are receiving the response to it. I hope we may never have any more responses of this description. I pray Heaven that we may never have another such protest in this body. I pray that there may never exist any necessity for it. But for the necessity or cause, which originated in this body, this memorial would never have been laid upon your table. This is but the effect; the cause was anterior to it. If we wish to avert calamitous effects, we should prevent pernicious causes.
The Senate resumed, as in Committee of the Whole, the consideration of the bill from the House of Representatives, making appropriations for the support of the Army for the year ending the 30th of June, 1856, the pending question being on the amendment of Mr. Shields to the amendment of Mr. Hunter (which is to provide for two additional regiments of regular cavalry and five hundred Rangers), to substitute for that provision two regiments of infantry and two of cavalry.
Mr. Houston said:
Mr. President: Before the Senate proceed to vote upon the adoption of the policy now proposed, I think it would be well to examine the causes which have led to the present condition of affairs, and then to inquire into the best means for the restoration of peace upon our Indian frontier. An examination of this sort will inform us whether there is any necessity for an increase of the military force of the country.
I am aware, sir, that, in discussing subjects which relate to the Indians or to their rights, I shall command but little sympathy from the Senate, and not much from the country. They are a people isolated in their 'interest, and solely dependent for protection and justice upon the Government of the United States. How far justice has been accorded to them in the past, or how far it is, in all probability, to be awarded to them in the future, is a matter beyond speculation. If we are to judge from the past experience of our times, we should infer that there is but very little hope of anything being done for the red man; and we should infer that, in the opinion of his white brethren, his doom has already been written and recorded.
Mr. President, the Indians have been charged with an aggressive and hostile spirit toward the whites; but we find, upon inquiry, that every instance of that sort which has been imputed to them, has been induced and provoked by the white man, either by acts of direct aggression upon the Indians or by his own incaution, alluring them to a violation of the security of the whites. They have tempted the cupidity of the Indians. If a lawless fellow happens to prove vagrant to his band, and throws off all the rules and restrictions imposed by the chiefs on their warriors, and chooses to involve his nation in a difficulty by taking the life of a white man, if he can do so, as he supposes, with impunity, his action is charged to his tribe;
