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Senator Preston Is Astonished
On May 29, 1834, Senator William Campbell Preston of South Carolina rose in the Senate of the 23d U.S.
Congress to propose a resolution which would require Secretary of War Lewis Cass to report to the Senate a listing of all
individuals who were receiving a pension for their service as a soldier or sailor in the Revolutionary War.
Senator Preston pointed out to his fellow senators that when the Pension Act of 1832 was being debated
it was estimated, based on expected normal life spans, that there would be no more than 10,000 veterans alive and qualified
to receive military pension benefits.
The senator
then noted to his deliberating colleagues the astonishing fact that although it had been 50 years since the end of the Revolutionary
War, there were still over 36,000 pensioners on the rolls.
Senator
Preston reported further that applications for inclusion in the pension rolls had not gradually trailed off, but in the face
of actuarial tables and common-sense logic had actually increased by 25 percent.
Senator Preston then stated that "In my judgement, there was some radical mistake,
mismanagement, or fraud in the pension system, which called on the Congress
to minutely look into it for the veterans of the American Revolutionary War".
