untry. Democratic nations are naturally afraid
of disturbance and of despotism; the object is to turn these natural
instincts into well-digested, deliberate, and lasting tastes. When men
have at last learned to make a peaceful and profitable use of freedom,
and have felt its blessings--when they have conceived a manly love of
order, and have freely submitted themselves to discipline--these same
men, if they follow the profession of arms, bring into it, unconsciously
and almost against their will, these same habits and manners. The
general spirit of the nation being infused into the spirit peculiar to
the army, tempers the opinions and desires engendered by military life,
or represses them by the mighty force of public opinion. Teach but the
citizens to be educated, orderly, firm, and free, the soldiers will be
disciplined and obedient. Any law which, in repressing the turbulent
spirit of the army, should tend to diminish the spirit of freedom in the
nation, and to overshadow the notion of law and right, would defeat
its object: it would do much more to favor, than to defeat, the
establishment of military tyranny.

After all, and in spite of all precautions, a large army amidst a
democratic people will always be a source of great danger; the most
effectual means of diminishing that danger would be to reduce the army,
but this is a remedy which all nations have it not in their power to
use.

Chapter XXIII: Which Is The Most Warlike And Most Revolutionary Class In
Democratic Armies?

It is a part of the essence of a democratic army to be very numerous in
proportion to the people to which it belongs, as I shall hereafter
show. On the other hand, men living in democratic times seldom choose a
military life. Democratic nations are therefore soon led to give up the
system of voluntary recruiting for that of compulsory enlistment. The
necessity of their social condition compels them to resort to the latter
means, and it may easily be foreseen that they will all eventually adopt
it. When military service is compulsory, the burden is indiscriminately
and equally borne by the whole community. This is another necessary
consequence of the social condition of these nations, and of their
notions. The government may do almost whatever it pleases, provided it
appeals to the whole community at once: it is the unequal distribution
of the weight, not the weight itself, which commonly occasions
resistance. But as military service i