35TH CONG....1ST SESS. ment of the same strength; or an individual volunteer during the same period, $174 97 more than an individual regular soldier." It will be remembered, however, that these volunteers are mounted.* Mr. BENJAMIN. In my statement as to the cost per man of the Army, I took from the estimates submitted by the War Department what the Secretary of War himself states as to the expenses of the Army proper. I find the estimates as follows: First, expenses of recruiting, transportation of recruits, &c., $110,000; next, pay, commutation of officers' subsistence, commutation of forage, payments to discharged soldiers for clothing not drawn, payments in lieu of clothing for officers' servants, subsistence in kind, clothing of the Army, supplies for the quartermaster's department, incidental expenses of that department, barracks, transportation of officers' baggage, transportation of troops and supplies, purchase of horses, contingencies of the Army, medical and hospital department, contingent expenses of the adjutant general's department, expenses of the commanding general's office,-the whole making, together, as the cxpenses of the Army proper, $14,776,619 49. Now, if we take, according to the statement of the honorable Senator from Mississippi, the cost of raising a regiment, and count that only as added to the pay and rations, undoubtedly he may bring the expenses per man to four or five hundred dollars; but have we any assurance that all the other expenses and all those other branches of the Army service are not to increase proportionately to the Army, and consequently that the sum total of the appropriations will still remain about a thousand dollars per man? I do not profess to be acquainted with these details, but I take the report of the Secretary of War, and he says he wants $15,000,000 for the Army proper, which now averages about fifteen thousand men, making $1,000 per man. Mr. DAVIS. I am obliged to the Senator from Louisiana for his explanation, and think it is easily answered. It is a process of calculation which always leads to error. There are some methods of computation which will occasionally be right, and sometimes wrong; but that is a process which is always wrong, and cannot be right. I will put the two cases that result from that process. I will suppose that fortifications cease; that the manufacture of arms ceases; that your staff is disbanded; that you swell the companies to the maximum limit; that you have additional regiments; that you raise an army to that magnitude which might even frighten the Senators who have spoken It is to be observed, that the above sum of $293,784 39 is a full and minutely exact estimate of the whole amount required for the pay, clothing, subsistence, and personal equipment (exclusive only of arms) of a maximum infantry regiment, supposed to be full, at the beginning of the year, and to be kept full throughout the whole succeeding twelve months. It is moreover to be observed, that the estimates for clothing is for a first year's supply, which is considerably greater than that for either of the subsequent four years; the proportional cost of an infantry soldier's allowance for the five years, being, according to the last table published to the Army, in 1855, as follows: first year, $44 03; second year, $2361; third year, $36 67; fourth year, $23 61; fifth year, $31 52. The allowance of camp and garrison equipage, herein included, is expected, besides, under ordinary circumstances, to last throughout the whole five years. The estimated cost of raising a regiment is not to be counted in the same year with that above furnished for maintaining it; not only, because, as already stated, the latter completely covers the year, but for the reason that many items of expense included in the former, and which cannot easily be separated from it, are also included in the latter. of the dangers of a standing army; and yet, ac- he argued should be included in the expense per Mr. BENJAMIN. In the list of expenditures to which I have just referred, I carefully excluded everything having reference to the manufacture of arms, and to fortifications. That list has no reference to them at all. They are excluded. If we include these and other items, the expenses would reach twenty millions. This brings me to the argument of the Senator from Georgia, that on account of the improvements which have been made, an army of twentyfive thousand men is equal to what one hundred thousand would have been twenty-five years ago. Sir, twenty-five years ago we had none of these long marches to make which are reported by the Secretary of War. Twenty-five years ago our Indian frontier was within reach of supplies which could be sent on navigable water. It has been since that time that our Indian frontier has been pressed outward, the settlements advancing from navigable waters, throwing our military operations into a country where everything has to be transported at a vast expense, and where nothing is to be obtained, either on the road or at the place of destination. These are the elements of increasing expense, and the expense is not to be diminished by making speeches about what has been done in former times, and what might be done now. It requires the coöperation of the legislative Mr. DAVIS. But you include all the vastly and executive branches, to reduce the expenses expensive portions of the Army in your estimate. of the Army, or any other branch of the public You include the staff, which would not be in-service. Reforms have been asked, from year creased by adding to the number of men, and which, on our theory, is maintained in time of peace because it is essential in time of war; because it is a part of that arrangement by which you render effective, with the small nucleus preserved in time of peace, a large army in the field. Besides, it will be remembered that by special legislation you have sometimes increased the pay of particular officers, general and staff; you have raised it to a magnitude which bears no relation to that of the soldiers; and this is an argument adduced against the increase of companies, against the increase of privates in the Army; but it has resulted from the pay which you have bestowed with a liberal hand on some officers in the service. I say such a process of calculation leads to error, and cannot lead to any other result. It never can evolve the truth. It may vary the one side or the other, just in proportion as the Administration multiply the troops and diminish the size of the staff, or the reverse; but it is false, work it out as you may. In the argument of Mr. Calhoun, in his report of 1820, in answering then the very same objections which are made now, as to the expensive character of our peace establishment, he pointed out the unfairness of including the staff in such an argument, and running a parallel between the staff of our Army and others. A nation of Europe keeping on her peace establishment an army equal to her war purposes, and having it concentrated, and with a staff exactly commensurate to the size of that army, forms no standard of measure for a country like ours and an army like ours, where we preserve, in time of peace, a staff suited to the vast augmentation of our force, by bringing the militia into the field in time of war. The same argument which he made then is applicable now; but I shall not detain the Senate longer on this point. I am not arguing that the expense of our military establishment is not great, or more properly the expense of protecting our frontier; but arguing rather that the whole theory on which the opposition rests is wrong. They contend that, in proportion as you increase the number of men, you will increase the expenses of the Army. It is not so; because, if you use one regiment to perform the duty of five, you add to the expense of that regiment the transportation to the places where five would be stationed, and you increase the expenses of that regiment just in proportion as you move it over great distances. Then the expense comes in, as this year, in the form of transportation. It comes in exactly as that deficiency which was cited by the Senator from Maine, and which year, to improve the administration of the Army, but they have not been granted. The last two Administrations, as well as this, have recom mended to Congress changes in the organization which would be conducive to economy and efficiency. Congress has not heretofore responded. Whilst it does not so respond, it seems as idle, as it is easy, to make declamation against the expenses of the military establishment. We are told by the Senator from Georgia that he takes the standard of Mr. Calhoun, and he made the argument-which I am willing to pass over-that Mr. Calhoun left ten companies to the regiment, and therefore he was retaining the theory of Mr. Calhoun, against the invasion of that theory by the proposed bill. Sir, the theory of Mr. Calhoun was not any certain number of officers to the regiment; it was not any certain number of men to the company; it was not even any certain number of officers to the Army. He says, in his report, that those were things which varied with different countries, and must vary in the same country, at different times. He presented what he believed to be a good organization of the staff. What I claim respect for in relation to Mr. Calhoun's theory of organization, is the great principle on which it rested; not the details, which were to vary with circumstances, but the mighty truth, which his mind, contracting all light like a moral lens, brought on the subject. It was the truth of this theory of a skeleton army, in time of peace, for purposes of instruction and organization, with a staff adequate to the vast number of militia which would be called into the field whenever we should be engaged in a foreign war. That theory he presented; that theory he defended; that theory has been justified by practice and experience from that day to this. That theory is not violated by changing the number of men in a company, or the number of men in a regiment, or the number of companies in a regiment. The number of companies in a regiment varies from twelve to eight. It is not violated by increasing or reducing the Army. It would only be violated by establishing, as a rule, that we would on our peace establishment keep a certain number of companies required for frontier service, and swell them up to the war or maximum standard, and then, when we get into war, be compelled to meet its contingencies by raising new troops, or, as Mr. Calhoun said, introducing a new element, instead of expanding the old one. The Senator from Texas says there is a want of respectability in the rank and file of the Army, and he draws that want of respectability from 35TH CONG....1ST SESS. their inability to obtain promotion. I answered him on that point this morning, and showed him that, at least, recent legislation had removed his argument, had opened the door wider than ever before, and the rank and file were in a better condition now than they were at the time to which he referred, so far as promotion was concerned. I endeavored-I will not say successfully-to controvert his idea that the present object was to diminish that opportunity, and sought to show, and I believe did show, that the first section of this bill was to increase the opportunities for the promotion of the rank and file, both to commissioned and non-commissioned officers. But he repeated, this morning, something like the argument he made the other day, when he averred that there was an impassable barrier between the rank and file and the commissioned officers, and he ascribes it all to the Military Academy as the root of the evil. He says these are political appointments. He seems to have a very bad opinion of a man because he has been instructed in a particular branch. He seems to reach the conclusion that it follows, as a necessary consequence, that if a man has been educated for a particular profession, he is utterly unfit for it. Therefore, the lawyer, who gets a license, must be unfit to go into court; the surgeon, who has walked the hospitals, must be unable to perform an operation. It seems to me that the test to which they are applied ought to bring anybody's mind to a different conclusion. I propose to notice that, in connection with his argument, that this is political favoritism. I claim that on the theory which at present exists, we have the most democratic basis which could be incorporated into the Army. How are your cadets appointed? It is true the law leaves to the Executive the power to appoint; but it is well known that the practice is, and for many years has been, for the member of the congressional district in which a vacancy occurs, to nominate whomsoever he pleases from that district, and the Secretary of War always appoints the person so nominated. Then these appointments are political only in the sense that they represent every shade of political opinion which is represented in the House of Representatives, and that every political party, which can have a voice in the House of Representatives, has a representative in the Military Academy. Is that objectionable? If so, how is it proposed to be cured? Then, again, the large number appointed, say one hundred per annum, exceeds the number who are commissioned, say forty or fifty, more than two to one. Thus double, or more than double, the chances are given to the youth of the country to get into the Academy, that are offered to get places in the Army. I say you multiply the opportunities; and how is this brought to bear? From each congressional district a nomination may be made. The cadet so nominated enters the Academy, and there it depends on himself whether he shall go through and obtain a commission or rot. When he attains that commission, he feels that he has something which he has won by his own effort; something he does not owe to the favor of any one, save so far as he may run back to the early favor he received from the member who nominated him to an office, which was so small that the member had probably forgotten it. If, then, I say, there is any mode by which you could leave the officer of the Army without any political bias of character; any mode by which you could leave him independently to feel that he might entertain whatever opinions he pleased, it is that which you have adopted, and which enables him to reach a commission by his own effort, in contact with the struggling many by whom he is to be surrounded. If you were to increase that Academy twofold in number, you would but render its principles more democratic; you would but increase the chances to youth to get position; you would but increase the struggle which would be required to obtain a commission, and give him additionally to feel that whatever he attained he owed to his country, and not to man; to himself, and not to mere political favoritism. The Senate proceeded to the consideration of executive business, and then adjourned. Increase of the Army-Mr. Davis. THURSDAY, February 11. Mr. President, having already consumed the time of the Senate to a greater extent than I had anticipated, I shall endeavor to close my remarks very soon. Yesterday, in the progress of a review of the various objections made to the bill, I noticed those points that relate to efficiency and economy. I undertook to show, at that time, that it was better all the duties of our peace establishment, as it is called, should be performed by regular troops, than by the frequent calling out of the militia. I endeavored, also, to indicate at that time the sources of the increase in the expenditure of the Army, and to show that this was the result of the remote points at which the Army was serving; it was the result of the vast expense of transportation to those remote points; it was the result of the increased cost of everything which entered into the consumption and the active employment of the Army. I do not recollect whether or not I stated another very essential difference: being that, whilst at the time the comparison of which I spoke was instituted, we had no mounted force except a small amount of light artillery, we now have nearly one third of the amount of the Army mounted; and that portion of the Army almost constantly in active service. Horses which at that time were worth sixty or seventy dollars, cost last year $176; forage has risen in the same proportion; and, as the loss of horses in the service of the United States has been referred to, I invite attention to the cases which I cited yesterday, and others of a like kind, where Indians had been pursued by troops for hundreds of miles without cessation, passing over sixty, and sometimes even eighty miles, almost, scarcely without drawing the rein, in pursuit of an enemy as wily, as brave, and, mounted on horses, nearly as fleet as the Arabs of the desert, over a country quite as inhospitable, and in which it is equally difficult to obtain water or food necessary to sustain a horse. Undergoing this severe fatigue under excessive heat, is it matter of surprise that horses, drawn immediately from the farms where they have been purchased, and forced into such service as this, should sink under the trial-should require to be renewed, and that the expenditure should be great, as they must be supplied not only at the high rates of the market, but at the accumulated value they have when transported to these remote points? The distribution, which is to be made of the gross amount of expenditure according to the statement read by the Senator from Louisiana, [Mr. BENJAMIN, is not a distribution upon the heads of the soldiers. For a fair comparison, reference must be had to the different character of troops; and it will be readily seen that the simple division of a gross sum to be applied to a variety of objects cannot give a result which will express the cost of the soldier truly, The sum he has stated is, I believe, perhaps about that which a mounted soldier costs in the Army, Taking the troops serving at these remote points, engaged in these expeditions, and taking the cost of forage, and the supplying of remount horses, I believe it will amount to what he stated, $1,000 per capita; but this surely is not to be taken as the average cost of the Army, it being not the man only, but the horse also, and the cost of both depending on the locality of service. Equally delusive is the comparison made between the cost of this date and that selected, there being no cavalry at the former period, and the posts being then convenient to the great markets of the country, and contiguous to productive settlements. SENATE. tingencies, the Senate would have done. He announces, after speaking of the wants, and delay the Senate had made in attending to them: "Strange as this delay is, its causes are yet stranger. The increase recommended was by regiments. That recommendation came first from the Lieutenant General commanding the Army, indorsed by the Secretary of War, and finally approved by the President. It can scarcely be doubted, had the Military Committees, without delay, reported a bill in conformity with these suggestions, it would at this moment have been the law of the land, the regiments in a forward state of recruiting, and arrangements in progress for their early march to their places of destination." So far as that delay occurred in the committee, it occurred during the period the committee were collecting information and investigating the sub ject, to reach a result and bring that result to the Senate. Then, sir, as to what the Senate would have done, that is not a matter of speculation. The substitute presented by the Senator from California, [Mr. GWIN,] the very proposition of the War Department, was voted upon, and it received but eight votes in the Senate; and of those eight votes, some Senators voted for it because they felt it was a proposition so easily killed that they had better substitute it for the bill of the committee, with no desire that it should pass, with no intent to sustain it, but simply adopting it as a means of readily disposing of the whole question. This article proceeds to deal with military matters, and informs the Senate and the committee that all the knowledge on military affairs is at the other end of the avenue; and then the writer proceeds himself to launch out a little. Speaking of the Army organization, he says: "Indeed, on inquiry, we learn that two of each of the twelve artillery companies are intended for light field artillery, and are not integrals of the garrison organization, which conforms to the other regiments, is of long standing, is the basis of our system, State and Federal, and of the systems of the European armies." If he had happened to know a little about the organization of the European armies, of which he speaks so confidently, he would have understood that the artillery organization there is for a wholly different purpose-a purpose for which ours should be-and conforms to the idea which I once presented to the Senate, when in the War Department, to make our artillery organization for the use of large guns, and not as they are now infantry, merely wearing a different uniform. The article proceeds: "In fact, but a hasty glance at the books shows but one established system of regimental organization in all these different arms, and we find the entire tactical system based on battalion, squadron, regimental drill, and army evolutions, contemplating ten companies to each regiment." The "glance" must have been "hasty" indeed hastier than a "plate of soup;" and it must have been oblique as well as hasty; otherwise it certainly must have occurred to the writer of this article, who, it is apparent, is not as ignorant as he is inclined willfully to misrepresent, that so far from this being a uniform organization, it is an exception in every army of Europe; that so far from ten companies being the universal organization, so far from the tactics depending on the number of companies, he will not find in any system of tactics the word "regiment" used. All our tactical organization is on the basis of the battalion; and a battalion in the European armies usually consists of some fraction of a regiment. A regiment may consist of one, two, three, four, or six battalions, and in some circumstances it does. There are, in some services, regiments running up from six to twenty-four companies. The idea of ten companies being the basis recognized all over the world as necessary for the tactics, is an absurdity which a man who shows as much knowledge of the affair of which he writes mitted with an honest purpose. Then he says: as the writer of this article, cannot have com "The mischief would not end in deranging the fixed Army basis, but would result in fundamentally changing the militia organizations in all the States of the Union, as they have adopted the Army plan, and must always look to it for its systeni of drill and instruction. Here would be incalculable mischief and confusion." I have never, I believe, either in my former or present service in the Senate, referred to any criticism in a newspaper, or to a newspaper article, and I do not intend to do so now in that character; but the Senator from New Hampshire, [Mr. HALE,] yesterday, introduced a newspaper article, which, at that time, I had not read. Since it has been introduced by a Senator to the Senate, I will notice it; but otherwise I would not have done so. It is a flippant article contained in the Union of yesterday, in which the writer under-ing the number of companies in a regiment!—a takes to arraign the Committee on Military Affairs of the Senate, and presumptuously, also, to arraign the Senate, and, committing the most egregious blunders, to state what, under certain con Incalculable mischief and confusion by chang change that has been frequently made in our own history, and which, in its reference to the tactics, is not found to bear any relation at all, the whole being intended for a certain number of companies 35TH CONG....1ST SESS. APPENDIX TO THE CONGRESSIONAL GLOBE. Increase of the Army-Mr. Davis. constituting a battalion; and it merely so happen-cessity still continued. When those necessities ing that, when the tactics were prepared, ten companies did constitute a regiment; and, therefore, in assigning the captains to their posts in line, they are assigned numerically on the basis of ten companies to a regiment. are to cease, I am not able to foretell. army has been thrown forward to preserve order In the mean time you are aware that a small and maintain the laws in the Territory of Utah. I wish it to be understood, sir, that it is because propriety of making that expedition against Utah. I shall not follow Senators in a discussion of the the Senator from New Hampshire has introduced I believe, and I will say so much now, that the this subject in the Senate, that I have departed elements of disintegration were in the community from what is the course I have heretofore pursued, and stop to notice newspaper criticism on of Mormons established in Utah; I believe that the action of the committee, or of the Senate, or physical causes and moral causes were conjointly of myself. In times past I have defied such crit-lieved, then, and I am rather inclined to the opinworking together to break up that people. I beicism, and I expect to do it in the future. I rely upon the intelligence of the people to discriminate between the scribbler who arraigns a public man for the manner in which he performs his duty, and the justice that truth requires, as it is to be elaborated by their own intelligent minds. I pointed out, in my remarks yesterday, the distinction between a State and a Territory in relation to the power of this Government to use its military force. This brings me to a brief notice of a remark in the President's message which refers to the withdrawal of the troops in Kansas in case Kansas should be admitted as a State. The President sees, no doubt, that troops are required elsewhere; and I agree with him, that if Kansas becomes a State, she ought then to provide for the execution of her own laws; and that if she requires extraneous aid, it ought to be sought only in the manner provided in the laws made in conformity with the Constitution. I agree with the President, that troops ought not to be quartered in the State of Kansas, or any other State, with a view to preserve civil order, and that the troops will be disposable when Kansas shall be admitted as a State. Whether peace will follow, I do not know. That depends on whether the people of Kansas are now fit to be a State. If they are fit to form and maintain a State and take their place as equals in this Union, then they do not require troops to be quartered in their midst in order to preserve civil order. That is a question which belongs to the future. In the mean time, I take it for granted that the President will withdraw the two thousand men heretofore kept, under the requisition of Governor Walker, to preserve peace in Kansas, and to suppress insurrection in the event of her admission into the Union. on now, that if we had stood still they would have separated; that it required the compressive them into submission to their great leaders, to force of active movements against them to bring bring in the colonies that had been thrown off from the mother settlement at Salt Lake, back to the grand church, and to unite them under a bond against any military force that you can probably of fanaticism that now makes them effective send there. But these are questions which belong to the past, him. The column with which he moved was no Now let us see what is necessary to reinforce larger than was necessary for its own security and the security of its supplies. Then the column that goes to reinforce him, if it were only with provisions and animals of draught, must be as large That, then, renders two thousand men disposas the original column, and it must be larger still, able for other service; but I submit to the Senate because the train will be increased; and thus you whether it will justify us in keeping our troops will go on from to year year with down to the present establishment. The long lines train of supplies you send out; sending a detachevery additional to be occupied, the numerous posts required, in ment of troops at least equal to, I believe it must addition to those we now have, demand an addibe larger than, the original column which went tional force. The committee have adopted a plan forth under the command of Colonel Johnston. which gives us an increase of the integral parts of Year by year, then, as you delay, you will conthe Army. It was believed to be the most ecotinue to increase the expenditure and increase the nomical which could be adopted for that purpose, column that you are annually to send out. A colavoiding the very high expense that belongs to the umn may come back, but the expense will not be higher grades of officers in the regimental organ- grow annually until this matter is terminated in the less for that reason. ization, preserving the present efficiency, and Your expenditure is to opening in the future (when that future shall come one way or the other. If it is to be terminated by and which I do not pretend to foresee) a convenient bringing the Mormons to submission to the Govmode of reducing the Army by striking one bat-then, wisdom, both in relation to treasure and the ernment of the United States by force, clearly, talion off each regiment; and if then, the President possess the power, on a declaration of a war, to restore this third battalion, it will render each regiment one third larger on the war than on the peace establishment, and they will go into the service with that efficiency and reliability which belong to discipline and instruction. During the time I was particularly charged with the administration of the War Department, troops were kept in Kansas when I desired to get them out, not that I did not believe occasions were occurring where they might be useful-and they proved more useful than I believed they would be-but on account of the difficulties which then existed on our frontier. The campaign which had been projected against the Cheyennes was paralyzed by the keeping of troops in Kansas. Those troops were wanted on the frontier to preserve peace; they were wanted on the frontier to punish Indians who had committed acts of hostility; but they were detained in Kansas from day to day, from month to month, and year to year. We looked to the time when peace in Kansas would relieve the Government of the necessity of keeping them there. Time rolled on, and the ne honor of the country, requires that an efficient force On the other hand, it may be that they will make Administration to adopt to terminate this diffi- [February 11, SENATE. oaths, to submit to the laws, and to surrender their hierarchical government, yet might be willing to leave the limits of the United States, and go to some remote region, if they had the means so to supposition that they are to go away in the spring migrate; for I hold all speculation founded on the would carry the whole body-politic to some reto parts unknown, must prove entirely deceptive. No community ever had the transportation that tain them until other supplies could be grown in mote country, and bear with them supplies to susWherever they go, they are probably to meet with the country to which they had gone. They have the hostility of the Government into whose country no people waiting with open arms to receive them. they enter. Unless they seek some island in the Government will open its gates to receive them. Pacific, I know of no place they can go where the supplies; but they go bearing with them the supThen they go not to find shelter, not to receive the march, but for at least six months after they plies that are to support them, not merely during have arrived at the place of destination. Is it not, then, apparent that they cannot go without the aid of the United States? If they wish to go, I would not only acknowledge in them the right of expatriation, if, indeed, they be citizens of the United States, but I would willingly give as much money, and more, too, than the campaign would cost, thus to get rid of them. I would much rather pay money to let them go peaceably than pay money to drive them away by shedding the blood of American inhabitants on American soil by Amerbe-I want not their blood shed by the Governican arms. Deluded fanatics-criminals they may ment of the United States. Passing to the next supposition, if they shall retire, a force will be required to keep in check the Indians who surround them, already stimulated to hostility, holding a mountain region which can never be possessed by an agricultural people; indeed it required such associated labor as fanaticism only could command ever to enable the Morrequire constant military protection; and if the mons to support themselves in the valley of Salt Mormons were out of the United States, still a Lake. Through that country our emigrant routes force must be kept along those routes, or moving at stated periods across the continent to give protection to our emigrants traveling from the valley of the Mississippi to the slopes of the Pacific. any possible conclusion of this Mormon difficulty, I do not see how we are to look forward, from to a reduction of the Army; and it was because of these and other things, with which I will not weary the Senate, (for I have already occupied early period of this debate, that I did not propose too much of their time,) that I stated, in a very a temporary increase, and that I could not anticipate the day when the reduction would come. This was the honest avowal of opinions which the subject. resulted from a somewhat careful examination of During the last year I was in the War Office, an examination of the condition of that country future, induced me to project a campaign which and of the emigrant routes, and of the probable was to have started last spring, and to have gone across by the Salt Lake and through the Klamath Indians, to the slopes of the Pacific in the Terrivalley, which was known to be filled with hostile and the only reason I have ever known was, that tory of Oregon. That campaign was broken up; it was thought to be too late for it to start. visions had been thrown forward as far as Fort ProLaramie, and every disposition had been made to render the campaign certain of success. ever they start, they will have to start later than Whenthe period when the order for that campaign was countermanded. Among the amendments to the bill which have been suggested, one is to reduce the establishment at the termination of this campaign. I will offer no objection to that, because that is merely referring the question to the wisdom of the future. I have not, in any remarks that I have made, intended to offer any objection to a proposed reduction further than this: I deemed it due to myself to declare that I could not say that I believed, at Senate decide it now, I have no objection to the that time, we could agree to a reduction. If the 35TH CONG....1ST SESS. provision being made now; no more than postponing it to that time. Whenever the time comes that the Army can be reduced, I shall be as ready to vote for its reduction in any form which may be practicable, with our theory of a skeleton peace establishment, as any one. I have no particular objection to the amendment which the Senator from Ohio [Mr. PUGH] has proposed; though I will say to him, in relation to the additional surgeons, that that does not depend on the size of the Army; it depends on the number of posts. The number of surgeons that may be required will de-, pend on the manner in which the Army is distributed and administered. Increase of the Army—Mr. Davis. In this connection I believe I did not allude to one point, which I will not at this time press, for 1 have already consumed too much time. The fact that no small part of the expenditures incurred in connection with our Indian troubles results from the administration of the Indians being under one Department, and the military affairs under another. The Interior Department and the Army are thus brought into conflict on the frontier. The Government pays both the contestants. The Government, through the Interior Department, sends arms and ammunition to the very Indian tribe whom the next month the War Department may send troops to subdue. Thus discontent and distrust arise between the two branches of the public service. The Interior Department sends presents to the Indians, and those Indians receive the presents after they have committed a foray on a settlement, and been chased for hundreds of miles by the troops; and thus they find their Great Father sending them these tokens of peace and good will, notwithstanding their misdeeds. It results from the organization, and it will continue until the control of the Indians is transferred back to the War Department. Then you bring the whole in connection; then a change from the peaceful to the hostile relation does not change the Department with which the Indians bear their connection. subdued by force, that they are treating with the same power that subdued them, and their very narrow comprehension will then see that the Government of the United States is one, whereas now it presents itself to their view as divided. When the four regiments were asked by the last Administration, no increase of the medical stuff was asked, because the policy of that Administration was to concentrate the troops into larger bodies, relying for the control of the Indians more on campaigns than posts, and thus to diminish the number of medical officers who would be required, which does not depend on the number of troops, but on the number of parts into which you divide your Army. We now have some forty-two private physicians employed. They are generally employed at remote points, without any possibility of knowing whether they are competent or not; and the soldier, prostrated by disease at a point where he cannot possibly get a phy-Then they will understand, after they have been sician on private account, is turned over to somebody whom the Department cannot know. That is the present condition We ask or an increase of fifteen assistant-surgeons, which is only a part of the whole number of private physicians now employed; but by employing those private physicians at recruiting stations and at posts near to cities, it will be possible to avoid the evil which is felt when the necessity occurs of employing a private physician on the Army frontier. It will be economy. You get not only persons of whose competency you have the power to judge, but you get them at a much lower rate than it is possible to hire private physicians. A few remarks now upon the general subject will, I believe, enable me to relieve the Senate. In various phraseology, it has been charged that the Army everywhere is the enemy of liberty, the instrument of despotism. One Senator even arraigned the Executive as wishing to use the Army to subvert the liberty of the country. An old man, who has attained the highest station his country could confer, and that the highest station Looking hopefully forward to the end of all pres- in the world, rising to it through the beneficial ent difficulties, Senators have proposed to fix a character of our institutions, which has enabled time and manner of reducing our military estab- an obscure boy to become the Chief Magistrate of lishment. There are many practicable methods a great people, must now turn, according to this of reduction. I have mentioned one this morning idea of the Senator from New Hampshire, and -cutting off a certain number of companies from make war with the Army upon the liberty of the each regiment, and leaving the regimental organi-country to which he owes whatever he is-identization entire, so as to give the readiest increase fied with which has been the whole course of his in time of war. Reduce the number of companies || public life; associated with which is his every to eight, which gives you the battalion; our present system being, in a regiment of ten, to call eight battalion companies, and two flank companies; sometimes the two are called light companies; sometimes the two are called one light company and one grenadier company; but the ninth and tenth companies are flank companies; they are not companies of the battalion at all. Our organization is the battalion. But we have been told that there is not the power to reduce the Army; and why not? The Senator from Texas says it is on account of the graduates of the Military Academy, and that it is necessary even to increase the Army to make places for them. That is a question of figures. The number of graduates did not equal the number of casualties that occurred last year; a number of appointments were made from civil life and one from the ranks of the Army. There were vacancies which occurred in the Army after absorbing the brevets which had been attached to the Army during the previous year, showing that the class of the previous year did not equal the casualties of the year. But have we not power to reduce the Army, and have the young gentlemen educated in the Military Academy such political puissance that the Senate dare not brave them? The officers of the Army, the class in the community that have no vote, thrown out on the frontier so far that if they were to speak their voice would not be heard, how are they to control the action of the Senate? It is a reflection on the Senate, more degrading to it as a body than the depreciatory terms which the Senator applied to the Army. I believe we can, and I believe we will, when we find the interest of the country justifies it, cut down this or any other part of our governmental establishment; and I only wish that the same scrutiny could be applied to other portions of the expenditures of the Government of the United States. achievement; and the destruction of which would SENATE. may use for the overthrow of the country's liberties. And yet further, sir, these men, such as they are, segregated into little bodies of forty or fifty, or two hundred at a place, thousands of miles apart-he who was born in the South stationed in the North, and he who was born in the North stationed in the South, or he who was born. in the South stationed in the land of his birth, and enjoying communion with the people who gave to him his first impressions, and so of him of the North-how are these men, in these little detached handfuls, all over our wide-spread country, to combine against the liberties of the Union?" In this connection, sir, I wish to read a single remark of Mr. Calhoun, for this is not a new subject. I read from a letter of his, addressed to the House of Representatives, December 14, 1818, to be found at page 779 of the State Papers, Military Affairs, volume 1: "I have not overlooked the maxim that a large standing army is dangerous to the liberty of the country, and that our ultimate reliance for defense ought to be in the militia. Its most zealous advocate must, however, acknowledge that a standing army, to a limited extent, is necessary; and no good reason can be assigned why any should exist but which will equally prove that he present is not too large. To consider the present Army as dangerous to our liberty partakes, it is conceived, more of tumidity than wisdom.” He then goes on to speak of the condition and character of the Army. We are told, however, and told truly, that republics have been overthrown by military organizations; but when did such a Republic as ours exist? Is Rome to be compared to this country? Rome is cited as an example to point the future destinies of the United States. Hers was an empire. When she had the name of a republic she was yet but a consolidated empire, with dependent provinces won by conquest, and governed by pro-consuls. Is this to be assimilated to our great family of States, each governing itself, each independent of all others, but all connected together for the common welfare, the common glory, and the general good? Then we are cited to cases in Europe, where despotism is maintained by standing armies; but suppose the despot had an American army to rely upon, would they be faithless to their first impressions, faithless to the free blood which runs in their veins and which descends from the bold barons of Runnymede? or would he not find when he came to review the line of his army, on every brow set the seal of inborn equality and independence, and would not some private in those ranks thunder in the ear of the despot, like Patrick Henry, the warning of the fate of Cæsar and of the fate of Charles? Is it to be inferred that a man who is a freeman at his birth, who has all the spirit of republicanism his heart, is to lose it by entering the military profession? Is it true, as the Senator from Texas has told us, that service in the Army stultifies young men? It cannot be. He is a bright example of the reverse himself. It was his proud fortune to rise from the ranks by his own merit to a commissioned officer, to serve in the Army, and there to acquire many of those qualities, en Chamber. He stands in himself a brilliant example of how little the Army stultifies, and how much it may exalt the youth contained in its ranks. But, sir, suppose a Chief Magistrate to be so wicked and so silly as this, how could he use the Army for such purpose? Refugees, to some extent, from other countries, who have come here to enjoy liberty, weary of the despotism of the land in which they were born, and natives of the United States, cradled by mothers who would, them-dowments, and graces, which have adorned this selves, have met a despot if he had come to the threshold of their houses, and with their own feminine arms have repulsed tyranny from the land of their birth-commanded by men who have been selected in their boyhood from the various conditions of the people and sections of our country, educated in the service of the Government, accustomed to look up to it as not only a temple beneath which they found shelter, but to uphold which, in all its beauty and its strength, was the great end and aim of all their earthly ambitiontrained to love, to respect, and to follow a flag emblematic of that Union which makes us a confederation of sovereignties, following from year to year, upon a poor pittance which barely sustains life, a profession to which they have been educated and to which they are attached, looking through it only to promotion and that reputation which is to be gained by the peril of their life, if an opportunity should offer, in the cause of their country-educated gentlemen, drawn from every section of the Union, from every condition of life, are suddenly, because they bear commissions and have sworn to sustain the Constitution and to serve their country against all enemies whatsover, to be converted into the mere instrument which a tyrant We have other and great examples. Did Washington become the fit instrument of a despotism? was he stultified because he entered the service of the United States in his youth? That great mind which comprehended the whole condition of the colonies; that heart which beat sympathetically for every portion of his common country, feeling equally for Massachusetts and South Carolina, for New York and Virginia; that great arm which smoothed the thorny path of revolution, and led the colonies from rational liberty up to national independence, and laid the foundation of that prosperity and greatness which have made us a people, not only an example for the whole world, but a protection to liberal principles wherever liberty asserts a right-was he stultified by service in the Army? Jackson too, the indomitable Jackson, who when a boy and a captive spurned the insult of a despot, and for asserting his personal dignity received a wound, the scar of which he carried to his grave-was he by service in the Army when yet a minor, by brilliant exploits în middle age, 35TH CONG....1ST SESS. rendered the fit instrument of despotism? If it be said these were men drawn from the pursuits of civil life and only occasionally employed in the military service, what, then, shall be said of the great, the good, heroic Taylor? for a hero he was, not in the mere vulgar sense of animal courage, but by the higher and nobler attributes of generosity and clemency. His was an eye that looked unquailing when the messengers of death were flying around him; but in the ward-room, over his wounded comrade, was dimmed by the tear of a soldier's love and compassion. His was a selfreliant, resolute heart, which rose under accumulated difficulties, and hardened by contact with danger; but that heart melted to a woman's softness at the wail of the helpless or the appeal of the vanquished. He was a hero, a moral hero. His heart was his country's, and his life had been his country's own through all its stages. Was he the fit instrument of a despot to be used for the overthrow of the liberties of the United States? Kansas Affairs-Mr. Burroughs. ment. It would seem that their love of the Union Sir, from my earliest days I have learned to HO. OF REPS. South shed upon the battle-fields of Mexico. All the wars in which this country has been engaged for the last twenty-five years have been on our southern frontier and in Mexico; and I beg gentlemen to remember that it costs, in times of peace, about twenty-five million dollars to support our Army, which is almost wholly occupied in their defense and protection. The Black Hawk war of 1832 was attended with but trifling cost. Since that period, the expense of sustaining our Army has been about six hundred million dollars; and this enormous sum has been expended almost exclusively for the protection of our southern frontier. If gentlemen will take the pains to examine into the subject, they will find that since the purchase of Florida we have expended on the purchase of lands from foreign Governments, from Indians by treaty, and in various other modes of expense, over eight hundred million dollars-a sum which would purchase some of the States of this Union, with all the property within them, real and personal. It is part of my purpose this morning to intro- Shall I prove my proposition by going on and If I have succeeded, Mr. President, in impressing upon Senators the principal truths I have endeavored to advance, I have succeeded in showing that the plan of increase which we propose is the most economical and efficient within our reach. If their judgment, however, shall decide otherwise, I then have performed my duty. I have argued this question earnestly because I am thoroughly convinced of the advantages of the bill which is before us. If I am in error it is fortunate for me that the majority of the Senate will correct it. If I am right, the future will sustain my opinion, even though it be now overruled. I am, therefore, content with whatever fortune may befall the bill. KANSAS AFFAIRS. Now, sir, let us look into this subject. We have at the North a population of something over thirteen million, most of them white men; you have at the South, gentlemen, but a little over six million white men. I do not take slaves into account, because they have been denominated property. You have, in the fifteen slave States,eight hundred and thirty-eight thousand square miles of land; we have, in fifteen free States, four hundred and forty- -seven thousand nine hundred and ninety square miles of land. We have got more than double your population, but we have got less than half the amount of land that you possess. I tell gentlemen that this is not a sectional question. It is simply a question whether we shall have homes for our children; and I propose to address myself to that view of it. You have in the South, or had in 1850, a population of six million four hundred SPEECH OF HON. S. M. BURROUGHS, and twelve thousand six hundred and five; we have OF NEW YORK. IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, February 23, 1858. [WRITTEN OUT BY HIMSELF.*] The House being in Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union Mr. BURROUGHS said: Mr. CHAIRMAN: It is with a good deal of diffidence and embarrassment that I rise now to address the committee, because I have seen a number of gentlemen on my side of the House attempting in vain, within the last twenty-five or thirty days, to obtain the floor-gentlemen who would have discussed the question which I propose to consider with much more ability than I can hope to bring to the subject. Still, I entertain the hope that some points pertinent to the question may be found in the suggestions which I have to make, and will proceed to the question. Sir, I have felt myself exceedingly mortified, from time to time, in this House, at the remarks that have been made on the left side of the Hall, to the effect that the Republican party was a sectional party. We have not unfrequently been charged with the grossest selfishness. We have been repeatedly charged with having attempted to carry measures which were calculated to break the last ties which bind together the States of this Union. The gentleman from Mississippi, [Mr. LAMAR,] in his speech some days ago, gave utterance to this sentiment, and several other speeches from his side of the House have reiterated the senti * For the original report, see page 814 Cong. Globe. in the North, or had in 1850, a population of thir- Indian wars. tice. But again: we got into a war about Texas. Do gentlemen know how we got into that difficulty? We admitted Texas into the Union, and took upon ourselves the war with Mexico; and in carrying on that war we expended nearly two hundred million dollars, to say nothing of the precious blood which men of the North and men of the || Sir, I have not time to-day to present the careful calculations by which I arrive at the fact that the northern fifteen States of this Confederacy have paid three fourths of the entire amount expended for the purchase of these lands, and in sustaining the Mexican, southern border, and Indian wars. Six hundred million dollars have been paid in the form of indirect taxes for these purposes. I make this now simply as a general statement; and tell gentlemen that if they doubt the correctness of the statement, I will, at a future time, present the facts and estimates in careful detail. Well, sir, I now come here with the complaint that the northern States have not quite half the territory you of the southern States have; and I say further that our land is not as good as yours. I know it, for I have been upon your southern soil; I have been over most of the States of this Union, and gathered the means of forming a correct opinion, and believe that, with the exception of the mountain ranges of the South, you have much better lands than we possess. You have a genial climate-ten thousand fields of beauty, surpassing the valley of the Mediterranean in fruitfulness, richer than the fabled gardens of Hesperides or the Paradise of Sardis; and yet you would deny to us Kansas, and call us sectional and selfish and aggressive, if we do not yield to your demands. This we can never do. Our interest is against it. The voice of the rising generation against it demands our attention, and our honor forbids that we should suffer a country to be wrested from us, long since recognized as rightfully ours, and decreed as our inheritance forever by the most solemn compact which our fathers could make. But I do not propose just to dwell upon Kansas, but will mention one other reason why we cannot surrender it to slavery, and drive away northern freemen from their own rightful country. We have paid for it, and we claim Kansas as our country upon high grounds of justice and equity -upon the ground that the North is entitled to a fair portion of the lands of the country, as the separate inheritance of freemen; and this because the white man must be paid for his labor, must be rewarded for his toil, and cannot live in the same community with the unpaid negro slave. I need not make an argument to prove that slave labor, being cheaper, crowds out the laborer who has social and domestic wants to supply, which cannot be attained at the cost of negro slave labor. It is the rightful ambition of northern men to have homes of their own-good homes-and to be surrounded by all the institutions of religion, learning, and moral elevation,which are possessed at the North. A gentleman from Mississippi, not now in his seat, [Mr. LAMAR,] a few days ago, |