pendence of this country. At its
conclusion the United States stepped into line with the nations of the
world, a free community, with a mission to fulfill and a destiny to
accomplish--a mission and a destiny which are still in process of
development, and whose final outcome no man can foresee.

The next series of events in the history of our wars arose from the
mighty struggle in Europe between France and Great Britain and the
piratical activity of the Barbary States. The latter were forced to
respect the power of the United States by several naval demonstrations
and conflicts; and a naval war with France, in which our ships were
strikingly successful, induced that country to show us greater respect.
But the wrongs which we suffered from Great Britain were not to be so
easily settled, and led to a war of three years' continuance, in which
the honors were fairly divided on land, but in which our sailors
surprised the world by their prowess in naval conflict. The proud boast
that "Britannia rules the waves" lost its pertinence after our two
striking victories on Lake Erie and Lake Champlain, and our remarkable
success in a dozen conflicts at sea. Alike in this war and in the
Revolution the United States showed that skill and courage in naval
warfare which has recently been repeated in the Spanish War.

The wars of which we have spoken had a warrant for their being. They
were largely unavoidable results of existing conditions. This cannot
justly be said of the next struggle upon which the United States
entered, the Mexican War, since this was a politician's war pure and
simple, one which could easily have been avoided, and which was entered
into with the avowed purpose of acquiring territory. In this it
succeeded, the country gaining a great and highly valuable tract, whose
wealth in the precious metals is unsurpassed by any equal section of the
earth, and which is still richer in agricultural than in mineral wealth.

The next conflict that arose was the most vital and important of all our
wars, with the exception of that by which we gained our independence.
The Constitution of 1787 did not succeed in forming a perfect Union
between the States. An element of dissension was left, a "rift within
the lute," then seemingly small and unimportant, but destined to grow to
dangerous proportions. This was the slavery question, disposed of in the
Constitution by a compromise, which, like every compromise with evil,
failed in its p