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About this quote

What does it mean?
Crockett complains that legislators prioritize showing off eloquence over doing actual business, leading to long useless sessions.
In plain terms
The legislature takes too long because members want to show off their speaking skills.
What can you take from it?
Showmanship in government can hinder practical progress.

Where it applies

  • critiquing legislative sessions
  • discussing political performance
  • complaining about bureaucracy

Putting it to work

  • legislative reform
  • efficiency critique
  • political satire

Questions to consider

  • How much time is spent on style over substance in government?
  • Is speaking skill useful for legislation?

Another view

Eloquence can sometimes be valuable for persuasion.

More from Davy Crockett

  1. 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 …

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  2. Heaven knows that I have done all that a mortal could do, to save the people, and the failure was not my fault, but the fault of others.

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  3. 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 d…

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