is possible. But you have laid another duty
upon me. You have bidden me to see it that nothing stains or impairs
the honor of the United States, and that is a matter not within my
control; that depends upon what others do, not upon what the Government
of the United States does. Therefore there may at any moment come a time
when I cannot preserve both the honor and the peace of the United
States. Do not exact of me an impossible and contradictory thing, but
stand ready and insistent that everybody who represents you should stand
ready to provide the necessary means for maintaining the honor of the
United States.

I sometimes think that it is true that no people ever went to war with
another people. Governments have gone to war with one another. Peoples,
so far as I remember, have not, and this is a government of the people,
and this people is not going to choose war. But we are not dealing with
people; we are dealing with Governments. We are dealing with Governments
now engaged in a great struggle, and therefore we do not know what a day
or an hour will bring forth. All that we know is the character of our
own duty. We do not want the question of peace and war, or the conduct
of war, entrusted too entirely to our Government. We want war, if it
must come, to be something that springs out of the sentiments and
principles and actions of the people themselves; and it is on that
account that I am counseling the Congress of the United States not to
take the advice of those who recommend that we should have, and have
very soon, a great standing Army, but, on the contrary, to see to it
that the citizens of this country are so trained and that the military
equipment is so sufficiently provided for them that when they choose
they can take up arms and defend themselves.

The Constitution of the United States makes the President the Commander
in Chief of the Army and Navy of the Nation, but I do not want a big
Army subject to my personal command. If danger comes, I want to turn to
you and the rest of my fellow-countrymen and say, "Men, are you ready?"
and I know what the response will be. I know that there will spring up
out of the body of the Nation a great host of free men, and I want those
men not to be mere targets for shot and shell. I want them to know
something of the arms they have in their hands. I want them to know
something about how to guard against the diseases that creep into camps,
where men are unaccustomed to live.