army, as a body, is no less moral than the corresponding classes in
civil life; that our common soldiers are as seldom guilty of riots,
thefts, robberies, and murders, as similarly educated men engaged in
other pursuits; that our military officers are not inferior in moral
character to our civil officers, and that, as a class, they will compare
favorably with any other class of professional men--with lawyers, for
example. In justification of these opinions--which may, perhaps, be
deemed singularly erroneous--they say, that in the many millions of
public money expended during the last forty years, by military officers,
for the army, for military defences, and for internal improvements, but
a single graduate of West Point has proved a defaulter, even to the
smallest sum, and that it is exceedingly rare to see an officer of the
army brought into court for violating the laws.

But even suppose it true that armies necessarily diffuse immorality
through community, is it not equally true that habitual submission to
the injustice, plunder, and insult of foreign conquerors would tend
still more to degrade and demoralize any people?

With regard to "pecuniary expenditures" required in military defence,
many absurd as well as false statements have been put forth. With
respect to our own country, the entire amounts expended, under the head
of war department, whether for Indian pensions, for the purchase of
Indian lands, the construction of government roads, the improvement of
rivers and harbors, the building of breakwaters and sea-walls, for the
preservation of property, the surveying of public lands, &c., &c.; in
fine, every expenditure made by officers of the army, under the war
department, is put down as "expenses for military defence." Similar
misstatements are made with respect to foreign countries: for example,
the new fortifications of Paris are said to have already cost from fifty