ABSTRACT
The usual mistake seems to be, in imagining that freedom, in its comprehensive sense, can be conferred by man, or won by battle. The slave in mind and feeling is but a slave when freed from his bonds; he must be fitted for liberty, political and social, by other means than the sword, whether used by him or for him. 'Great armies have been the benefactors of nations; they have given surety to peace, order, property; and where great armies are not, their absence is indicated by perpetual civil broils, disorder, rapine, slavery and despotism;' and then people point to the semi-barbarism of South America, and the slavish condition of Spain and Italy, as evidence of people's opinion.
