having been personally exposed to its perils in battle,
than their companions in arms; but without their forecast, efficient
aid, and cooperation those in the field would not have been provided
with the ample means they possessed of achieving for themselves and
their country the unfading honors which they have won for both.

When all these facts are considered, it may cease to be a matter of so
much amazement abroad how it happened that our noble Army in Mexico,
regulars and volunteers, were victorious upon every battlefield, however
fearful the odds against them.

The war with Mexico has thus fully developed the capacity of republican
governments to prosecute successfully a just and necessary foreign war
with all the vigor usually attributed to more arbitrary forms of
government. It has been usual for writers on public law to impute to
republics a want of that unity, concentration of purpose, and vigor of
execution which are generally admitted to belong to the monarchical and
aristocratic forms; and this feature of popular government has been
supposed to display itself more particularly in the conduct of a war
carried on in an enemy's territory. The war with Great Britain in 1812
was to a great extent confined within our own limits, and shed but
little light on this subject; but the war which we have just closed by
an honorable peace evinces beyond all doubt that a popular
representative government is equal to any emergency which is likely to
arise in the affairs of a nation.

The war with Mexico has developed most strikingly and conspicuously
another feature in our institutions. It is that without cost to the
Government or danger to our liberties we have in the bosom of our
society of freemen, available in a just and necessary war, virtually a
standing army of 2,000,000 armed citizen soldiers, such as fought the
battles of Mexico. But our military strength does not consist alone in
our capacity for extended and successful operations on land. The Navy is
an important arm of the national defense. If the services of the Navy
were not so brilliant as those of the Army in the late war with Mexico,
it was because they had no enemy to meet on their own element. While the
Army had opportunity of performing more conspicuous service, the Navy
largely participated in the conduct of the war. Both branches of the
service performed their whole duty to the country. For the able and
gallant services of the officers and men of the N