WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 184,7
513
was disappointed in its expectations from this source, and volunteers were again called for. Greater inducements were then held out to them than had been previously offered, and they were afterwards regarded as a reliable force. The same law which authorised the raising of twenty regiments of regulars troops repealed the preexisting law calling for volunteers, and the subsequent act of February 24, 1814, revived the acts of February and July, 1812, and fixed the term of service for volunteers at five years, or during the ·war. The iast act authorized the President to accept the services of forty thousand volunteers, to be apportioned among the States. This various legislation proved, that after all the experiments made for carrying on the war during the year 1812 had been tried, the volunteers, by making their term of service longer, were made equal to regular troops in their efficiency. It ·was not, therefore, the name, but the material, which gave character to the force. It was necessary to lengthen the term of service, because time must be allowed to bring them into a state of con- formity to certain prescribed and indispensable rules of tactics. The raw volunteer was equal to the raw regular. It is when men become associated together that emulation springs up in their bosoms, and a degree of pride exhibits itself which does not exist when they are first brought into cooperation. A spirit of rivalry induces them to submit to the restraints of discipline, and excites them to efforts by which glorious deeds are achieved. So far as the volunteer system had been tried in Europe, the highest expectations of their efficiency had been fulfilled. In France, when all the Powers of Europe were called against her, armies of volunteers were raised, vvhich, by their discipline and valor, obtained the most brilliant successes, and established for themselves and their country an enduring renown. Not to rely on volunteers, but to place reliance on regular troops, appeared to him the strangest picture which could be exhibited in our Government, Why should there be greater reliance on a regular army? Were they cheaper than volunteers? If they were to be retained as a permanent e8tablishment for the · purpose of any emergency, or to repel an invading army, or to carry on war with a foreign country, did not their existence entail a heavier cost on the country. A regular army, it must be clear to every one, was inconsistent with the genius of our institutions. He had never felt any apprehension of danger from a regular army, be its number what they might, whether ten
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