Does the federal government have the right to use tax money for charitable purposes? Davy Crockett was a Congressman from Tennessee from 1826 to 1834. He spoke during debate over a proposal to appropriate federal funds for the relief of the widow of a distinguished Navy officer. This is what he said about the power of Congress to use government money for charity: “Mr. Speaker – I have as much respect for the memory of the deceased, and as much sympathy for the sufferings 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.” The bill, which had seemed to have the support of nearly every Congressman present, went down to overwhelming defeat after Davy spoke. Read his entire speech athttp://www.lewrockwell.com/orig4/ellis1.html