1. The military successes of the United States would seem to prove undeniably, that, if the nation had adopted a career of conquest as did Ancient Rome, it might have played an important part in the history of warlike peoples. The undisciplined militia shut up a strong army in Boston in 1774, and, had not their powder failed, would very likely have forced the British to evacuate that place immediately after the battle of Bunker Hill. 2. Washington’s army, made up in large part of militia, seemed always on the point of dissolution, and yet the British, after spending more than a hundred millions in fitting out armies against them, and possessing the important superiority of free movement on the sea, for the transportation of forces easily and rapidly to any desired point, never could gain a permanent foothold, though opposed only by a ragged, famished, and half disorganized army.
3. The war of 1812—the Mexican War—and the Civil War, all bear testimony to the excellence of the material for military operations to be found among us. Yet we are a peace loving people. The government has never had more than the skeleton of an army in times of peace. While the Great Powers of Europe keep up armies of half a million of men, our army, very soon after the late ............