must, to insure successful defence, secure an unfailing supply of scientific and thoroughly trained officers. In this respect it would be neither creditable nor safe to fall behind any other nation. The advantages flowing from placing fleets and armies under an intelligent direction need not be enumerated to an American Congress nor to the American people. The only question is, how large a number ought to be educated in the best manner for the naval and military service? This is a difficult question to answer. It may, however, safely be affirmed, in general terms, that twice as many as we have heretofore educated will be wanted hereafter. The casualties have to be taken into account. They cannot be avoided. We deplore the deaths and injuries and regret the resignations of accomplished and useful officers; the loss by resignation is, however, partially compensated by the consequent benefits to manufactures and commerce and by the formation of a valuable reserve. Nearly all officers who resign do so to enter the service of railroad and steamship companies or other important concerns, which enrich and strengthen the gov ernment. In these resigned officers the United States possess a valuable reserve or surplus, from which to draw supplies of educated officers in times of war. The availability and military value of this reserve was demonstrated in the Mexican as well as in the present war. The moment their country needed their services, large numbers of these resigned officers came forward with alacrity to serve the country which had educated them for its milita: y purposes. In their retirement many had organized and trained volunteer corps; when the war broke out they had acquired an influence which enabled them to easily organize large volunteer forces, which they promptly led to the field. As in the past it has ever been thus, it is reasonable to believe it will be so in the future. The frequency of resignation. should not, therefore, deter us from adhering to our system, though this evil may call for preventives in certain possible contingencies.

Before leaving this subject of securing for the United States educated naval and military talent for the direction of our forces by sea. and land, your committee will take occasion to remark that the growing opinion in favor of allowing parents and guardians to educate young men of promising talents at the United States Military and Naval Academies, at their own expense, seems to be worthy of consideration. As now constituted, no citizen is permitted to educate his son or ward at these academies, however willing he may be to defray the entire expense, and that the pupil shall in all respects conform to all their rules and requirements, unless so fortunate as to obtain for him one of the few appointments allowed by law. An able corps of officers, of all grades, and of both arms of the service, is now being practically educated in the military art; their schooling is conducted in the field and on the sea in the actual presence of the enemy; their lessons are explained and demonstrated by frequent practical examples of the most varied and instructive character, well calculated to fit them to cope, should it ever become necessary, with the leaders of the armies of any nations. But, in the course of nature, these in a few years will have passed away, and year by year H. Rep. Com. 86-2

should be succeeded by young men well qualified by a thorough preparatory training to take their places; as now constituted, the two academies are unable to prepare the number which will be required by the future exigencies of the army and navy. They will be unable, inasmuch as commercial men, manufacturers, mechanical establishments, and railroads, as the business and wealth of the country expand, will make increasing demands upon educated talent; and the better we prepare cadets for duty the sharper will be the competition against the government; the abler our officers the more attractive will be the inducements held out to them to exchange the public for private employment.

Severe legislative enactments will not remedy the evil, but an increased supply will. To this latter remedy must we resort if we would maintain the present high character of our officers for scientific military attainments. The committee, therefore, recommend that another military academy be established, to be located in the west, and another naval academy be established, to be located in the northeast, or that the capacity of the present establishments be enlarged, and that the President be directed to submit to the next Congress the best plans for the duplication or the enlargement of such institutions, together with estimates of cost; and also that the President further report as to the expediency of opening to both classes of cadets, as well those who shall be appointed under the present system and those who may be educated at those institutions at the expense of their parents and guardians, the opportunity of obtaining commissions in the army and navy at the end of their academical career by requiring a certain standard of merit to entitle either to enter the service as officers.

8. To place the United States in a good condition of defence we must also constitute and maintain an army and navy entirely sufficient in numbers and excellence, in personnel and materiel, to command the respect of other nations-a respect based upon a consciousness of our being prepared to promptly punish wanton aggression.

Hitherto, instead of having an army respectable for its size, it had been made so unpopular (by artful appeals to our national dislike to maintain large fleets and armies) as to resist all efforts to increase our military strength to an extent equal to our actual wants, that traitors were able to commence, and actually did commence a rebellion at a time when the government had scarcely one thousand soldiers east of the Mississippi river, amid a population of more than twenty-five millions. Forts seemed to have been built for ornamental rather than useful purposes. The idea that one of the chief objects of establishing the Union was to "insure domestic tranquility," had come to be considered a "glittering generality," quite inconsistent with State rights. The stirring events and trials of the past twelve months have, at a cost of rivers of blood and a thousand millions of dollars, thoroughly dispelled these wretched but once popular delusions. We now clearly see how wise were the earnest recommendations of our military authorities. Had they been heeded in 1836, when the treasury was so full that Congress deemed it proper to di

vide a considerable portion of the public moneys among the several States, the present rebellion probably had not occurred. We should have had two forts where we now have one; the cost of all would have been but about thirty-one million five hundred thousand dollars; their peace garrisons would have been five thousand nine hundred and forty soldiers; their war garrisons sixty-three thousand three hundred and ninety-one. With our forts garrisoned, traitors would have forborne from engaging in war; but if otherwise, how readily could they have been seized. How small the cost of the defences; how small the cost of maintaining the garrisons, compared with our present expenditures.

To protect our immense interior territories against the numerous Indian tribes who roam over them is a work equal to the utmost efforts of our present regular forces, and more than they have hitherto been able properly to perform. An increase of the regular army to an extent adequate to the proper garrisoning of our frontier defences, under the revised estimates which have become necessary, is therefore a military necessity which cannot be prudently overlooked nor neglected by Congress. On this point a careful estimate should be required from an able board of engineers of more than usual experience. The preservation of peace with foreign nations is not a greater blessing than the maintenance of domestic tranquillity; and the maintenance of a well appointed army and navy, suitable to our necessities and our means, will powerfully aid us in the preservation of both. Similar views naturally present themselves in relation to a judicious increase of the navy, and a report thereon should be provided for at an early day; much of its present force is entirely temporary, and will disappear with the occasion which demanded its accumulation, leaving the nation with a navy quite inadequate to our wants.

Your committee have endeavored to show, at some length, that our frontier defences are defective, and should therefore be either improved or superseded, so as to afford protection of a character upon which we can rely. It has been urged that as our defences, compared with those of other nations, are respectable, and the great mass of our people ardently love peace, and therefore in this age of rapidly advancing civilization not likely to provoke enmities in the breasts of reasonable people to the extent of hostilities, why, in this time of heavy taxation, insist upon entering upon the work of constructing extensive and costly defences? Why insist upon our acting as though other nations were actuated only by a spirit of rapine and conquest?

Your committee are not insensible to the ameliorating influences which advancing Christianity and civilization are steadily and beneficently working among the leading nations of our age. But prudence forbids us to be blind to the influences which ambition and commercial and manufacturing rivalry still exert upon the minds of those who control the great governments of the earth. What is the example set us by the enterprising and highly enlightened neighbor upon whose border we have recommended expensive works of defence? What mean the extensive and costly naval depots at Bermuda

and Halifax—the opening of an expensive and fortified channel for her iron-clad vessels into the lakes upon our defenceless northern frontier? If in the history of Great Britain nothing can be found to justify the supposition that she is likely to make Canada an independency, and thus give us a weak neighbor against the possible aggressions of whom it would not be seemly to strongly guard, it might be proper to disregard the wise maxims of ages and leave our northern frontier in its present defenceless and exposed condition. But if, on the contrary, the whole world believes Great Britian seeks to increase instead of lessening her dominions, and, in the event of war, would vigorously defend them, then it becomes us, like other nations, to put our frontiers into a condition of security more in accordance with the dictates of good sense and a sound military policy.

The friendship existing between England and France has been more intimate and co-operative during the past ten years than probably it has been before in several centuries. They have united in levying war against Russia, against China, and against Mexico; and to increase their intimacy have even changed the tariff systems of the respective countries. Yet never, in ten centuries, had the channel between them been so carefully studded with fortifications, located and built so regardful of military science, so regardless of cost, as during the past ten years. Each has also vied with the other in building improved and novel ships-of-war, more formidable than the world ever saw before; and each has maintained armies at home and abroad, the soldiers of which are enumerated only by hundreds of thousands. Such is friendship among the most highly civilized nations of this age, even when it assumes the form of intimacy. As in the event of a martial contest between other nations each of these allies would unhesitatingly pursue the path indicated by its national interest, wheresoever that might chance to lead, they may be said to be never out of danger of collision. Hence, like their ships, they are ever clad in armor; and each of them seems to be of opinion that the more complete the armor of both the more likely is peace to be maintained, and the more likely is their friendship to continue intimate and cordial. To keep the peace, each of these intimate friends, instead of relying on the civilization and Christianity which so eminently distinguish their people, has constructed powerful fortifications, built many ships, and raised and maintained many soldiers, ready to fight at a moment's notice. How amazing the capacity and completeness of the French arsenals of construction! The British navy yards are bewildering in their immensity! The mere barracks, hospitals, and storehouses of these nations have been erected at a cost equal to that of all our fortifications on five thousand miles of coast.

Such is the practice among the wisest nations of our times, and your committee consider that it would be exceedingly dangerous to disregard it, and weakly allow a powerful and litigious neighbor advantages against which good sense revolts. We must make available, at an early day, advantages of a corresponding value. Instead of indolently repining at that enterprise which has opened to British fleets

an exclusive and a fortified channel into the entire chain of the great North American lakes, thus uncovering our extended northern frontier, the United States must unhesitatingly imitate the spirited example. So, also, if a revolution in the art of protecting ships against the effect of shot renders our forts inadequate to the duty for which they were designed, instead of sitting down to bewail our misfortune, or halting to consider whether nations have not become so good and so just as to be hereafter incapable of doing us a wrong, we must enlarge and strengthen our works, and face them with iron. Good armor and upright dealing united are well calculated to make nations friends. It was well said, at an early day, by our engineers, that—

"Neither our geographical position, nor our forbearance, nor the equity of our policy, can always avail under the relation in which it is our destiny to stand to the rest of the world. We are admonished by history to bear in mind that war cannot at all times be avoided, however specific and forbearing our policy; and that nothing will conduce more to an uninterrupted peace than that state of preparation which exposes no weak point to the hostility, and offers no gratification to the cupidity, of the other nations of the earth.”

Credulity, procrastination, and helplessness, have ruined many nations as well as individuals. We must not only perceive and recog nize what is proper and judicious to place our system of frontier de fences in a condition calculated to insure our safety and independence, but must seriously and perseveringly act in earnest accordance with our matured opinions. Congress must not only make appropriations, but make them at the suitable times, and in sufficient amounts; to be most effective, appropriations must be not only adequate, but also timely and consecutive; else, idle hands and waste of materials will result, as heretofore, in unnecessary losses. In the construction of ships and fortifications delays increase their cost. Forethought and promptitude, faithfulness and integrity, will, at an early day, at a reasonable cost, call into existence admirable defences, of the excellence of which our nation will be proud.

The committee report herewith several bills intended to carry out such of their recommendations as have not already been brought before the House by this and its other committees, and ask for their recommendations such consideration as the importance of the subject demands.