Horatio Bunce Sets Davy Crockett on the Path to Protect the Constitution

In the first installment of this series about Davy Crockett you learned how his meeting with Horatio Bunce set him straight concerning the use of Constitutional power by a Congressman. What was the force acting upon Horatio Bunce that gave him the ability to think so cogently about government and an understanding of the “chains of the Constitution”? Davy Crockett reveals the probable answer to this question as he tells of his lifelong relationship with Mr. Bunce.

The following admission from Davy Crockett makes it evident that Horatio Bunce was a Christian:

“I have told you Mr. Bunce converted me politically. He came nearer converting me religiously than I had ever been before. He did not make a very good Christian of me, as you know; but he has wrought upon my mind a conviction of the truth of Christianity, and upon my feelings a reverence for its purifying and elevating power such as I had never felt 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.”

As a lively Christian, Horatio Bunce understood the depravity of the soul of man from a Biblical perspective. He once said to Davy Crockett, “The power of collecting and disbursing money at pleasure is the most dangerous power that can be entrusted to men...” In this statement you can see that Horatio Bunce understood that civil magistrates must be checked by a higher law than their own. He understood the covenantal nature of the American government, and he understood that Davy Crockett, and indeed, all officials of the American system must be chained by the charter of the covenant – by the Constitution.

Finally Horatio Bunce understood that he had a responsibility to know the covenant that chained his elected officials, so that he could maintain a check on them. It is only through a populace that knows the charter of the nation that the civil authorities will be held in check to that charter. Christians should know that just as the church and her officials must be governed by the Holy Scriptures, government officials must be governed by their Constitution.