22 minutes to find that. What took so long? :-)LOL! I was goofing off FReeping elsewhere, and did not see his challenge right away...
As for Susan Decatur, I am open to that possibility as well, but it does not fit the timeline as well. We KNOW that he opposed the allocation of money to General Brown's widow at an earlier date, so his "conversion" must have taken place at an earlier date than the Decatur vote. (He was ALREADY "converted" by that time.)
MY current working hypothesis is as follows. Many of these points are tentative, and still open for debate, IMHO.
Ellis wrote this account almost FIFTY years after Crockett died, and may have forgotten many details,Here is my best CURRENT explanation of the facts that we have discovered to date:
MANY authors at that time "embellished" the biographies of famous men,
Crockett himself promoted many "tall tales" about his exploits,
Crockett was poorly educated, and did not leave very complete written records,
No OTHER written records fully document much of what may have happened.
Crockett may have arrived in Washington EARLY for his first term, which began in March 1827, so that he could have been present on the day of the [DOCUMENTED] fire in Alexandria in January of 1827.This ROUGH DRAFT of events as they ACTUALLY occurred still has some gaping holes in it, but would be consistent with a TRUTHFUL account of Crockett's actions being "modified for television," as it were - to make a more compelling tale to provide moral education for the kiddies.
He may have SUPPORTED his collegues in Congress in their [DOCUMENTED] vote to allocate money for the sufferers of this fire, even though he was not yet able to VOTE at that time.
Crockett may have met with SOMEONE on a trip back to Tennessee, shortly after that vote, and have expressed his SUPPORT for spending the money to that person. Whoever it was could have convinced Crockett that his support for non-Constitutional expenditures would cost him his FUTURE vote, even if Crockett was unable to actually vote on the Alexandria fire bill.
This "Horatio Bunce" could have been the commander of his old unit, Samuel Bunch, who would be expected to know the name of one of the men in his command, even if Crockett did not immediately recognize Bunch. OR, "Horatio" could have been a relative of Samuel.
Whoever it was could have helped Crockett to experience his "conversion" to Constitutional spending discipline prior to his [DOCUMENTED] opposition to the bill for the relief for General Brown's widow, and his [DOCUMENTED] offer to pay from his own private funds.
Or not. ;)
Still working...
You appear to contend that Mr. Crockett's "conversion" took place before the Gen. Brown vote. Correct?
It is interesting to look into the documented history of this subject and it really doesn't matter to me one way or the other if it's considered true or not as the bottom line of spending by the federal government should be scrutinized very carefully.
That being said, another point that I find curious is, if you consider the argument of Mr. Tucker in reply #140 by Huck reguarding the giving of a number of cords of firewood to the poor of the "city" and the argument three weeks later by Mr. Polk reguarding the giving of a number of cords of firewood to the poor of Georgetown (pages 558 and 559), that Mr. Crockett wasn't persuaded by either one of those arguments which raise exactly the same points which Mr. Bunce raised (Mr Crockett voted yea for the firewood to be given to the poor of the "city"(page 519, reply #140), voted nay for the suggestion by a Mr. Blair that the legislators that felt the need to vote yes for the poor of Georgetown pay for the firewood out of their own pockets, and voted yea to grant the poor of Georgetown the firewood: pages 241, 242, 243 ).
