Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Politics volume 4 .djvu/61

Rh very ignorant people; and while we waste our school-money and school-time, must continue so.

A great man, who towers far above the common heads, full of creative thought, of the ideas which move the world, able to organize that thought into institutions, laws, practical works; a man of a million, a million-minded man, at the head of a nation, putting his thought into them; ruling not barely by virtue of his position, but by the intellectual and moral power to fill it; ruling not over men's heads, but in their minds and hearts, and leading them to new fields of toil, increasing their numbers, wealth, intelligence, comfort, morals, piety — such a man is a noble sight; a Charlemagne, or a Genghis Khan, a Moses leading his nation up from Egyptian bondage to freedom and the promised land. How have the eyes of the world been fixed on Washington! In darker days than ours, when all was violence, it is easy to excuse such men if they were warriors also, and made, for the time, their nation but a camp. There have been ages when the most lasting ink was human blood. In our day, when war is the exception, and that commonly needless, such a man, so getting the start of the majestic world, were a far grander sight. And with such a man at the head of this nation, a great man at the head of a free nation, able and energetic, and enterprising as we are, what were too much to hope? As it is, we have wasted our money, and got the honour of fighting such a war. Let me next speak of the direct cost of the war in men. In April, 1846, the entire army of the United States consisted of 7244 men ; the naval force of about 7500. We presented the gratifying spectacle of a nation 20,000,000 strong, with a sea-coast of 3000 or 4000 miles, and only 7000 or 8000 soldiers, and as many armed men on the sea, or less than 15,000 in all! Few things were more grateful to an American than this thought, that his country was so nearly free from the terrible curse of a standing army. At that time the standing army of France was about 480,000 men; that of Russia nearly 800,000 it is said. Most of the ofiicers in the American army and navy, and most of the rank and file, had probably entered the service with no expectation of ever shedding the blood of men.