The daily exchange. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1858-1861, 1858-03-12
BALTIMORE.
FRIDAY, MARCH IL, 1853.

The American people, it seems, like best to do
their own fighting; and consequently, their repre-
sentatives in Congress exceedingly 10th to con-
sent to any increase in the regular army. As we
have before stated, in commenting upon the debates
the Army bill in the Senate, the national prefer
ence is decidedly in favor of the employment of
volunteers upon all occasions whether for the pur
pose of REFRESHING domestic treason, or of repeng
a foreign foe. Now in this respect, we think, a
disposition is shown to carry the popular prejudice
against standing armies to most unreasonable
length. That strong military establishment is
necessarily incompatible with free institutions is by
no means strictly true; while to assert that our
liberties would be endangered by the presence Of
some fifteen or twenty thousand troops scattered |
over our widespread domain from Maine to Flori-
da, from Maryland to Oregon, is simply absurd.
Yet this is precisely the objection urged by South
journalists against granting the President the
four additional regiments asked for in his message;
and in support of the objection, a vast deal of
frothy school-boy rhetoric about standing arm
les, " 'foreign mercenares, " "a hireng soldiery"
'pretoran cohorts, etc.. ETC., has been expended
in Congress by Southern Senators and Representa-
tves, who are found joining hands with Northern
Abolitionists, and uniting in common opposition
to the National Administration
That men who applaud and defend treason in
Kansas, should refuse to lend helping hand to
punish rebellion in Utah. is not surprising. Their
game is obviously to reduce the General Govern
ment to condition of helpless dependence and
impotence, and hence the recommendation in the
Trib,Jns Of Tuesday to ont down milf
adjustment of the Republic to two or three thou
sand men, and those to be invalided or superannl-
ated soldiers who will answer well enough the
Tribune thinks TO keep the national defences in re-
pair. That national and conservative men should
be found countenancing and abetting the insidious
policy of these reckless agitators and plotters
against the peace and harmony of the Union, is
most strange. For purposes of external defence,
volunteer troops will perhaps prove sufficient
lance. We have no powerful military neighbor
upon our frontiers-and the existence of standing
army for their protection against foreign invasion
is therefore unnecessary. But for such emergen-
cies that of the Utah rebellion, we are disposed
to regard the employment of volunteers as very
questionable, if not dangerous expedient. Any
domestic instruction against the authority of the
Republic must of course originate in some local or
sectional disafection and if that disaffection be
of any considerable extent magnitude, the at
tempt to suppress it by the employment of volun-
teer troops would inevitably lead to civil war.
The rebels would not fail to find friends and
allies in some quarter, whose secret sympathy or,
it may be, active cooperation would etecually
counteract whatever aid and assistance the Govern
ment might find in another. Suppose President
JACKSON had been compelled TO resort to measures
of military coercion against the people of South
Carolina, and had called for vounteers-is it not
fair presumption that for every Northern man who
joined the Federal camp, two Southern would
have enlisted under the Palmetto flag? Or suppose
that President BUCHANAN had been compelled to
employ volunteers for the preservation of peace and
order in Kansas-or that the enforcement of the
Fugitive Slave Law at the North had provoked
such an extent of armed resistance on the part of
the people as to have required a military force for
Its suppression-are not the consequences that
would have followed obvious to everybody? Civil
war and dissolution of the Union would have been
the result. We do not say that if such emergen-
cies had arisen the employment of regular troops
would have sufficed TO avert the catastrophe but
ton, that call for volunteers under such circum-
stances, would have rendered that catastrophe in
evitable, by enlisting not merely the sympathies
but the active participation of the whole Union on
one side or the other of the contest. Let us then
have the four regiments which the President asks
for, or twice that number Unnecessary. We cannot
believe that our liberties are so valueless in the
eyes of the people as to be endangered by an add
ton to the regular army of some three or four
thousand men, or that republicanism and patriot
ism weak in the hearts of the young of
the country, that to put blue coat upon their
backs or stick a feather in their caps, is to trans
form them into the willing minions of arbitrary
power, render them the plant and facile nstru-
ments of military adventures If the expense is
consideration, in the present condition of the
tional finances, the superior cheapness of regular
soldiers as compared with volunteers is an addi-
tional argument in favor of the Presidents plan
The advantage of military discipline and system in
checking and preventing prodigal and wasteful
expenditure both of blood and money, cannot be
questioned, while such discipline and system is
absolutely necessary to prevent the operations Of
on, army designed for the restoration of peace and
order and the enforcement of the laws, from de-
generating into mere marauding and pillaging
e1pedition-a sort of licensed foray ON the part of
the wild and reckless adventures, whom call for
volunteers would bring to the standard of the
Republic. 1t is said that economical consider
alton in favor of volunteers is that they can be
dsbanded at the end of two years, when it is con-
jectured the war will be over. We are not alto
gether sure that the necessities of the Republic will
admit quite so soon of the closing of the temple
Janus.
If Mrs. FREMONT has dropped her ring into the