Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 6.djvu/84

60 So far the American people have been exempt from most of the evils springing from this system. From the foundation of the Government it has been the consistent policy of this Republic, following the true democratic instinct, to adapt its armaments to its own needs, without permitting itself to be drawn into the vortex of rivalry with other nations. As to the maintenance of peace and order at home, it has ordinarily depended upon the local police forces and the militia. It kept a small standing army stationed at a few military depots, a few coast defense fortifications or at posts in the Indian country. It kept a small navy just sufficient for an occasional showing of the flag in foreign waters and for doing its part of the police of the seas. Whenever an extraordinary emergency arose, such as a war with a foreign Power or an insurrection of formidable proportions at home, it organized armed forces on a larger scale by calling out volunteers who were enlisted in the service of the Republic, not as a regular standing army is, for doing whatever task might turn up, but for a well-defined, specific purpose, to be disbanded again as soon as that specific purpose was accomplished.

So it was held on the notable occasions of the war of 1812, of our war with Mexico and of our great civil war. And I venture to say that no nation ever presented to the world a grander, more characteristic and more inspiring spectacle than this Republic did when, after the close of the civil war, hundreds of thousands of men who had been organized in great armies, as soon as their task was done, quietly dropped their guns and as good citizens went home to devote themselves to the productive work of the country—the vast armies disappearing as by magic. It was a grand spectacle, I say, grander in its way than the most splendid victories those armies had achieved. That this Republic, against the misgivings entertained abroad