In times of peace the American people will not allow the maintenance of a large standing army, its presence being considered, justly or otherwise, a men ace to republican institutions. It is, therefore, more necessary to us than to any other country to have the most perfect and most efficient military system in the world; a system Whose elasticity will be sufficiently great to permit of its rapid expansion in the emer gency of war, when its great working forces must be drawn from civil life.
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