520
WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1858
have been unaccustomed to toil or exercise, or frontier service, such as you would recruit for the regular Army. ·Men who have been reared in houses, who have had comforts around them, who have hardly ever been exposed to a blighting wind or shower in their lives, are not to be compared in efficiency, for such service as this, to men who have been reared on the frontier, and who understand border life and know something of Indian character. I cannot, I will not, assent to the allegation that regulars are cheaper than volunteers, or that when in the field they are more efficient than volunteers. You need not tell me that, if you give volunteers the requisite implements, they will not march up in column or in line with their bayonets as well as regulars, and that they will not meet veteran troops as well as regulars. Wherever the American militia have been brought into a charge, they have never been repelled by regulars unless they were aided by a teem- ing shower of artillery balls. I believe you can charge as well with volunteers as with any troops on earth. How did they acquit themselves at Monterrey, under a most galling fire of artillery? How did they ascend the heights of the Bishop's Palace, at Mon- terrey? How did they act at Buena Vista? How did they act at Cerro Gordo? There they were driven back by a fire of artillery, and not in a hand-to-hand encounter, with bayonets crossed. I deny that they are not as good as regulars. I say that they have an aptitude for a charge, for a conflict of the most deadly char- acter, and they can be prepared for it in half the time regulars can be, because they are half drilled when they go into service. I think I may safely say that they can be drilled in the platoon, the company, the battalion, and the regimental or field evolutions, in half the time the regular raw recruits can be. If you want efficient troops, you must take volunteers. If you want the true national reliance in time of need and emergency, you must take volunteers. If you wish to carry on this war im- mediately, and to an effectual termination, you will have to take volunteers. If you wish to save the Treasury of the United States, you must take volunteers. If you have a higher and holier object, to preserve the institutions of this country, you must rely on volunteers at last. The framers of the Constitution thought that they were the description of troops that were to stand for the defense of the country. I have no quotations to make from the various bills of rights of the States, which declare that standing armies are dangerous in time of peace, but I will simply read one short paragraph from the Constitution of the United States. In the
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