CONGRESS, U. S. 



239 



and they are overwhelmingly in the majority 

 are in favor of an increase of the military 

 force, in such form and proportions as will in- 

 sure this most important and desirable result. 



' But, sir, what of this clamor about the 

 increase of the regular army, and a standing 

 army ? Has it been too large ? "Will the pro- 

 i addition make it too large ? I assert, sir, 

 that it has been too small for ten or fifteen 

 years ever since the close of the Mexican 

 war ; and I think that must be the judgment 

 of all intelligent men who have carefully re- 

 flected upon the subject. Had our standing 

 army, after the close of that war, been raised 

 to the standard required by the new order of 

 things, many Indian forays might have been 

 averted, and much human blood saved from 

 being shed upon the borders of Texas, and our 

 dependent Territories, by the savage tomahawk 

 and butcher knife. 



" Again, sir, what was the state of the case 

 at the time this unholy rebellion broke out ? 

 The regular army had been dispersed all over 

 the country in small bodies. If the purpose 

 had been to place them out of the way, so as 

 to enable premeditated rebellion to make head 



iiinst the Government, it could not have been 

 more effectually accomplished. And even had 

 they been concentrated, so limited as their num- 

 bers were, could they have arrested the prog- 

 nd development of a conspiracy which in- 

 cluded the rulers of several States ? 



" Circumsances have changed. We are no 

 longer an infant and small nation. "We have 

 come to be a great empire a Republic of thirty- 

 four States, and some thirty or more million 

 people; and an Army of fourteen or fifteen 

 thousand men is not a sufficient military police 

 to preserve order everywhere within our extend- 

 ed dominions, and to restrain Indian hostilities 

 along our extended and exposed borders. It ap- 

 pears to me that every gentleman must see this." 



Mr. Burnett, of Kentucky replied, that he had 

 thought, not like the honorable gentleman from 

 Illinois, that this was not a great empire, but a 

 confederacy of sovereign and co-equal States. 

 He had thought that this was a government 

 resting for its support upon the affections and 

 the consent of the governed; that it did not 

 require a standing army to keep the people in 

 order ; that it did not require even fourteen or 

 fifteen thousand men as a police to keep the 

 people of this country in order. 



Mr. McClernand desired to ask the member 

 from Kentucky one question : " Will he vote for 

 a volunteer force to put down this rebellion ? " 



Mr. Burnett in reply said : " Not for one man. 

 I am not willing to vote for them for I do not 

 believe you can hold this Government together 

 at the point of the bayonet, or at the cannon's 

 mouth, any more than you can hold the light- 

 nings of heaven, or gather the winds in the hol- 

 low of your hands. 



" No, sir ; I say to the gentleman now, and I 

 say it in the fulness of my heart, that five hun- 

 dred thousand men and $500,000,000, if raised 



by this House for the subjugation of a portion 

 of this country, will not accomplish that pur- 

 pose. They may desolate the country ; they 

 may lay waste cities and towns ; but when they 

 meet here again on the first Monday in Decem- 

 ber next, they will find their $500,000,000 

 gone; they will find their five hundred thou- 

 sand soldiers still in the field ; but no nearer a 

 peace than now. 



" This much, sir, I desire to say, and these 

 are the reasons why I will not vote for men or 

 money. I have, from the commencement, been 

 for a peaceful solution of this struggle, and I am 

 for it now. I have been published to the coun- 

 try as a secessionist ; but, sir, in the last speech 

 which I had the honor to make upon this floor, 

 I announced my opinion that there was no 

 warrant in the Constitution for the doctrine of 

 secession. 



" Sir, I do not believe in it, as a constitution- 

 al doctrine ; I believe it is the theory of our 

 Government that it rests for its support upon 

 the affections and the consent of the governed. 

 I do regard, as one of the citizens of this coun- 

 try, and one of the representatives of the peo- 

 ple, that the resort to armies and navies and 

 the horrors of war will sound the death-knell 

 of the Republic ; and for that reason I enter my 

 solemn protest against this whole measure." 



Mr. McClernand, in answer, continued : " It 

 is important that I should notice what has fallen 

 from the gentleman from Kentucky. He very 

 candidly informs the House, and, through the 

 House, the country, that not one dollar will he 

 vote to put down, either by regular or volun- 

 teer force, this rebellion against the country. 

 Sir. when he took his seat upon this floor, he 

 took upon himself a solemn obligation, sanc- 

 tioned by an oath in the sight of the country 

 and before God, that he would support the 

 Constitution. Can he do so by folding his arms 

 while the batteries of rebellion are levelled 

 at the capital ? Is that the way he proposes 

 to discharge his obligation ? I leave it for all 

 impartial men to decide whether it is the proper 

 way. 



"The gentleman assumes he must assume 

 as the basis of his assertion that all of the se- 

 ceded States are disloyal. I respectfully deny 

 the correctness of the assumption. On the con- 

 trary, I assert, and with entire confidence, that 

 just as the Federal flag advances towards the 

 heart of this rebellion, thousands and tens of 

 thousands of loyal men in the seceded States 

 will be found rallying around it, ready to up- 

 hold it. I also deny, sir, that this is a war of 

 conquest. Far from it. It is a war to put 

 down rebels and rebellion, and to guarantee se- 

 curity of person and property to the Union men 

 of those States ; it is a war waged in behalf of 

 the Constitution and laws. This is its purpose 

 and mission ; and it will fulfil it, with the bless- 

 ing of God. Nor is there one of those States 

 in which there are not ample numbers of Union 

 men to maintain a State government after the 

 rebellion shall have been put down/' 



