maritime empire should have adequate means of defending all that
made its existence possible.

[Footnote 47: _Encyclopédie_, 7th Jan. 1765, art. 'Thalassarchie.']

In forms differing in appearance, but identical in essentials, the
efficacy of sea-power was proved again in the American Secession
war. If ever there were hostilities in which, to the unobservant
or short-sighted, naval operations might at first glance seem
destined to count for little, they were these. The sequel, however,
made it clear that they constituted one of the leading factors
of the success of the victorious side. The belligerents, the
Northern or Federal States and the Southern or Confederate States,
had a common land frontier of great length. The capital of each
section was within easy distance of this frontier, and the two
were not far apart. In wealth, population, and resources the
Federals were enormously superior. They alone possessed a navy,
though at first it was a small one. The one advantage on the
Confederate side was the large proportion of military officers
which belonged to it and their fine training as soldiers. In
_physique_ as well as in _morale_ the army of one side differed
little from that of the other; perhaps the Federal army was slightly
superior in the first, and the Confederate, as being recruited
from a dominant white race, in the second. Outnumbered, less well
equipped, and more scantily supplied, the Confederates nevertheless
kept up the war, with many brilliant successes on land, for four
years. Had they been able to maintain their trade with neutral
states they could have carried on the war longer, and--not
improbably--have succeeded in the end. The Federal navy, which was
largely increased, took away all chance of this. It established