Page:The parallel between the English and American civil wars.djvu/33

CIVIL WARS to command, the common people to obey." The Southern aristocracy furnished regimental officers who were accepted as natural leaders and loyally followed. In the regiments of volunteers raised by the North the officers were usually elected by their men, chosen for popularity rather than competence, and as a result indifferently obeyed. The democratic spirit made it difficult for discipline to take root.

In seventeenth-century England there was not this difficulty. Like the South, it was an aristocratic community. Amongst Roundheads and Cavaliers officers were appointed from above, not elected from below, and men of birth and property were selected if they could be obtained. Cromwell was blamed for appointing a captain of horse who was not a gentleman. He answered by admitting that "men of honour and birth" were best, but complained that they had not offered themselves. "Seeing it was necessary the work must go on, better plain men than none, but best to have men patient of 25