WASHINGTON – California attorney Orly Taitz, who has filed a number of lawsuits demanding proof of Barack Obama’s eligibility to serve as president, has released a copy of what purports to be a Kenyan certification of birth and has filed a new motion in U.S. District Court for its authentication.

The document lists Obama’s parents as Barack Hussein Obama and Stanley Ann Obama, formerly Stanley Ann Dunham, the birth date as Aug. 4, 1961, and the hospital of birth as Coast General Hospital in Mombasa, Kenya.

No doctor is listed. But the alleged certificate bears the signature of the deputy registrar of Coast Province, Joshua Simon Oduya. It was allegedly issued as a certified copy of the original in February 1964.

WND was able to obtain other birth certificates from Kenya for purposes of comparison, and the form of the documents appear to be identical.

Last week, a counterfeit document purporting to be Obama’s Kenyan birth certificate made the rounds of the Internet, but was quickly determined to be fraudulent. The new document released by Taitz bears none of the obvious traits of a hoax.

One of the issues Taitz must deal with will be the authentication of the document. Critics immediately jumped on the Feb. 17, 1964, date for the document, explaining that the "republic" of Kenya wasn’t assembled until in December of that year.

Media Matters wrote, "Sorry, WorldNetDaily: Kenya wasn’t a republic until Dec. 1964."

But Kenya’s official independence was in 1963, and any number of labels could have been applied to government documents during that time period.

At Ameriborn Constitution News, the researcher noted that the independence process for the nation actually started taking as early as 1957, when there were the first direct elections for Africans to the Legislative Council.

"Kenya became an Independent Republic, December 12, 1963, which gives more [credibility] that this is a true document," the website stated.

The 1963 independence is corroborated by several other information sources, including the online African History.

Even the People Daily news agency cited, on Dec. 12, 2005, the "42nd independence anniversary" in Nairobi. "The country gained independence from Britain on Dec. 12, 1963," the report said.

An online copy of the Kenya Constitution, "adopted in 1963, amended in 1999," states: "CHAPTER I – THE REPUBLIC OF KENYA, Article 1, Kenya is a sovereign Republic. Article 1A, The Republic of Kenya shall be a multiparty democratic state…"

It was in November 1964 when the region voluntarily became a one-party state, according to an online source.

The region including Mombasa originally was dealt with as a separate independence movement, but it almost immediately became part of Kenya when the sultan of Zanzibar ceded the "coastal strip" to Kenya, according to sources.

Taitz told WND that the document came from an anonymous source who doesn’t want his name known because "he’s afraid for his life."

Taitz’s motion, filed yesterday in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, requests the purported evidence of Obama’s birth – both the alleged birth certificate and foreign records not yet obtained – be preserved from destruction, asks for permission to legally request documents from Kenya and seeks a subpoena for deposition from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

"I filed the motion with the court asking for expedited discovery, which would allow me to start subpoenas and depositions even before Obama and the government responds," Taitz told WND. "I am asking the judge to give me the power to subpoena the documents from the Kenyan embassy and to require a deposition from Hillary Clinton so they will be forced to authenticate [the birth certificate].

"I’m forcing the issue, where Obama will have to respond," she said.

"Before, they said, ‘You don’t have anything backing your claims,’" Taitz explained. "Now I have something. In fact, I have posted on the Internet more than Obama has. My birth certificate actually has signatures."

Join the petition campaign to demand President Obama resolve the question by revealing his long-form, hospital-generated birth certificate!

Taitz’s most celebrated case involved a military officer, Maj. Stefan Cook, whose order to deploy to Afghanistan was revoked when he challenged Obama’s eligibility to hold office. That case has now been refiled in federal court in Florida, raising the specter of a class-action claim among members of the military that their orders aren’t valid because of questions surrounding Obama’s constitutional eligibility.

Taitz told WND she plans to file additional paperwork with the Florida court tomorrow, adding the alleged Kenyan birth certificate to Maj. Cook’s case.

The suit seeks damages and a declaratory judgment. Named as defendants are Simtech, Cook’s former civilian employer, and several officials, including Col. Louis B. Wingate and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

WND previously reported a judge in Georgia dismissed Cook’s case when the government suddenly revoked his orders to report to Fort Benning for deployment to Afghanistan.

WND reported when the case originally was filed that Cook’s concern was that without proof that there is a legitimate commander in chief, the entire U.S. Army becomes "merely a corps of chattel slaves under the illegitimate control of a private citizen."

Cook told WND: "As an officer in the armed forces of the United States, it is [my] duty to gain clarification on any order we may believe illegal. With that said, if President Obama is found not to be a ‘natural-born citizen,’ he is not eligible to be commander in chief."

The new complaint says it seeks Cook’s reinstatement with his civilian employer, Simtech Inc., as well as protection from the Department of Defense and president "from further retaliation for plaintiff’s challenge to the president’s constitutional authority."

See the movie Obama does not want you to see: Own the DVD that probes this unprecedented presidential eligibility mystery!

WND has reported on dozens of legal challenges to Obama’s status as a "natural born citizen." The Constitution, Article 2, Section 1, states, "No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President."

Some of the lawsuits question whether he was actually born in Hawaii, as he insists. If he was born out of the country, Obama’s American mother, the suits contend, was too young at the time of his birth to confer American citizenship to her son under the law at the time.

Other challenges have focused on Obama’s citizenship through his father, a Kenyan subject to the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom at the time of his birth, thus making him a dual citizen. The cases contend the framers of the Constitution excluded dual citizens from qualifying as natural born.

Complicating the situation is Obama’s decision to spend sums estimated in the hundreds of thousands of dollars to avoid releasing a state birth certificate that would put to rest all of the questions.

WND has reported that among the documentation not yet available for Obama includes his kindergarten records, his Punahou school records, his Occidental College records, his Columbia University records, his Columbia thesis, his Harvard Law School records, his Harvard Law Review articles, his scholarly articles from the University of Chicago, his passport, his medical records, his files from his years as an Illinois state senator, his Illinois State Bar Association records, any baptism records, and his adoption records.

Developing …

A lawyer who is playing a key role in a California lawsuit urging officials to prevent the state’s 55 Electoral College votes from being recorded for Barack Obama until questions about his citizenship are resolved says he’s organizing plans to challenge, even after the inauguration, every order, every proposal, every piece of paperwork generated by Obama.

Barack Obama

"We will file lawsuits on his actions, every time. As long as we have money , we will keep filing lawsuits until we get a decision as to his citizenship status," Gary Kreep, chief of the United States Justice Foundation, told WND today.

"We’re already talking to groups who are willing to be plaintiffs," he said.

As WND reported, Kreep filed the California challenge with presidential candidate Alan Keyes as a plaintiff.

The complaint urges the California secretary of state to refuse to allow the state’s 55 Electoral College votes to be cast until Obama’s citizenship and related eligibility to hold office is resolved.

It is just one of more than a dozen legal challenges brought forward so far over Obama’s citizenship. The cases all cite Obama’s clouded history and the U.S. Constitution’s requirement that a president be a "natural-born" citizen.

Sign the petition to insist on release of birth certificate.

There have been allegations he was born in Kenya, not Hawaii as his campaign has reported, that he could be considered a British subject because of his father’s residency in what then was a British protectorate that later became Kenya, and that the "Certificate of Live Birth" posted on his website simply shows his mother registered his birth in Hawaii after he was born but does not document a location.

There also have been questions raised about his travels as a youth, including the years he spent registered as a Muslim in an Indonesian school, and his later travels to Pakistan at a time when U.S. passports weren’t welcome in that nation.

WND senior reporter Jerome Corsi traveled to Kenya and Hawaii prior to the election to investigate issues surrounding Obama’s birth. But his research and discoveries only raised more questions.

The biggest question is why Obama, if a Hawaii birth certificate exists, simply hasn’t ordered it made available to settle the rumors.

The governor’s office in Hawaii said there is a valid certificate but rejected requests for access and left ambiguous its origin: Does the certificate on file with the Department of Health indicate a Hawaii birth or was it generated after the Obama family registered a Kenyan birth in Hawaii?

Obama’s half-sister, Maya Soetoro, has named two different Hawaii hospitals where Obama could have been born, while a video posted on YouTube features Obama’s Kenyan grandmother Sarah claiming to have witnessed Obama’s birth in Kenya.

The California action was filed on behalf of Keyes, as well as Wiley S. Drake and Markham Robinson, both California electors.

"Should Senator Obama be discovered, after he takes office, to be ineligible for the Office of President of the United States of America and, thereby, his election declared void, Petitioners, as well as other Americans, will suffer irreparable harm in that (a) usurper will be sitting as the President of the United States, and none of the treaties, laws, or executive orders signed by him will be valid or legal," the action challenges.

Kreep told WND today he’s now working with several groups that could serve as plaintiffs to challenge Obama’s actions, even from the Oval Office, should the issue remain in dispute.

"There is a reasonable and common expectation by the voters that to qualify for the ballot, the individuals running for office must meet minimum qualifications as outlined in the federal and state Constitutions and statutes, and that compliance with those minimum qualifications has been confirmed by the officials overseeing the election process," the complaint said, when in fact the only documentation currently required is a signed statement from the candidate attesting to those qualifications.

The issue is much more important than a single candidate, said Judge Roy Moore, the former chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court and a WND columnist. He now runs the Foundation for Moral Law.

Moore had his own constitutional confrontation when he was removed from his position Alabama Supreme Court chief justice after he refused to remove from state grounds a monument recognizing the Ten Commandments as the foundation for U.S. law.

"We can survive four years of any president; we cannot survive without a Constitution," he told WND. "This calls for a major investigation. Our Constitution is at stake."

Moore said the requirement for a president to be a natural-born citizen is clear in the Constitution. The document, he added, provides procedures to amend the requirement, but that hasn’t been done.

"We live under the rule of law," he warned, "If we start ignoring that. …"

A WND reader agreed in a letter to the editor.

"If Obama is allowed to take office without proving his citizenship, then we have no Constitution. America as it’s been will be dead. If an easy to understand rule is ignored, then the others harder to understand will be easy to ignore," wrote Tony Costello.

Moore said, "If a person is not qualified, he’s not qualified. It doesn’t matter who it is, Republican, Democrat, black or white, rich or poor."

He added the members of the Electoral College have an obligation to verify Obama’s qualifications before voting for him.

But he said the dispute may end up with court action, too.

"The courts are there to uphold the law. People have a right to change the Constitution. But until then it’s the rule of law," he said.

"I don’t see any reason a candidate who has such a serious question would not come forward with the truth about where he was born," Moore said.

"The Supreme Court has to answer this. They have to do it by law and not by the popularity of a person. If we do that, we might as well throw the Constitution out the window," Moore said.

"[Obama] has the answer. He knows where he was born. If he tells something that’s untrue that’s another matter. It’s not an Obama issue, it’s an American issue. It’s about the Constitution of the United States."

U.S. State Department officials declined to respond to WND inquiries about the process for keeping a U.S. citizenship while attending schools in Indonesia, or the possibility of a U.S. citizen keeping that status while traveling on another nation’s passport.

But several online "fact" sites have reported that the concerns over Obama’s citizenship are much ado about nothing.

Factcheck.org, for example, has posted an image described as Obama’s "birth certificate." But within the image can be seen the words "Certificate of Live Birth," which is not the same document. In Hawaii at the time Obama was born the state would issue a "Certificate of Live Birth" to a parent registering a birth, but it does not indicate the location of the birth.

"FactCheck.org staffers have now seen, touched, examined and photographed the original birth certificate," the group said in a statement accompanying the image of the "Certificate of Live Birth."

Snopes, also, attested to Obama’s U.S. citizenship, citing information from the campaign itself.

However, WND columnist Janet Porter, who has investigated the dispute, wrote in her column today that there are too many questions to ignore.

"In Hawaii, a Certification of Live Birth is issued within a year of a child’s birth to those who register a birth abroad or one that takes place outside a hospital," she said.

She cited the work of Ron Polarik, who holds a Ph.D. in instructional media and specializes in computer graphics with over 20 years experience with computers, printers and typewriters.

"Polarik has submitted a signed affidavit and has now released his findings on video at www.ObamaForgery.com with his identity masked and voice altered to guard against the carrying out of threats, which he has already received," Porter wrote.

"The Summary: The Certificate of Live Birth documents posted on Mr. Obama’s website www.fightthesmears.com , Daily Kos (a pro-Obama blog) and factcheck.org, (a pro-Obama political research group), were found to be altered and forged," she said.

The researcher cited problems with pixels in the image and a fold line and a blurry border. He asserts the border is a 2007 version while the seal and signature are from 2008.

She also cited issues beyond the birth certificate.

"There’s the matter that Obama traveled to Indonesia, Pakistan, Southern India and Kenya in 1981. He said he went to Indonesia to see his mother. This seemed plausible, except for the fact that his mother returned to Hawaii in August of 1980 to file for a divorce from her second husband, Lolo Soetoro. Unless she went back to pal around with the man she divorced, she wasn’t there at the time of Obama’s visit," Porter wrote.

"There’s another problem. No record of Obama holding an American passport prior to the one he received once becoming a U.S. senator has been found. If he traveled to Pakistan with an American passport, he wouldn’t have been allowed in – since Pakistan was in turmoil in 1981 and under martial law. It was also on the State Department’s travel ban list for U.S. citizens," she wrote.

"If he couldn’t get into Pakistan with a U.S. passport, perhaps he went there with an Indonesian passport. But the only way you can get one of those is if you are an Indonesian citizen ," she wrote.

Porter encouraged residents to contact the members of the House Judiciary Committee with a request to hold congressional hearings and write to the U.S. Supreme Court to request a ruling.

On the FederalistBlog the writers concluded:

"A child born to an American mother and alien father could be said to be a citizen of the United States by some affirmative act of law but never entitled to be a natural-born citizen because through laws of nature the child inherits the condition of their father."

Obama’s mother held U.S. citizenship, but his father never did.

WND also reported that Herb Titus, the Constitution Party’s running mate to Howard Phillips in 1996 and recognized authority on the U.S. Constitution, said it is up the electors from the 50 states to make certain Obama is a natural-born U.S. citizen before they cast votes for him in the Electoral College Dec. 15.

"If they do their duty, they would make sure that if they cast a vote for Mr. Obama, that Mr. Obama is a natural-born citizen," he told WND.

"I think it should be resolved. The duty is in the Electoral College. Every Obama elector that is committed to casting a vote on the 15th of December, they have a constitutional duty to make certain whether Mr. Obama is a natural-born citizen," he said.

If the electors fail their duty and Obama proves ultimately to fail the eligibility requirement of the U.S. Constitution, there would be only the laborious, contentious and cumbersome process of impeachment available to those who would wish to follow the Constitution, he suggested.

On WND’s new forum page, the level of frustration was rising. Dozens contributed their thoughts immediately after the forum was posted:

"What makes Obama non-respon[sive] to the simplest of requests?" asked one reader. "Does he think that it is politically incorrect to ask for authentication of the myriad of facts about himself … Is he testing the grounds to see how far he can play with this charade?"

Other comments included:

* "Obama won his first election ever by getting three Democratic opponents thrown off the ballot? He’s all for using the law to help himself win. Wouldn’t it be ironic if he is not allowed to serve as president due to the law? … Turn around is fair play!
* "Even the left-wing liberal news media is beginning to ask the question: ‘Who is this man we have elected? We really do not know much about him.’"
* "Obama’s refusal to produce the ORIGINAL given birth certificate gives us all pause. His silence on these allegations is deafening. The anointed one believes that if he can hold us all back until he’s in the Oval Office he’s hit a home run and he’s ‘safe.’ Ah, not so! Check your law, Obama, and you will see that even if were to make it to the White House you will no longer be able to hide behind those red velvet ropes."
* "There must be something that would have caused him great harm prior to the election, and would have stopped him from becoming elected. What could that little piece of information be?"

Original story here …

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 Crockett arose:

"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 not the 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 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 houseless, 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 done 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 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 of 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. A s 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 intend by it only to say that your understanding of the C onstitution 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 in the backwoods and seldom go from home, I take the papers from Washington and read very carefully all the proceedings of Congress. My papers say that last winter you voted for a bill to appropriate $20,000 to some sufferers 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 T reasury, 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 with the question. The power of collecting and disbursing money at pleasure is the most dangerous power that can be entrusted to man, particularly under our system of collecting revenue by a 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 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 t hought 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 sufferers by contributing each one week’s pay, it would have made over $13,000. There are plenty of wealthy 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 creditably; 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 Constitution, 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.’

"I tell you I felt streaked. I saw if I should have opposition, and this man should go to talking, he would set others to talking, and in that district I was a gone fawn-skin. I could not answer him, and the fact is, I was so fully convinced that he was right, I did not want to. But I must satisfy him, and I said to him:

" ‘ Well, my friend, you hit the nail upon the head when you said I had not sense enough to understand the Constitution. I intended to be guided by it, and thought I had studied it fully. I have heard many speeches in Congress about the powers of Congress, but what you have said here at your plow has got more hard, sound sense in it than all the fine speeches I ever heard. If I had ever taken the view of it that you have, I would have put my head into the fire before I would have given that vote; and if you will forgive me and vote for me again, if I ever vote for another unconstitutional law I wish I may be shot.’

"He laughingly replied; ‘Yes, Colonel, you have sworn to that once before, but I will trust you again upon one condition. You say that you are convinced that your vote was wrong. Your acknowledgment of it will do more good than beating you for it. If, as you go around the district, you will tell people about this vote, and that you are satisfied it was wrong, I will not only vote for you, but will do what I can to keep down opposition, and , perhaps, I may exert some little influence in that way.’

" ‘ If I don’t ’ , said I, ‘I wish I may be shot; and to convince you that I am in earnest in what I say I will come back this way in a week or ten days, and if you will get up a gathering of the people, I will make a speech to them. Get up a barbecue, and I will pay for it.’

" ‘ No, Colonel, we are not rich people in this section , but we have plenty of provisions to contribute for a barbecue, and some to spare for those who have none. The push of crops will be over in a few days, and we can then afford a day for a barbecue. This is Thursday; I will see to getting it up on Saturday week. Come to my house on Friday, and we will go together, and I promise you a very respectable crowd to see and hear you. ’

" ‘Well , I will be here. But one thing more before I say good-bye. I must know your name. ’

" ‘My name is Bunce.’

" ‘Not Horatio Bunce?’

" ‘Yes .’

" ‘Well, Mr. Bunce, I never saw you before, though you say you have seen me, but I know you very well. I am glad I have met you, and very proud that I may hope to have you for my friend.’

"It was one of the luckiest hits of my life that I met him. He mingled but little with the public, but was widely known for his remarkable intelligence and incorruptible integrity, and for a heart brimful and running over with kindness and benevolence, which showed themselves not only in words but in acts. He was the oracle of the whole country around him, and his fame had extended far beyond the circle of his immediate acquaintance. Though I had never met him , before, I had heard much of him, and but for this meeting it is very likely I should have had opposition, and had been beaten. One thing is very certain, no man could now stand up in that district under such a vote.

"At the appointed time I was at his house, having told our conversation to every crowd I had met, and to every man I stayed all night with, and I found that it gave the people an interest and a confidence in me stronger than I had ever seen manifested before.

"Though I was considerably fatigued when I reached his house, and, under ordinary circumstances, should have gone early to bed, I kept him up until midnight , talking about the principles and affairs of government, and got more real, true knowledge of them than I had got all my life before.

"I have known and seen much of him since, for I respect him – no, that is not the word – I reverence and love him more than any living man, and I go to see him two or three times every year; and I will tell you, sir, if every one who professes to be a Christian lived and acted and enjoyed it as he does, the religion of Christ would take the world by storm.

"But to return to my story. The next morning we went to the barbecue , and, to my surprise, found about a thousand men there. I met a good many whom I had not known before, and they and my friend introduced me around until I had got pretty well acquainted – at least, they all knew me.

"In due time notice was given that I would speak to them. They gathered up around a stand that had been erected. I opened my speech by saying:

" ‘ Fellow-citizens – I present myself before you today feeling like a new man. My eyes have lately been opened to truths which ignorance or prejudice , or both, had heretofore hidden from my view. I feel that I can today offer you the ability to render you more valuable service than I have ever been able to render before. I am here today more for the purpose of acknowledging my error than to seek your votes. That I should make this acknowledgment is due to myself as well as to you. Whether you will vote for me is a matter for your consideration only. ’ "

"I went on to tell them about the fire and my vote for the appropriation and then told them why I was satisfied it was wrong. I closed by saying:

" ‘ And now, fellow-citizens, it remains only for me to tell you that the most of the speech you have listened to with so much interest was simply a repetition of the arguments by which your neighbor, Mr. Bunce, convinced me of my error.

" ‘ It is the best speech I ever made in my life, but he is entitled to the
credit for it. And now I hope he is satisfied with his convert and that he will get up here and tell you so.’

"He came upon the stand and said:

" ‘ Fellow-citizens – I t affords me great pleasure to comply with the request of Colonel Crockett. I have always considered him a thoroughly honest man, and I am satisfied that he will faithfully perform all that he has promised you today.’

"He went down, and there went up from that crowd such a shout for Davy Crockett as his name never called forth before. ‘

"I am not much given to tears, but I was taken with a choking then and felt some big drops rolling down my cheeks. And I tell you now that the remembrance of those few words spoken by such a man, and the honest, hearty shout they produced, is worth more to me than all the honors I have received and all the reputation I have ever made, or ever shall make, as a member of Congress. ‘

"Now, sir," concluded Crockett, "you know why I made that speech yesterday.

"There is one thing now to which I will call your attention. Y ou remember that I proposed to give a week’s pay. There are in that House many very wealthy men – men who think nothing of spending a week’s pay, or a dozen of them, for a dinner or a wine party when they have something to accomplish by it. Some of those same men made beautiful speeches upon the great debt of gratitude which the country owed the deceased–a debt which could not be paid by money–and the insignificance and worthlessness of money, particularly so insignificant a sum as $ 1 0,000 , when weighed against the honor of the nation. Yet not one of them responded to my proposition. Money with them is nothing but trash when it is to come out of the people. But it is the one great thing for which most of them are striving, and many of them sacrifice honor, integrity, and justice to obtain it."