WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1847
510
should be left to the Executive: what would be the result? Did any man believe that all the houses in Washington would be sufficient to contain the applicants who would come into this Dis- trict like a deluge? They would not get shelter to cover them. All the officers of the Government would be tasked and harrassed to read the multitude of letters of application and recommenda- tion that would be presented. How could the Executive weigh the merits of that vast crowd who would be asking to be made officers, from a colonel down to a second and third lieutenant? It would be an overwhelming task for any man to attempt, even physically, to say nothing of it in any other view. No; the only way to get a force into the field in any reasonable time would be to recognize the organization already made. Hence he contended that the amendment ought to be adopted, if only in justice to the department. The _labor was already performed, and it only wanted the recognition of the Government. In an important emergency it would not do for this Govern- ment to rely upon the regular army. It was not in contemplation of the framers of the Constitution .that a regular army should be maintained in time of peace at the expense of the people, when it would be done without either efficiency or utility. There was indeed a necessity for maintaining a sufficient force to protect our arsenals and depots of amunitions, and we ought to have such a regular force as should serve for a nucleus around which a force of another description might be collected; but it was on the citizens of the country that we must rely either for repelling invasions or for the prosecution of a war of invasion into the territories of another nation. There were sixteen thousand regu- lars now authorized by law, of which number not more than eight thousand had as yet been actually inlisted. The work of recruiting had been intrusted to intelligent and active officers, and yet he was warranted in .saying that not more than two thousand eight hundred men had been obtained within the last year. But supposing the Government should start the whole of the six hundred officers authorized in the original bill, and send them among those who had volunteered their services to recruit them as regulars, would they not spurn the proposal? He did not say that they ought to spurn it, but he most decidedly believed that such would be found the fact. And why? Such had heretofore been the character of the rank and file of our regular soldiers, that a citizen possessing any respectability of character and
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