can be seen here, who work in open partnership with DSA.

Communism video , Capitalism vs Socialism video

Barak Obama member of New Party – 1996 Illinois: Three NP-members won Democratic primaries last Spring and face off against Republican opponents on election day: Danny Davis (U.S. House), Barack Obama (State Senate) and Patricia Martin (Cook County Judiciary).  After allegations surfaced in early summer over the ‘New Party’s’ endorsement of Obama, the Obama campaign along with the remnants of the New Party and Democratic Socialists of America claimed that Obama was never a member of either organization. The DSA and ‘New Party’ then systematically attempted to cover up any ties between Obama and the Socialist Organizations. However, it now appears that Barack Obama was indeed a certified and acknowledged member of the DSA’s New Party. Barack Obama, victor in the 13th State Senate District, encouraged NP’s to join in his task forces on Voter Education and Voter Registration.

Barack Obama: Manufactured Crisis…Obama and The New Party 

Obama and picketline of congress hotel

 And you thought Obama was just another pretty face who could read a teleprompter.

In a country, founded on biblical principles, (our constitution), it seems only Christians are under attack.

“Christianity is not a religion, it is a reality.” Pastor Arnold Murray, Shepherd’s Chapel

In 2003, President Bush along with Congress established the President’s Emergency Plan (PEP) for AIDS Relief. HR5501 was signed into law to combat HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.  The money, faith-based organizations received was used on HIV/AIDS prevention and promoting abstinence, delay of sexual debut, monogamy, fidelity and partner reduction, is explicitly administered by the president of the U.S. A brilliant move by President Bush because he alone determined policy. However, in March of 2009 the Obama administration changed the legislation to focus on gender-based violence because women of abuse were less likely to be tested for HIV/AIDS. Word came out of Washington, D.C. stating that, “If a faith-based organization was proselytizing  as part of their program, they lost their funding.

The Obama administration seems to be averse to funding faith-based (christian) organizations. At least five missionary groups who provide bibles, bible studies, food, medicine and water purification, etc., that work with ‘African Leadership’, (a christian education organization), lost their funding for refusal to give equal training of other religions.  Ray Walker, chief financial officer of ‘Source of Light Ministries International’, said the current situation should teach faith-based groups to trust the Lord, not government. “If you’re relying on government money, there are always strings attached and you have to bend to their will.”

Living Hope, a church based outreach and Source of Light Ministries International were among those who lost funding.

Obama, during his campaign said that he would extend the funding for charities that Bush started. The problem is, Obama made some changes.  Religious organizations and/or faith-based groups that take taxpayers money, who refuse to hire non-Christians, will lose their funding. Obama said he would increase faith-based funding ONLY IF they accept hiring rules like everyone else. Under the Bush administration, religious groups were exempt from civil rights laws that ban discrimination on the basis of religion, race or gender.  Obama has stretched out his arms to embrace the Muslim countries using our tax dollars to start an outreach program for them through NASA. Will they be held to the same set of rules?

In 2006, California Governor Schwarzenegger, signed SB 1441 which would require all business and organizations receiving funding from the state to CONDONE homosexuality, bisexuality, and transexuality or lose state funding. There is no exception for faith-based organizations or business owners with sincerely held religious convictions.

Karen England, Executive Director of Capital Resource Institute stated, “SB1441 is an outright, blatant assault on religious freedom in California.” Christian and faith-based colleges will be forced to promote transexuality, bisexuality and homosexuality, if they accept students with CAL Grants.

Why would our government, or any state, want to  promote and subject any type of perversion to our children? Where are the morals of our leaders? Are we to become another Sodom and Gomorrah?

Jesus said, “Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me:” MT. 19:14

“Our constitution was made for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”   John Adams

I think we can now say, we have a government of . . . . .any other.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free expression thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble. . .

The left is on a search and destroy mission to rid America of conservative points of view.

The Christian Science Monitor tags  tea party members as warmongers.  ABC, Newsweek and the New York Times call us ‘potential future terrorist’.  Bill Clinton tried to link us with Timothy McVeigh.  We have been mocked by Obama, called racists, hate mongers, militias, white supremacists, vigilantes out for liberal blood, guilty of sedition, and my personal favorite, dumb rednecks.  Dissent is a bad word if the government that is being opposed is liberal.

Citizens for Civility and Accountability in Media (CCAM) has gone after KMJ radio in Fresno, California, for having the nerve to carry conservative talk shows on their two stations.  According to their complaint,  ”Conservative talk radio is hate speech  that incites violence”.   http://fresnostophate.org/

Center for American Progress (CAP), a George Soros funded progressive activist organization, in its publication “The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio”, states “there’s very little free speech and free choice in a market system that pushes one sided information 90% of the time.  http://sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=b3e194ec-1891-48fc-9e87-1af8ab08d534

On Friday, May 28, a coalition of 30 or more organizations announced that they are urging the FCC to regulate “hate speech”  on talk radio and cable broadcasting networks.  The coalition includes such groups as Free Press, Center for Media Justice, Media Alliance and the Benton Foundation.  http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/usnews/politics/3695-fcc-and-ftc-enemies-of-free-press-and-free-speech

The National Hispanic Media Coalition has joined forces with Free Press to monitor “hate speech”  against Latinos.  In 2009 they filed petitions for inquiry on hate speech in the media with the FCC.  “Hate speech thrives, as hate has developed as a profit model for syndicated radio programs and cable television masquerading as news.” http://www.freepress.net/node/80301

The National Council of Churches, the Presbyterian News Service, the Evangelical Luthern Church, and the Interfaith Coalition for Media Justice, run by Jeremiah Wright’s church, The United Council of Christ, have joined with the National Hispanic Media Coalition demanding that the FCC collect data, seek public comment and explore options for combating ”hate speech”   from critics of illegal immigration reform.   http://www.onenewsnow.com/Perspectives/Default.aspx?id=742444

On May 24, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued a draft proposal on ways to “reinvent”  journalism.  The agency feels that government should be at the center of a media overhaul.  All ideas put forth in the draft share a common theme  -  government takeover.  They offer such suggestions as the use of copyright license fees (taxes) to be distributed to various newspapers; tax exemptions for news organizations; establishment of an Americorps to pay reporters; a 5% electronic tax on laptops, I-pads, etc;  new taxes on radio and TV spectrum;  new taxes on advertisers and cell phones;  and, an increase in government funding to public broadcasting and public radio.    This may come as a surprise, but the FTC draft mirrors a recently published Free Press study, “New Public Media: A Plan for Action” .  http://www.ftc.gov/opp/workshops/news/jun15/docs/new-staff-discussion.pdf

Free Press, funded by George Soros,  is an advocate of government intervention in the internet and government run public media, supported by an array of new taxes.  Their founder, Robert McChesney, a self avowed Marxist, is a professor at the University of Illinois and former editor of the Marxist journal, “Monthly Review”.  According to McChesney, “Free Press allies are  now in place and in power at the FCC and in the White House”.  He has also said that “any serious effort to reform the media system would have to necessarily be part of a revolutionary program to overthrow the capitalist system itself.”  http://newsbusters.org/people/robert-mcchesney-julius-genachowski

McChesney is correct  -  he does have friends in high places.  Ben Scott,  an employee of Free Press, is a policy advisor for Innovation at the State Department. Scott’s claim to fame is a paper he wrote,  ”Future of Media, which tries to tie media reform to a  civil rights issue.  Cass Sunstein,  Regulatory Czar, author of “On Rumors” where he argues that websites should be obliged to remove false rumors and alter libel laws to make it easier to sue for spreading such rumors.  He has also argued for a “government ban on conspiracy theorizing such as advocating that global warming is a deliberate fraud.”   Jon Howard, spokesperson and liaison with the press at the FCC, is a former Free Press and Media Access Project employee.  Susan Crawford, Internet Czar, is an advisory board member at Public Knowledge, another George Soros funded ‘public interest group’.  Hillary Clinton,  Secretary of State,  is a friend of George Soros. “I have known George Soros for a long time. . . We need people like George Soros who is fearless and willing to step up when it counts”.   She is also friends with David Brock of Media Matters for American,  which George Soros helped fund, and Morton Halperin and John Podesta of Center for American Progress. http://www.earstohear.net/soros.html 

A second line of attack is the Fairness Doctrine spearheaded by endorsements from Nancy Pelosi, Dick Durbin, John Kerry, Louise Slaughter and Dennis Kucinich, in partnership with Media Access Project,  Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) and Media Matters.  And, lets not forget Net Neutrality from Julius Genachowski, FCC Chairman and co-conspirator with Free Press. http://www.cnsnews.com/Public/Content/Article.aspx?rsrcid=44588    http://reboot.fcc.gov/futureofmedia/

Now all they have to do is appoint someone to the Supreme Court that shares their doctrines.   Meet Supreme Court nominee, Elena Kagan, who in a 1993 article “Regulation of Hate Speech and Pornography”, written for the University of  Chicago Law Review, states “I take it as a given that we live in a society marred by racial and gender inequalities, that certain forms of speech perpetuate and promote this inequality, and the uncoerced disappearance of such speech would be cause for great elation.”  In a 1996 paper, “Private Speech, Public Purpose: The Role of Governmental Motive in First Amendment Doctrine”, she argues that it may be proper to suppress speech because it is offensive to society or to the government.  “Redistribution of speech is not itself an illegitimate end for government.”  http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=152305

The more the government owns, the more it controls,  the less freedom we have. 

Donna Holt, Interim State Coordinator – Campaign For Liberty, announced the effort as follows.

“The Virginia Campaign for Liberty will be mobilizing on two very important pieces of legislation in the 2010 session of the Virginia General Assembly. Both are state’s rights issues that pose a challenge to the federal government under the 10th amendment.

The Virginia Firearms Freedom Act – See full text of the bill here.

The Virginia Healthcare Freedom Act – See full text of the bill here.

In the upcoming weeks leading up to the legislative session, we will be forming a committee of people to assist in our lobbying effort for legislators to sponsor the bills.  If you wish to volunteer to join the committee, please email me at donna.holt@campaignforliberty.com.”

Please contact our representatives (below) in Richmond and urge them to support these bills! Also, I again invite you to join Campaign for Liberty!

Senator Robert Hurt Republican – District 19 P.O. Box 2 Chatham, VA 24531 Email*: district19@senate.virginia.gov

You might mention this any time someone tells you that the founding fathers intended Congress to have carte blanche to take care of the “general welfare.”

“It is a precedent fraught with danger for 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… … the Constitution, to be worth anything, must be held sacred and rigidly observed in all its provisions.”
— Colonel David Crockett member of the U.S. Congress 1827-31 & 1832-35, AKA Davvy Crockett

History’s immortals sometimes offer a glimpse of their greatness in events other than those that granted them immortality.

Tennessee militia colonel David Crockett, perhaps best known for his role in the 1836 defense of the Alamo, also served three terms in the United States Congress between 1827 and 1835. Nationally known during his lifetime as a political representative of the frontier, Crockett apparently came by that reputation honestly, inasmuch as he was not above listening to his constituents. The following excerpt from an 1884 biography by Edward S. Ellis, “The Life of Colonel David Crockett,” reveals how his own rural electorate taught him the importance of adhering to the Constitution and the perils of ignoring its restrictions.

Crockett was then the lion of Washington. I was a great admirer of his character, and, having several friends who were intimate with him, I found no difficulty in making his acquaintance. I was fascinated with him, and he seemed to take a fancy to me.

One day in the House of Representatives, 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 Mr. 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 suffering there be, as any man in this house, but we must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for a 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 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 so to appropriate a dollar of the public money. Some eloquent appeals have been made to us upon the ground that it is a debt due the deceased. Mr. Speaker, the deceased lived long after the close of the war; he was in office to the day of his death, and I have never heard that the government was in arrears to him.

“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.

“He took his seat. Nobody replied. The bill was put upon its passage, and, instead of passing unanimously, as was generally supposed, and as, no doubt, it would, but for that speech, it received but few votes, and of course, was lost.

“Later, when asked by a friend why he had opposed the appropriation, Crockett gave this explanation:

“Several years ago I was one evening standing on the steps of the Capitol with some other members of Congress, when our attention was attracted by a great light over in Georgetown. It was evidently a large fire. We jumped into a hack and drove over as fast as we could. In spite of all that could be done, many houses were burned and many families made homeless, and, besides, some of them had lost all but the clothes they had on. The weather was very cold, and when I saw so many women and children suffering, I felt that something ought to be one for them. The next morning a bill was introduced appropriating $20,000 for their relief. We put aside all other business and rushed it through as soon as it could be done.

“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 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.

” ‘Well, Colonel, it is hardly worth-while to waste time or words upon it. I do not see how it can be mended, but 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. But I beg your pardon for expressing it in that way. I did not intend to avail myself of the privilege of the constituent to speak plainly to a candidate for the purpose of insulting or wounding you. I intended by it only to say that your understanding of the Constitution is very different from mine; and I will say to you what, but for my rudeness, I should not have said, that I believe you to be honest….But an understanding of the Constitution different from mine I cannot overlook, because the Constitution, to be worth anything, must be held sacred, and rigidly observed in all its provisions. The man who wields power and misinterprets it is the more dangerous the more honest he is.’

“I admit the truth of all you say, but there must be some mistake about it, for I do not remember that I gave any vote last winter upon any Constitutional question.

” ‘No, Colonel, there’s no mistake. Though I live here in the backwoods and seldom go from home, I take the papers from Washington and read very carefully all the proceedings in Congress. My papers say that last winter you voted for a bill to appropriate $20,000 to some suffers by a fire in Georgetown. Is that true?’

“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.’

” ‘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 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. 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 thing 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. If twice as many houses had been burned in this county as in Georgetown, neither you nor any other member of Congress would have thought of appropriating a dollar for our relief. There are about two hundred and forty members of Congress. If they had shown their sympathy for the suffers by contributing each one week’s pay, it would have made over $13,000. There are plenty of men in and around Washington who could have given $20,000 without depriving themselves of even a luxury of life. The congressmen chose to keep their own money, which, if reports be true, some of them spend not very creditable; and 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 Constitu- tion, 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. So you see, Colonel, 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. I have no doubt you acted honestly, but that does not make it any better, except as far as you are personally concerned, and you see that I cannot vote for you..’