Crockett on Charitable Donations

Crockett on the Power to Make Charitable Donations -- from an 1884 biography by Edward Sylvester Ellis, The Life of Colonel David Crockett

"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 of our own money 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."