New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1873-07-08
PROFESSIONAL SOLDIBRY.

" mittedn said the Duke of Wellington on
certain occasion. that ours is damnable
profession" Perhaps it is not so much the
influence of active service in the camp and
the field which demOraizes the soldier "a the
long periods of enforced and peaceful idle
ness and the barrack life in which discipline
is sufficiently relaxed to encourage debauchery,
while the peculiar situation of the men also
encourages RIGHTEOUSNESS. Mr.. Birch, III
recent address at Free Trade Hall, in London,
dwelt upon the admirable behavior OF the
German married soldiers during the last Con-
tinental war. He thought that troops should
be permitted TO live like men, to court hon
orably, to marry and to bring up their chill
dren among the people. :" Do not he said,
separate them from the world. Let them
become honorable citizens. Should we un-
"happily be called to the battle field, depend
upon it that our soldiers will act bravely
because they have wives and children who
/" pray for them at home"
The American people have always been just
ly jealous of anything like standing army,
and among the blessings which compensated
for the bitterness of the war of Rebellion, was
the demonstration made by both armies, by
the Confederate as well as the Union forces,
that plain citizen, with hardly any previous
training may in an incredibly short space of
time be converted into first-rate, active and
enduring soldier. Our troops, too, fought none
the worse because they left homes and wives
and children behind them, nor because they
took into the camp all the refining influences
of civil life. Men wondered, during the shock
e ho whether. ArpOru-
ance with the traditions and prescriptions of
all past history, we might not at last sink into
a state of military NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. the
army, in the proud consciousness OF its strength
and of civil helplessness, might not inlet
upon us Dictatorship under the softer name oil
q Presidency. With an army of different
class, and we should add, with commanders OF
a different class, the danger would doubtless
have been imminent, the event, per-
haps, predestinate. Fortunately, OF all the
vast mass of men composing our forces,
there were very few who did not
take into the service an intelligent idea
of the excellence and justice of democracy
regulated by law very few who had not been
at least tolerably well educated; very few who
did not look back with fond yearnng to
homes which had been fostered and made
happy by the spirit of regulated liberty. Our
men had all the bravery, all the submission
to necessary discipline, all the ready obedience
of the best trained soldiers of Europe; but
they had something more, and something
which rendered all these qualities immensely
available and effective. Every man was a
voter, and thus to q certain definite if limited
oonunan1np III tho
military management either at Washington or
in the field was not to their mind, there was
little need of the risk and the shame of mu-
tiny. Each one had weapon as efficient as
the musket or the bayOnet-each one had
vote. The humblest of the rank and file was
in a political way quite the equal of the Cen
eral who remotely, or of the Colonel who i'm
mediateIy commanded him. This at once and
for all made the danger Of a military dicta-
tOrship iDcOnsiderable. Some of our Gener-
ais were favorites of their troops and
some of them were not but no General was.
ever so popular with the army that he could
have ventured to take the least liberty with
the Constitution or with Law. Eloquence, un-
less properly employed, would have been
thrown away upon men accustomed to politics
and platforms sophistry would have availed
nothing with those in the habit of dealing
directly and1ogically with public affairs; CHI
cane would have been powerless with those
who all their lives had been ntelligently
watching and crticising the business of legis-
lation. Military leaders might be admired,
loved and respected, as Mcclellan, Sheridan,
Sherman, Thomas, and so many others I'M
questionably were; but not one of these gal
liant men, even if he could have harbored the
thought. would have had the least chance of
misleading his forces for the qualification of
his personal ambition.
We have been speaking of the past and of
the accomplished, but what we have said has
an immediate application. Our great armies,
once 80 thoroughly imbued and animated by
the military spirit, have quietly subsidized into
peaceful citizens. The States which prevailed
in that sanguinary contest, and which through
all those perturbed years hardly tasted the
extreme bitterness of war, may well cease to
occupy quasi military position toward their
less fortunate sisters. The records of history
are secure, and we can we'll afford to miti-
gate the tone of triumph, and to let the
peans of victory die away. We have demon
bJTaUeU bndC INC pIOlcSslOuul bOiultT, save 10
a very limited extent, is unnecessary. He
may be worse than useless when his presence
is a perpetual taunt and ceaseless irritation.
We fondly say that the Rebellion is over, but
it is not over while it is thought indispensable
to maintain civil authority by the menace of
ever-present regiments.
GETTING An EQUIVALENT.