It is through the private soldiers especially that it may be possible to infuse into a democratic army the love of freedom and the respect for rights, if these principles have once been successfully inculcated in the people at large.

Among democratic nations the private soldiers remain most like civilians upon them the habits of the nation have the firmest hold and public opinion has most influence. They do not therefore imbibe the spirit of the army, or rather they infuse the spirit of the community at large into the army and retain it there. They adapt themselves to their military duties, but their minds are still attached to the interests and the duties that engaged them in civil life. Such men do not contract the wants and only half partake in the passions which that mode of life engenders. Among the soldiers of a democratic army some acquire a taste for military life but the majority, being enlisted against their will and ever ready to go back to their homes, do not consider themselves as seriously engaged in the military profession and are always thinking of quitting it. Thus it is in the nature of things that the soldier in democracies only passes through the army, while among most aristocratic nations the military profession is one which the soldier adopts, or which is imposed upon him, for life. But as military service is common to all the citizens, the evident consequence is that each of them remains for only a few years on active duty. The government may do almost whatever it pleases, provided it appeals to the whole community at once it is the unequal distribution of the weight, not the weight itself, that commonly occasions resistance. This is another necessary consequence of the social condition of these nations and of their notions. When military service is compulsory, the burden is indiscriminately and equally borne by the whole community. The necessity of their social condition compels them to resort to the latter means, and it may easily be foreseen that they will all eventually adopt it. Democratic nations are therefore soon led to give up the system of voluntary recruiting for that of compulsory enlistment. On the other hand, men living in democratic times seldom choose a military life. IT is of the essence of a democratic army to be very numerous in proportion to the people to which it belongs, as I shall hereafter show.

WHICH IS THE MOST WARLIKE AND MOST REVOLUTIONARY CLASS IN DEMOCRATIC ARMIES AMERICA

Warlike book