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WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1858
could unbosom themselves, and see whether they would say, "we are 1·eady to submit to the authorities of the United States, if you send to us honest men and gentlemen, whose morals, whose wisdom, and whose character, comport with the high station they fill; we will surrender to them; we will give up our authority, and act in obedience to the laws of the United States." If this course had been taken by the Executive, I am sure he would never have recommended war, and if the facts had been before the Secretary of War, I am sure he never would have made the recom- mendation which he has submitted to us. But, sir, there is never a pretext wanting here when it is pro- posed to increase the regular Army, so as to give promotion or to create new appointments. The Department has been for years calling for additional regiments, and in 1855 we granted them. We got along very well for many years without them. Indian depredations have not been diminished by the employment of those four regiments. More depredations have been committed since their organization, I believe, on the Indians, and by the Indians on the white people, than for five or six years previous. Whenever it is considered necessary to increase the Army, or to raise a disturbance, bad men will go on the frontier, who expect to profit by such things, or stimulated by such influences, and they commit depredations on the Indians or on the whites, so as to provoke a contest. Men have been detected in Texas stealing horses and committing depredations, and running to the Indian country for the purpose of inducing depredations on the Indians when they would profit by that, or so to confuse the public mind that the people could not tell whether the depredators were Indians or white horse thieves. How does Texas stand in relation to the Army? There are three thousand troops there, and we are told Texas is complain- ing that she wants protection. It is not regular soldiers that she wants; she has had three thousand of them there; they have done no good; she does not want them; she wants a regiment of rangers that she can rely upon; she does not want a force that will be inert and inactive until depredations are committed; and then, when the people get to a fort at some distance and give informa- tion that such and such depredations have been committed, some infantry, or perhaps some dragoons or cavalry, are sent out on the march; but by that time the Indians are far in advance of them. The troops march on; they do not meet that portion of Indians who committed the depredations; but they come across others who are hunting, unprepared for attack, without any hostile designs or thievish intention towards the property of
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