496
WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1858
they can return in benefits to the country more than they receive in pecuniary reward. Members of Congress have their friends in the Army. They say, "Colonel such-a-one, our friend, if we reduce the Army, will have to go into private life, for which he is dis- qualified from the pursuits in which he has been engaged; Lieu- tenant such-a-one is a noble youth; Captain such-a-one is a charm- ing fellow; and Major so-and-so is an elegant man; we do not want the Army reduced because the ax will strike some of our friends when it falls." We all have our personal predilections; we have our partialities; or we have our associates in private life, and we do not wish to meet their reproaches or frowns, and there- fore we cannot vote for a bill which our conscience tells us we ought to vote for. We are not more omnipotent than other men. We have the infirmities of humanity clustering around our hearts and sympathy continually clawing at us. We cannot resist impor- tunities; and thus it is that you may easily increase the Army, but you cannot make a reduction when the necessities of a country require it. Now, sir, I mean to refer to some documents to show the discre- tion that has been used in the chastisement of the Indians, and to prove that the aggression has not been from them. The Indians have no one to vindicate them; they have no sympathizers; they have no newspapers to issue their bulletins, and tell their mis- fortunes or the wrongs done to them. The white man has every facility. The Indian has no one to speak for him; for in nine instances out of ten, in my experience, _I have found that those who should have been the guardians of the Indians' rights, ap- pointed by the Government and paid for the purpose, have been their robbers, and frequently that robbery has brought on war. I do not speak of the Indian beyond his merits. I know him well, though the honorable Senator from Mississippi has been pleased to say that those gentlemen who have been educated at West Point, with all the advantages the country could give them, when stationed on the frontier know more and have better acquaintance with the Indians than myself. I do not wish to contradict the Senator, nor do I know that the facts would Justify me in doing so; but humble as I may be I am entitled to an opinion. I have some knowledge of the Indian, for when a boy fourteen years of age, it was my fate, an orphan lad, to be located within six miles of their boundary, where I was reared to manhood and in almost daily association with them. I had not, to be sure, the advantags of an education at West Point Academy to imbue me with that prescience which its graduates possess when they are accidenta1ly thrown on the frontier in the discharge of their official duties!
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