their vicious propensities.  A strong force in the State of Texas has produced a temporary suspension of hostilities there, but in New Mexico incessant activity on the part of the troops is required to keep in check the marauding tribes which infest that Territory.  The hostile Indians have not been removed from the State of Florida, and the withdrawal of the troops therefrom, leaving that object unaccomplished, would be most injurious to the inhabitants and a breach of the positive engagement of the General Government.

To refuse supplies to the Army, therefore, is to compel the complete cessation of all its operations and its practical disbandment, and thus to invite hordes of predatory savages from the Western plains and the Rocky Mountains to spread devastation along a frontier of more than 4,000 miles in extent and to deliver up the sparse population of a vast tract of country to rapine and murder.

Such, in substance, would be the direct and immediate effects of the refusal of Congress, for the first time in the history of the Government, to grant supplies for the maintenance of the Army—­the inevitable waste of millions of public treasure; the infliction of extreme wrong upon all persons connected with the military establishment by service, employment, or contracts; the recall of our forces from the field; the fearful sacrifice of life and incalculable destruction of property on the remote frontiers; the striking of our national flag on the battlements of the fortresses which defend our maritime cities against foreign invasion; the violation of the public honor and good faith, and the discredit of the United States in the eyes of the civilized world.

I confidently trust that these considerations, and others appertaining to the domestic peace of the country which can not fail to suggest themselves to every patriotic mind, will on reflection be duly appreciated by both Houses of Congress and induce the enactment of the requisite provisions of law for the support of the Army of the United States.

FRANKLIN PIERCE.

SPECIAL MESSAGE.

EXECUTIVE OFFICE,

Washington, August 21, 1856.

To the Senate and House of Representatives: 

I transmit herewith a letter from the Secretary of War, in relation to the balances remaining in the Treasury from the last appropriation for the support of the Army.

FRANKLIN PIERCE.

FOURTH ANNUAL MESSAGE.

WASHINGTON, December 2, 1856.

Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and of the House of Representatives: