nce to West
Point. It is a feeling, and a very strong one, in favor of
_education_, of qualification in all respects for the service which
may be required, and of that dignified self-respect and becoming
modesty which prevent an officer from desiring a position for
which he is not fully qualified, and, above all, that manly delicacy
which makes it impossible for an officer to _seek_ a position which
ought to be left to _seek him_. As well might a maiden ask a man
to marry her, or get some one else to do it for her, as a soldier
to seek in the same way a position on the staff of a general or of
the President.

This is especially true in respect to the position of the "commanding
general," or general-in-chief, of the army. The President being,
by the Constitution, commander-in-chief of the army and navy, no
law of Congress, even with his own consent, could relieve him from
that responsibility. There is no law, and there could not
constitutionally be any law passed, establishing any such office
as that of commanding general of the army, and defining the duties
and authority attached to it. Such a law would be a clear encroachment
upon the constitutional prerogatives of the President. The only
constitutional relation in which the so-called "commanding general,"
or "general-in-chief," of the army can occupy is that usually called
"chief of staff"--the chief military adviser and executive officer
of the commander-in-chief. He cannot exercise any command whatever
independently of the President, and the latter must of necessity
define and limit his duties. No other authority can possibly do
it. In this regard the President's power and discretion are limited
only by his constitutional obligation to exercise the chief command
himself. He can give his general-in-chief as much authority as he
pleases consistently with that obligation. Hence it is entirely
in the discretion of the President to define and fix the relations
which should exist between the general and the Secretary of War--
a very difficult thing to do, no doubt,--at least one which seems
never to have been satisfactorily done by any President. The
Secretary and the general appear to have been left to arrange that
as best they could, or to leave it unarranged. However this may
be, the relations of the general to the President are, or ought to
be, of the most confidential character, no less so than those of
any member of the cabinet. And the necessity of