twelve millions, or from some of our other millions.

What do we propose to do, then, with these thirty regiments which it is
designed to throw into Mexico? Are we going to cut the throats of her
people? Are we to thrust the sword deeper and deeper into the "vital
parts" of Mexico? What is it proposed to do? Sir, I can see no object in
it; and yet, while we are pressed and urged to adopt this proposition to
raise ten and twenty regiments, we are told, and the public is told, and
the public believes, that we are on the verge of a safe and an honorable
peace. Every one looks every morning for tidings of a confirmed peace,
or of confirmed hopes of peace. We gather it from the administration,
and from every organ of the administration from Dan to Beersheba. And
yet warlike preparations, the incurring of expenses, the imposition of
new charges upon the treasury, are pressed here, as if peace were not in
all our thoughts, at least not in any of our expectations.

Now, Sir, I propose to hold a plain talk to-day; and I say that,
according to my best judgment, the object of the bill is patronage,
office, the gratification of friends. This very measure for raising ten
regiments creates four or five hundred officers; colonels, subalterns,
and not them only, for for all these I feel some respect, but there are
also paymasters, contractors, persons engaged in the transportation
service, commissaries, even down to sutlers, _et id genus omne_, people
who handle the public money without facing the foe, one and all of whom
are true descendants, or if not, true representatives, of Ancient
Pistol, who said,

"I shall sutler be
Unto the camp, and profits will accrue."

Sir, I hope, with no disrespect for the applicants, and the aspirants,
and the patriots (and among them are some sincere patriots) who would
fight for their country, and those others who are not ready to fight,
but who are willing to be paid,--with due respect for all of them
according to their several degrees and their merits, I hope they will
all be disappointed. I hope that, as the pleasant season advances, the
whole may find it for their interest to place themselves, of mild
mornings, in the cars, and take their destination to their respective
places of honorable private occupation and of civil employment. They
have my good wishes that they may find the way to their homes from the
Avenue and the Capitol, and from the purlieus of the President's