Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 6.djvu/78

54 in point of numerical strength, be confined to the narrowest practicable limits.

That democratic spirit has therefore always demanded that the armed force should be composed principally of the militia, the citizen soldiery, or, in extraordinary emergencies, of volunteers called out from the ranks of the people, to serve as soldiers for certain well-defined and stated purposes, and then, those stated purposes being accomplished, to return to their civic pursuits. So it has hitherto been with us. In Switzerland, where the democratic spirit is much alive, but where on account of the geographical situation of the country a large and well-drilled force is thought necessary, they have organized the whole male population capable of bearing arms, in military bodies, some of which are called out for instruction and drill for a limited period every year, to be restored to civil life after the shortest possible interruption of their ordinary occupations, the only thing resembling a standing army being certain small staff corps which are kept in permanent service. All this rests upon the leading principle that the soldiers of a democracy as well as those commanding them should, while temporarily submitting to military discipline, remain in all essential respects active citizens without any interests, or sympathies or aspirations in any manner or degree different from those of the general citizenship.

France furnishes the example of a republic maintaining a large standing force, and the history of that country is peculiarly instructive as to the relations between standing armies and democracies. The first French Republic sprang from the great revolution of 1789. The most famous of French armies were organized under the inspiration of the revolutionary enthusiasms of that period. They were then to a large extent composed of volunteers who had rushed to arms to defend the ter-