WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1857
spirits-men of the highest tone, of spotless reputation, and peerless honors. This character, however, only applies to them as a class; it does not apply to all of them as individuals. I have much respect and much sympathy for the Army. Having served in the Army of the United States, with diminished pay, for five years of the most valuable portion of my life, I can never forget the associations of former times. I was once classed, and con- sidered it an honor to be classed, with the officers of the American Army. We must, however, look at things practically. If you withdrew your troops from the frontier, and expended less than one half the sum now spent in transportation of their baggage, independent of their supplies, we should have peace with every Indian in America. We do not want the troops for war on our borders, because they are in fortresses, and in the very view of a fortress, with its artillery pointed, an Indian will come and scalp a soldier if he is a little beyond the range of musket-shot, shake the scalp in the ·face of the fortress, and run away unhurt, and have a gala day with his tribe, inducing others to imitate his example. These posts are a provocation to the Indians, an invitation to aggression. Spend only the amount which you now devote to transportation, and you will have peace with every Indian on our borders. Mr. President, I should not have made these remarks but that I heard principles announced· by older minds than mine, more mature in thought, clearer in perception, wiser in the range of the great practical concerns of the Government, to which I can- not consent. I have felt it my duty on this occasion to express, with all possible deference, my dissent from those opinions. I ·wm vote for this bill as it comes here from the House of Repre- sentatives. I am prepared to sustain the Army to the fullest extent required by the necessities or conveniences or comforts of the officers; but I never will subscribe to the doctrine, that no citizen can be taken from private life and placed in the Army. I say the Military Academy is the foundation of an exclusive privileged order. All but graduates of that institution are shut out from the Army, no matter how noble their aspirations, how commending their genius, how peerless their honor. I maintain that the boy at his plow handle, if he have superior qualities, is as well entitled as the man who has undergone a training at West Point. The man who has manufactured a military feeling by training there, may go into the walks of private life, which are just as open to him as they are to the youth who lives by toils
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