ublics? There never was a greater mistake. If there were brave men
before Agamemnon, and wise counsellors before Ulysses, there certainly
have been incompetent commanders before Major-General A., and shallow
statesmen before Secretary B. We do not monopolize executive imbecility,
nor are our military blunders without parallel or precedent. To
attribute our occasional reverses and our indecisive victories, our
inaction in the field and our confusion in the cabinet, to our peculiar
form of government, is as inconsequential as it would be to trace all
our disasters to the color of President Lincoln's hair or the number of
General Halleck's children.

The enemies of free institutions, hardly yet recovered from their
astonishment at beholding an army of volunteers, superior in number
and quality to any the world ever saw, spring into existence with such
marvellous rapidity as to eclipse, in sober fact, the fabulous birth
of Minerva full-armed from the head of Jove, or their still greater
surprise at seeing the immense expenses of so gigantic a war readily met
without assistance from abroad, by large loans cheerfully made and heavy
taxation patiently borne, are reduced to the necessity of exulting over
what they term our "total want of military genius," and our "incapacity
to conduct a campaign successfully."

It is useless to deny that we may have challenged criticism and provoked
a smile by our large promise and our smaller performance. But are we the
sole and exclusive proprietors of this experience? Where in the past or
the present shall we find a great and powerful nation much addicted to
modesty or self-depreciation? Least of all, should we have expected such
venomous criticism and such unsparing ridicule from England. To be sure,
we have long since ceased to look for sympathy or even justice at her
hands. We have come to understand and appreciate the tone and temper of
her ruling classes towards this country. In addition to their inherited
antipathy to Republics, they believe in sober earnest what one of their
greatest wits said jocosely, that "the great object for which the
Anglo-Saxon race appears to have been created is the making of calico."
And whatever interferes, or threatens to interfere, with this ennobling
occupation is sure to incur their passive displeasure, if not their
active hostility. We expect nothing, therefore, from their good-will;
but we have a right to demand, as a matter of good taste, that, in