WASHINGTON, _August 21, 1856_.
_Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives_:
In consequence of the failure of Congress at its recent session to make
provision for the support of the Army, it became imperatively incumbent
on me to exercise the power which the Constitution confers on the
Executive for extraordinary occasions, and promptly to convene the two
Houses in order to afford them an opportunity of reconsidering a subject
of such vital interest to the peace and welfare of the Union.
With the exception of a partial authority vested by law in the Secretary
of War to contract for the supply of clothing and subsistence, the Army
is wholly dependent on the appropriations annually made by Congress.
The omission of Congress to act in this respect before the termination of
the fiscal year had already caused embarrassments to the service, which
were overcome only in expectation of appropriations before the close
of the present month. If the requisite funds be not speedily provided,
the Executive will no longer be able to furnish the transportation,
equipments, and munitions which are essential to the effectiveness of a
military force in the field. With no provision for the pay of troops the
contracts of enlistment would be broken and the Army must in effect be
disbanded, the consequences of which would be so disastrous as to demand
all possible efforts to avert the calamity.
It is not merely that the officers and enlisted men of the Army are to
be thus deprived of the pay and emoluments to which they are entitled by
standing laws; that the construction of arms at the public armories, the
repair and construction of ordnance at the arsenals, and the manufacture
of military clothing and camp equipage must be discontinued, and the
persons connected with this branch of the public service thus be
deprived suddenly of the employment essential to their subsistence;
nor is it merely the waste consequent on the forced abandonment of the
seaboard fortifications and of the interior military posts and other
establishments, and the enormous expense of recruiting and reorganizing
the Army and again distributing it over the vast regions which it now
occupies. These are evils which may, it is true, be repaired hereafter
by taxes imposed on the country; but other evils are involved, which no
expenditures, however lavish, could remedy, in comparison with which
local and personal injuries or interests sink into insignificance.
A great part of the Army is situated on the remote frontier or in the
deserts and mountains of the interior. To discharge large bodies of men
in such places without the means of regaining their homes, and where
few, if any, could obtain subsistence by honest industry, would be to
subject them to suffering and temptation, with disregard of justice and
right most derogatory to the Government.
In the Territories of Washington and Oregon numerous bands of Indians
are in arms and are waging a war of extermination against the white
inhabitants; and although our troops are actively carrying on the
campaign, we have no intelligence as yet of a successful result. On the
Western plains, notwithstanding the imposing display of military force
recently made there and the chastisement inflicted on the rebellious
tribes, others, far from being dismayed, have manifested hostile
intentions and been guilty of outrages which, if not designed to provoke
a conflict, serve to show that the apprehension of it is insufficient
wholly to restrain their vicious propensities. A strong force in the
State of Texas has produced a temporary suspension of hostilities there,
but in New Mexico incessant activity on the part of the troops is
required to keep in check the marauding tribes which infest that
Territory. The hostile Indians have not been removed from the State of
Florida, and the withdrawal of the troops therefrom, leaving that object
unaccomplished, would be most injurious to the inhabitants and a breach
of the positive engagement of the General Government.
To refuse supplies to the Army, therefore, is to compel the complete
cessation of all its operations and its practical disbandment, and thus
to invite hordes of predatory savages from the Western plains and the
Rocky Mountains to spread devastation along a frontier of more than
4,000 miles in extent and to deliver up the sparse population of a vast
tract of country to rapine and murder.
Such, in substance, would be the direct and immediate effects of
the refusal of Congress, for the first time in the history of the
Government, to grant supplies for the maintenance of the Army--the
inevitable waste of millions of public treasure; the infliction of
extreme wrong upon all persons connected with the military establishment
by service, employment, or contracts; the recall of our forces from the
field; the fearful sacrifice of life and incalculable destruction of
property on the remote frontiers; the striking of our national flag
on the battlements of the fortresses which defend our maritime cities
against foreign invasion; the violation of the public honor and good
faith, and the discredit of the United States in the eyes of the
civilized world.
I confidently trust that these considerations, and others appertaining
to the domestic peace of the country which can not fail to suggest
themselves to every patriotic mind, will on reflection be duly
appreciated by both Houses of Congress and induce the enactment of the
requisite provisions of law for the support of the Army of the United
States.