250 



CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. (!NOBEASE OF PENSIONS.) 



in the service of your country, and they come 

 back bearing it in victory and triumph to 

 their own Government, laying at the feet of 

 power in the Government of the United States 

 a domain the richness of which is incalculable, 

 beyond all calculation, then for us to turn to 

 those old men when they are perishing one by 

 one, and tell them that we will not grant them 

 $8 a month with which to buy their bread, will 

 only prove the ingratitude and the baseness of 

 this generation. 



" When that subject is presented a Senator 

 rises on this floor and makes a threat that he 

 will make some very plain remarks about the 

 political opinions of some of the men who 

 fought when that Senator was a boy, perhaps 

 a youth at college somewhere. For the pur- 

 pose of preventing the Government of the 

 United States from giving those men an op- 

 portunity to keep out of the poor-house the 

 Senator says that he will have some plain re- 

 marks to make about something that they 

 have done since that time. Let him make 

 his remarks; let him wage his war against 

 those men. 



"We have no right to deny to those men 

 this contribution to their necessities in their 

 old age and in their infirmity; it makes no 

 difference what their opinions may be, it 

 makes no difference what they have done 

 against this country. If one of them had been 

 consigned to the penitentiary and had served 

 out his term he would have a right to claim 

 the bounty of this Government for services 

 which he rendered before the stigma of con- 

 viction fell upon him. If one of them was 

 engaged in the rebellion and has since been 

 pardoned by the general amnesty of the Gov- 

 ernment of the United States, he is restored to 

 all his rights and privileges as freely and as 

 fully as the Senator from Massachusetts. 



"This complaint against one or two indi- 

 viduals in the United States is constantly 

 paraded here for the purpose of gaining an 

 opportunity to deny justice to thousands and 

 tens of thousands, I am afraid there are, of the 

 survivors of the Mexican War. 



" There are about 8,000 of them. While we 

 are bestowing money under a bill which Sena- 

 tors variously estimate at from five million to 

 fifty million dollars to men who have done 

 nothing except to serve their country around 

 their own firesides and protect and defend 

 them against a domestic foe, while those men 

 professed to be, and I have no doubt were act- 

 ing in obedience to one of the highest instincts 

 and impulses of every honorable spirit in the 

 world, while we are rewarding them and do- 

 ing it properly for the service they rendered, 

 we are refusing to reward the men who car- 

 ried our flag into a foreign country, and who 

 came back to us loaded with an empire of 

 wealth the like of which no country ever ac- 

 quired before with so little expenditure of 

 blood or of treasure. 



" Sir, the results of the Mexican War to the 



people of the United States in actual dollars 

 and cents are greater than any conquest that 

 can be named which has been achieved in a 

 single war by the Anglo-Saxon people; and 

 we, the inheritors of this vast wealth, with 

 overflowing coffers, with a Treasury that we 

 are trying to deplete by every measure that 

 we know, now refuse the bread of life to the 

 poor men who bore this banner in their youth 

 to victory in a foreign land, and have returned 

 only to experience the truth that this country 

 is ungrateful to them. 



" I have now said all that I expect to say on 

 this occasion about this bill. I expect the 

 proposition again to be trampled under foot, 

 again to be voted down, and it will be two 

 years, yes, it will be five times two years, be- 

 fore the Senate of the United States will get 

 its consent to give those men $8 a month; and 

 while we are refusing that we will run back 

 upon the pension-list and we will vote a sum 

 of money that amounts to $100,000,000 a year 

 to men who have got no higher claim to the 

 gratitude of this country than that they fought 

 for their own homesteads, their own families, 

 and their own firesides." 



Mr. Voorhees, of Indiana, said : " Mr. Presi- 

 dent, there is one part of the amendment of 

 the Senator from New Hampshire that I accept, 

 and that is that the beneficiaries of this pro- 

 vision shall take the oath of allegiance. I care 

 nothing for that, but I would ask no man to 

 proclaim his indigence. I would ask no man 

 to certify to his destitution and poverty. That 

 is mean charity. 



" Men who have rendered distinguished ser- 

 vices that the whole world recognizes should 

 not be brought to the block, as it were, to cer- 

 tify that they are poor and want their pauper's 

 soup-bowl filled by Government charity. 



" Whether we have gone as far from the 

 scenes of the Mexican War as we did from 

 those of the Revolutionary War or the War of 

 1812 before we granted pensions is not the 

 question. The soldiers of the Mexican War 

 achieved such success in a material sense as 

 should disarm the economy or the avarice, or 

 whatever else you may call it, of members of 

 Congress. If a statue of gold were erected at 

 full life-size to every surviving Mexican soldier 

 it would not be one-quarter of 1 per cent, of 

 what they have given this Government. Let 

 me repeat it : If a statue of gold, life-size, 

 were erected by our Government to every 

 surviving soldier who fought the battles in 

 Mexico, it would not cost one-quarter of 1 

 per cent, of that which they acquired for this 

 Government. I state that simply materially 

 considered, considered in point of dollars and 

 cents ; but when you estimate the glory which 

 they gave this country throughout the world. 

 the renown which they achieved, it can not 

 be estimated even in statues of gold. 



"I was deeply impressed with the letter 

 read by the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Jack- 

 son), stating that while we are asking addition- 



