popularity of some great and patriotic soldier, and make it available
for the promotion of personal or party ends. Success in that sinister
policy will no doubt often prove to be only an aggravation of ordinary
party strategy, by which the vital questions of capacity and fitness are
made subordinate to that of availability. We have in our history too
many instances of such intrigues and their dangerous consequences, to
admit of their success at the present time, though they come in the
seductive form of military glory. The degenerate system of party
strategy culminated seven years ago in the election of James Buchanan.
In pursuance of the secret and treacherous preparations for the present
infamous rebellion, the people were ignorantly and blindly led by
cunning intrigue into that fatal mistake; but it was not less the
circumstances of the tunes and the sinister combination of parties, than
the weakness and wickedness of the man chosen, which gave him the
immense power for mischief which he wielded against his country. The
complications of the approaching crisis will not be less controlling in
their power to bring about the ruin or the restoration of the republic.
In the uncertain contingencies and possible combinations of opinion and
interest destined to grow out of the immediate future, no man can
foresee what dangers and difficulties will arise. The only path of
safety lies in the straight line of consistent action; avoiding sinister
expedients and untried men; despising the arts of the demagogue, when
they present themselves in the most specious of all forms, that of using
military success as the pretext for ambitious designs; and doing justice
to the great soldier, _as a soldier_, according to the value of his
achievements, not forgetting that 'peace hath her victories not less
renowned than those of war,' and that the faithful and able statesman
cannot be overlooked and set aside amid the glare of arms, without
danger to the best interests of the republic.