Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 4.djvu/221

1808. want of self-confidence as the foundation of domestic as well as of foreign policy. The Republican party stood alone in refusing, on principle, to protect national rights from foreign outrage; but it defied imitation when the sacrifice of national rights was justified by the argument that if American liberties were not abandoned to foreign nations they would be destroyed by the people themselves. War, which every other nation in history had looked upon as the first duty of a State, was in America a subject for dread, not so much because of possible defeat as of probable success. No truer Republican could be found in Virginia than John W. Eppes, one of Jefferson's sons-in-law; and when the House debated in February a Senate bill for adding two regiments to the regular army, Eppes declared the true Republican doctrine: —


 * "If we have war, this increase of the army will be useless; if peace, I am opposed to it. I am in favor of putting arms into the hands of our citizens and then let them defend themselves. . . .  If we depend on regular troops alone, the liberty of the country must finally be destroyed by that army which is raised to defend it.  Is there an instance in which a nation has lost its liberty by its own citizens in time of peace?  It is by standing armies and very often by men raised on an emergency and professing virtuous feelings, but who eventually turned their arms against their country. . . .  I never yet have voted for a regular army or soldier in time