We see, on the contrary, that every corps of the Army and staff was to be reorganized, and most of them reduced in officers and men, and that in arranging the officers from the old to the new corps full power was granted to the President to take them from any and every corps of the former establishment and place them in the latter.
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I am aware that many officers of great merit, having the strongest claims on their country, have been reduced and others dismissed, but under the law that result was inevitable.
The Secretary of State, one of the ministers referred to, has already expressed a desire that Mr. Russell's letter should be communicated, and that I would transmit at the same time a communication from him respecting it.
I have thought that the United States should act with a generous spirit; that they should omit nothing which should comport with a liberal construction of the instrument and likewise be in accordance with the just rights of those tribes.
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