494
WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1858
composed of the best material, I alluded to the rank and file; and I stated that perhaps not more than one fourth of them were native-born citizens of the United States. A large portion of them are indeed foreigners, who are not naturalized, and there- fore can have no sympathy with our institutions, and no feeling for our cause, except that of mercenaries. I do not think that the most respectable description of force. But, sir, I am for an efficient army; I want one to execute whatever the emergency requires, and for that 1·eason I have opposed the present bill, and advocated the motion of the Senator from Georgia to strike out the first section. I think the enact- ment of that section will produce no favorable result to the country. It will not meet the emergency; it will accumulate the expenses of the country and will not redound much to its honor. The Senator from Mississippi read the opinion of Mr. Calhoun in reference to the danger arising from the Army. I should be glad to have him state what was the strength of the Army at the time when Mr. Calhoun wrote the letter from which he read. I think it was a much less number than it is now. The Army which Mr. Calhoun considered not dangerous was not near as large as our present Army. I have never apprehended any martial danger resulting to the country from the standing Army. Their segre- gated character will be proof against that. The evil of which I have spoken, results from political influence. As you increase the number of officers, you increase the number of families con- nected with them, and they feel interested in the promotion of their relatives. These families have an influence in their respec- tive localities, and in that way the whole community may be inoculated by the same sentiment, and the same political disease may pervade this nation. It is in this Chamber and in the Hall of the House of Representatives that the danger is to be feared, not in the array of martial. men. I am afraid of no tyrant usurping the liberties of any people. They have never been usurped; they have been relinquished and abandoned. Caesar and Cromwell and Bonaparte have been de- nounced as tyrants, and our school-boy teachings are all of that character; but, sir, those men were not tyrants ; they were the conservators of national existence. It was the Senate of Rome that became so corrupt that liberty could no longer exist in Rome, and the question was not as to Roman liberty, but who should be the master of Rome-Caesar or Pompey. Caesar's star was in the ascendant, and he redeemed the country. How was it with Cromwell? While England was a Commonwealth, was not the
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