A NATIONAL PAPER, PUBLISHED WEDNESDAYS AND SATURDAYS BY JOHN FENNO, No. 34, NORTH FIFTH-STREET, PHILADELPHIA [No. 65 of Vol. IV.] CONGRESS. XOUSF. OF REPRESENTATIVES Friday, December 28. Reduction of the military esta- BLISHMENT, Mr. Steele, agreeably to notice, called up his motion, which is in the following words: " Resolved, that a committee be appointed to prepare and bring in a bill, to reduce the military establishment of the United fttates to regiments or corps, confiding each of non commissioned officers, privates, and musicians, wtih such proportion of commissioned officers, as the Ptefident may think proper to con tinue in service ; and to repeal so much of an ast pasTed the sth of March, 1792, in titled " An ast for making further and more effe&ual provision for the prote&ion of the frontiers of the United States," as may contravene this intention. Mr. Steele declared he did not rife to fay much on this motion. The opinions of members must be made up from obser vations on fafls that have come within their own knowledge, therefore, what he could advance, he did not suppose, would change their opinions. The house is in pofTeffion of the motion, and every member Hands responsible to his condim ents, and to his own conscience for the part he (hall a<9; upon it. He prefaced some observations on the nature of governments in the progress of their administration. Time brings abuses into mod, and he never was so sanguine, he said, as to expe£t, that the federal government would be exempt from them. But when abuses did creep into the admi nistration of a government, filencehe con sidered as criminal, arid a quiet acquie scence worse ; —a free people, however, were incapable of feeing them without remonstrating, and the people of America pofTeffed enough of the true spirit of free men, not to fuffer the progress of a rui nous war system, or to bear the burthen imposed on them to support expensive pi o je£ts of ambition without remonstrating. The people of the United States are peaceful, they are attached from educa tion and habit to' regularity and peace ; he was sorry, he said, that part of our ad miuillration did not appear to be guided by the fame spirit. Chimerical projects had been set on foot without regard to the public opinion ; —armies have been laifed and maintained without affording protection to the frontiers, and the ex pence of this system has judly roufcd the indignation of our citizens. The motto of a republic should be ' Economy and Peace.' With these cardinal qualities, any nation may be happy, without them no government can be tolerable. He should proceed, he said, to enquire how far they had di&ated the measures of our govern ment. For this purpose he turned to the approbations, for the purpose of defraying the expences of the Indian war. He read some notes, taken from the existing laws of appropriation and the estimate present ed for the ensuing year, from which it appeared, That tor 1789, 137,000 dolls, were appropriat ed for the war dep. & 20,000 for treaties. 90, 181,792 20,000 9 1 , 702,885 74cts. 20,000 92, 1,205,949 76 25,000 93> 50,000 Making a total of 3.534,347 : 200 for the support of the system fincc the e stablishment of this young government. He invited the house to take notice of this enormous sum; the public, he said, had done so already ; and this money had beau or was to be appropriated without Saturday, January 5, 1793. fcarccly enquiiing how foimer appropria tions had been applied. He hoped the house would do fopaething to check this growing evil; if they did not, he {hould invite, he said, the Secretary at war him felf, to take a retrofpeft for 20 years in to the history of the frontier, and enquire into the expenceof defending it when the defence was entrusted to each individual state, and to compare that expence with what has already been incurred under the present system. It would be difficult, he said, to point out andjuftify the causes of their material difference. There was no good reafan why so expensive a system as that now pursued (hould be necessary ; and if the expences of the war-depart ment could not be reduced, the country, he conceived, would not be able to bear them. His motion was intended, and his mo tives in making it, were, to afford effec tual prote&ion to the frontier, to diminish the expence at present incurred for that object, and apply the savings to the re duction of the public debt. He was firm ly of opinion that if an economical system was pursued, the defence of the frontiers could be effe&ed and a finking fund esta blished that would begin to operate 4 or 5 years sooner than was at present con templated by the secretary of the treasury, and that without any additional tax. He could not approve of any finking fund that mull be entirely supported by new taxes—much less of one which was to de pend solely on loans. He next turned to the mode of war fare adopted since the establishment of the federal government against the Indi ans. The hidory of the frontier fiom Braddock's defeat to the present day am ply proved, til at regular nrmtes are im proper for that kind of war. If this his tory had been attended to, and the fate of that commander had been considered and placed to its true cause, three milli ons of dollars and many valuable lives might have been saved to the United States. A tegular army is an expensive machine, and in its operations unwieldy and tardy, composed of men without the necessary enterj.rize, constitution and ac tivicy to combat a savage foe, accustomed to fatigue and fighting for their all. He quoted a passage from a communi cation from the Secretary of war himfelf to the house, to shew the opinion he en tertained of the enemy. Their sobriety aad activity, and our ignorance of the country and mode of warfare. The house, he said, had not fufficiently attended to the inadequatenefs of regular armies in opposition to such an enemy, as demon strated by experience, and that pernicious facility of borrowiug had induced to pass with too little difficulty appropriation up on appropriation, to purfne it. If taxes had been demanded to make these provi sions perhaps the legislature, he suggest ed, would have been more cautious how they proceeded. He again adverted to the mode of war fare which regular armies necessitated ; one expedition can only be effeftcd in one year, and indeed, it had been found, that even one could not be accomplished this year ; but one expedition could afford no effectual protection to the frontier. Be sides the motions of a regular army are ea sily watched and known ; Indians, well knowing when to expect their enemy, will collect in full force, and beat us a* they have done, and will do again, if tbe fame system is pursued', He was of opinion, that if such a mea sure would be admiiTible on principles of benevolence and policy, that the Indian war might be formed to the state of Ken tucky, and completely terminated, for one half of the sum now about to be ap propriated to support the present futile fyllem. He appealed for the justice of the position to those gentlemen acquainted with the feelings and habits of the peo ple of that Hate. 249- , Uporf the success of his motion he con ceived the success of the war depended. Regular- troops could never tight, in the woods. If the system is not changed the war will be a seven or ten years war. Ae tive'and enterprftlng frontier militia alone were equal to opposing Indians. In his motion, as offeied, there was, he said, a blank for the number of regt ments to remain on foot. He (hould pro pose, at a proper time, he intimated, to fill this blank up with two, which would give M2O privates, regulars, quite enough, even if the President (hould think it necessary to garrison all the posts which have been e(labli(hed for the proteilion of the frontiers. He enumerated these poll: as follows : Fayette, 'Hamilton, Stuben, Knox, Tammany, Telfair, Harmar, Franklin, Jefferfon, St. Clair, Marietta, MafTachu fetts, Matthews and Knoxville. Abandoning the fyilem of a&ive expe ditions by regular troops, and giving to each of these an equal portion of the 2128 men, composing the two regiments, each post would be protested by 152 privates. This number would be quite fufficicnt, and greater than that now defending some of those pods: But he wifhcd it left difcietionary with the President to distribute them. He dated, that the only objefton of the secretary at war, even to employing the militia in this war, was. the expence. He wished to refute that objefrton, and went into a reasoning of forae length on the fubjeft. Regular troops, when inlift £d, must be paid, cloathed, &c. during the whole time of their inliftrr.ent, (whe ther in a&ual service or not; the militia, tho' more expensive while on foot; yet J>eing oq the spot. executing an expediti-, en in forty or fifty days, then returning to their homes, and immediately on their return being out of pay, would be found in the end much less expensive as well as much more effedtual. Five expeditions, he computed, could be made in each year by a militia on or near the frontier, and 30,000 dollars he set down as fuffici ent to pay the expence of each of these expeditions. To give an idea of the expence of regu lar troops, and to {hew the alarming pro giefs of expeuce on this score, since the eftablilhment of the new government, he gave the following items from appropria tion laws pad, and reports of estimates of what will be neceflary for the ensuing year. Contingencies for the War Depart ment. For79oincludingexpre(Tt:s,&c 3 000 91 5 000 92 20 000 93 50 000 Estimate for Quarter Matter's Department. Appropriations for 1790 15000 91 25 000 92 50 000 93 100 000 Estimate fur Hospital Department, Appropriations for 1790 Estimate for Ordnance Department. Appropriationsfor 1790 764666 Estimate for The provision for the last mentioned department, he conceived, bore a very lu dicrous appearance. He considered it as absurd to attempt fighting Indians with ai tiller y. Not all the artillery of Europe would avail againll such a foe. He could not fee that either reason or policy would warrant an appiopriatiou of upwards of 23,000 dollars in the present fefiion for the purchase of artillery for such a war. And added that it seemed strange, that the ordnance procured by the United States to carry on the Biitifti war had not 1 000 91 1 635 20 92 6 000 93 25 000 91 6303 66 92 7204 64 93 23. 8 35 6 + [Whole No. been fuffici-ent to defend tT>c Frontitrgst rifons, without calling upon the govern ment to apptcfirlate in four years the sum °f dollars for this purpose. He next turned to the pay, fuhfiftence and cloathing the troops. He premised on this head) that it was well worth con sidering, whether those articles kept up an exa& proportion with the encreafe of the troops, in the items he fliall give ; they certainly should, he conceived. If the proportion of the sums latterly appro priated according to estimates for these articles proved greater, there mull be, he contended, abuse foinewhere, and it cer tainly is the duty of the House of Repre sentatives to examine where the blame lies. Pay of the Troops Appro. 90 59,028 9 1 74.916 92 r02,686 EfU. for 93 504,30? Cloatliing. 24,440 23,772 80 48,000 112,000 He was at fomelofs to account'for th< want of proportion in the items al ovt Hated, compared with the number oi troops employed,—perhaps more officers were under pay than the public service re quired ; these things deserve thorough in vestigation. He proceeded to (hew what would be saved to the United States by a change of fyllem. He (hewed, by a quotation from a report of the Secretary of the Treafu .y,. that it was the opinion of that officer, that the current service of the enfuintr year would probably require the whole of the revenue ; but that he contemplates a va luable surplus for the tedemption of the debt (hould a termination be put to the Indian war. He made some observations on the importance of redeeming the pub lic debt, as speedily as possible, and com plimented the Secretary of the Treasury, in refpeft to the disposition he had (hewn on this fubjecl. He was of opinion, that with peace and economy the refourcesof the country would be fufficient to accomplirti its total redemption in ten years, by purchases and regular instalment payments.—Under the ptefent system of warfare, a beginning cannot be made without levying a new tax, and a new tax cannot be'granted, un til the abuses of the war department are considered and coiredled. He proceeded to shew the economical effect of the reduction he proposed, on our finances, by comparing the appropri ation of 92 with the estimate for 93 for the war department. t Contingent Expences, As fettled at the treasury, '79 2 > 10,129 Per estimate 1793, jo.'ooo Difference 39»7 7 * Quarter-Master's Department. 1792, 50,000 1793, 100,000 Difference Hospital Department. 1 19 2 ' 6,000 *793. 25,000 Difference Forage for Cavalry, See. 1792, 4,152 1793, 44,856 Difference Otdnance Department, The whole provilion for this department, he conceived,mightgo out however, to purfne hi* plan, he tpok the dif ference. '79 2 > 7> jo 4>64<> 1793. 23»'35.649 Difference lajl Sublicence. 42.J52 59.787 119,688 3 f *.5«7 7? Total. 1 26.020 158,475 80 2 70.374 728,875 75 50,000 19,000 40,704 16,631
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