fear us in the future. And while they will have no cause to dread our
interference with the affairs of the Old World, they will be cautious of
tampering with a power which has proved itself one of the first, if not
the very first, on the face of the earth.

For--and this is another effect of the war which may be noticed in this
connection--for many years to come we shall be a military nation. The
necessity of guarding against a similar outbreak in the future will
prompt the increase of our standing army; while the same cause, as well
as the taste for military pursuits which our people will have acquired
during this war, will keep the great mass of the people prepared to
respond to the first call in the hour of danger. The militia laws will
be revived, revised, and established on a firmer basis than ever before,
and the antiquated militia musters and 'June trainings' will again
become our most cherished holidays. Independent military organizations
will spring up and flourish all over the land, and he who aforetime wore
his gorgeous uniform at the heavy cost of running the gauntlet of his
neighbors' sneers and gibes as a holiday soldier, will now be honored in
enrolling his name among the 'Independent Rifles' of his native village.
The youth will labor to acquire the elements of military knowledge and
reduce them to practice, not with a view to holiday parades, but with an
eye to the possible exigencies of the future, knowing that when the hour
of trial shall come, the post of honor and of fame will be open to all,
and that he who has most cultivated the military art in time of peace
will bid fair to win in the race for preferment. Military schools will
derive a new importance in our country; they will be patronized by high
and low, and most of our institutions of learning will, ere many years,
have a military as well as a scientific and classical department. And
thus will the knowledge of the art of war become so universally diffused
among the people, that in the event of another great struggle, we shall
not be left, as heretofore, to depend upon raw and undisciplined
volunteers, but an army of well-trained troops will spring like magic to
the field, ready to march at once to victory, without the necessity of
'camps of instruction' and twelve months' delays. And when that day does
come, woe to that potentate who shall have the temerity to provoke a war
with our race of soldiers: his legions will be swept away like chaff