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Of Honesty and Oaths
In October of 2009, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) was asked by a reporter where in the U.S. Constitution Congress had been given authority to order Americans to buy health insurance. She responded: "Are you serious? Are you serious?" Shaking her head, she moved on to the next question. Her press spokesman proceeded to inform the reporter that such an inquiry could not reasonably be considered a "serious question". "You can put this on the record," he said. "That is not a serious question. That is not a serious question." (The repetitions of both Speaker Pelosi and her spokesman are not typos.)
Ms. Pelosi and all of her congressional colleagues have bound themselves with an oath. That oath of office reads as follows:
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.
I submit to the reader that many of the political class dishonestly enter into such agreements, either being completely ignorant as to what terms they are agreeing to abide by, or having no desire whatsoever to act accordingly. As I ponder the principle of honesty, and survey the representatives elected by the citizens throughout America, I am left to wonder why such rampant dishonesty is permitted to permeate our political process.
Contrast Ms. Pelosi's dismissive response regarding a question with direct application to the oath of office she has taken on numerous occasions, to the following quote from President George Washington:
I had nothing to boast, but a steady honesty -- this I made the invariable rule of my actions; and I find my reward in it.1
On another instance, he wrote:
Still I hope, I shall always possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain (what I consider the most enviable of all titles) the character of an honest man.2
Honesty, like all other virtues, is easy when it is convenient. It is, rather, demonstrated most powerfully and legitimately when in circumstances where its manifestation comes at great difficulty or expense. Thankfully, it can be learned. Such is evident in the life of Colonel David Crockett, an expert marksman who served several terms in Congress. While campaigning for re-election, he came across a former supporter who stated that Representative Crockett would no longer receive his vote. Explaining why, the individual said:
...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.
That vote was the expenditure of $20,000 (roughly $400 million in today's dollars) by Congress to provide relief for residents of Georgetown, where a fire had broken out and consumed many homes and possessions. Crockett defended his vote in support of the rushed bill thusly:
...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 the same as I did.
The former supporter reasoned with Rep. Crockett, ultimately convincing him that nowhere in the Constitution is Congress authorized to make such expenditures, and that such actions should be left up to charitable individuals using their own resources. Crockett's about-face was put to the test--and his honesty proven sincere--when a similar vote later came to the floor of the House of Representatives. Just prior to what was likely to be a near-unanimous vote to appropriate money for the benefit of a widow of a distinguished naval officer, Rep. Crockett rose and said:
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. 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 ever 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 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.3
The bill was defeated, receiving only a few votes.
Of note is the argument that, like Rep. Crockett, every politician knew that there was no constitutional authority to make such an appropriation. It can likely be assumed that a similar understanding exists amongst today's political class, but the utter disregard for constitutional restraints, and the associated dishonesty with which such individuals make their oath of office, propels them onward in pursuing whatever course they desire with the power they enjoy.
It may be inferred, perhaps, that the individuals placed in political office by the citizenry are a reflection of the people themselves. Under this argument, the lack of honesty in the chambers of Congress is a mere manifestation of a similar deficiency in the populace as a whole. If we were honest enough, collectively, to not demand laws and programs nowhere authorized by the Constitution, then we would not be enabling the dishonesty amongst the politicians that is employed to produce such results.
Honesty is the cornerstone of a free and moral society. Where honesty is found wanting, let us work to publicly demonstrate and encourage this virtue.
1 George Washington: The Forge of Experience, 1732-1775. p. 349
2 C.P. Wayne, The life of George Washington, 1807, p. 142
3 http://notyourstogive.com
Connor Boyack is a web developer, political economist, and budding philanthropist trying to change the world one byte at a time. He serves as State Coordinator for the Tenth Amendment Center in Utah, and Communications Coordinator for the Campaign for Liberty in Utah County. Read his blog or send him an email.
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