Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/529

 by this action; and the life-blood of the country will ooze out from the arteries if they are not now bound up by the strength and energy of Congress, and our system renovated and made perfect in all its parts. I say there was no necessity for this action, and it was not in contemplation even in the report of the Secretary of the Navy at so late a day as 1854.

I desire to refer to that report of the Secretary of the Navy, in which he says emphatically that such a law was not necessary, for he recommends the extremest measure which he thought was required, and he does not go to this extent; but it was engineered through Congress. Everything in regard to it was kept secret. It was done by the co-operation of the committee and the silence and apathy of members, who, from their peculiar condition, not being connected particularly with the navy, were prevented from entering into an investigation of the principles of the law. In the report to which I have just alluded, Mr. Dobbin says: "Is the particular plan of having the aid of a board of officers in ascertaining the incompetent and unworthy objected to? I am not wedded to that or any other scheme, provided the main object can be attained. I should be content to have the Secretary from time to time officially report to the President such names as he wishes should be retired or dropped; that the President should transmit, if he thinks proper, their names to the Senate, with a recommendation suited to each case. Thus the President and the Senate, the appointing power, will be the removing power; and the apprehension of Star Chamber persecution and being victimized by secret inquisition, now felt by some worthy officers, would be quieted."

Sir, if this course had been adopted the navy would have been purged, if it needed purging; it would have been purified, invigorated, and sustained: but how is it now? I will take any number of men who have been removed and disrated, and you may pick out at hap-hazard an equal number among those retained, and you will find them as defective in capacity as those who have been dismissed.

Mr. President, I earnestly trust that the Senate will adopt these resolutions, appoint the special committee forthwith to proceed in the investigation of the cases of those officers who have presented memorials to us, so that they will have it in their power at an early day to report upon the subject. I have much to deplore in the condition of the country, and much to reprehend; but this is the most fatal blow which I have yet seen aimed at the nation—one that has inflicted a deeper wound on its honor and efficiency than all that have been accumulating from the days of my boyhood to the present moment, and the consequences of which will be most disastrous if not arrested.

I can not consent to sustain the bill reported by the Committee on Naval Affairs, which proposes to increase temporarily the whole number of officers in the navy, when we have already so many officers for the ships, that now only once in every fifteen years can a captain perform his cruise, a commander once in fifteen years, and the lieutenants once in five years. Under such circumstances, are you to make provision for an additional number to supply the places of those who have been improperly dropped or removed? No, sir. I will replace them where they stood at the adoption of this