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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Untitled Article
compatible with tlie interests ioif divilked societ y * JJPhe military spirit in its full maturity is characterized Bjf ah obedience af oriee * blind and proud ^—con tempt for public and jp rivatfe rfgHf , and insensibility to the infliction of suffering . There is no Bell upon earth like the presence of a hostile army , unless it be that of a friendly arrriy . They are much the saifie when a country is the seat of war . Find one of the Spaniards who lived in SL Sebastian when their British allies delivered it from the French , and ask
hita of this matter . Or ask the Irish , who remember the Rebellion , which behaved worst when they entered a village , —the wild rebels , or the disciplined troops ? The wealthy and the beautiful of Bristol may rejoice that their city was for three days in the possession only of vulgar rioters , and not of gallant soldiers . Individual and public rights are the same to a thoroughly-drilled army . What considerations of natural right tit formal treaty would stop
an Austrian or Russian army when the word to march was given ? Even a British officer would say , * Let the government see to that / What has the captain to do with the Constitution ? His colonel says * Charge / and he charges . Has the soldier violated the law—not the military , but the civil law- ^ -go , constable , and pick him out from five hundred more , all dressed up as like as the
devilish duplicates of Faustus . But does the soldier dabble in politics ? Nothing more easy than to pick him out for the halberds . It was time for the keen eye of Reform to glance into the cabin and the guard-room . That searching look will not be , and has not been , in vain . For any country to be free , safe , and happy , soldiers must be citizens . Discipline must stop the moment it begins to alienate them , in spirit , from the mass of the
community . They ought not to be permanently separated from it by their profession ; they should part frond it only when the impending peril requires an organized fdrce , and dissolve into it as soon as the peril has passed . The military art requires no very exalted talent . Wellington is its master ; and the marshals of France were few of them bred to the trade . The armed
citizens of France routed the veterans of Europe . There ? s no feaf for an intelligent population and a cduntry worth defending . Courts-martial , and the laws which courts-martial administer , have not done their worst in this country ; they have been kept in check by our free institutions and the progress ot knowledge ; but they have done worse things even than hanging young tleywood
would have been , —they have helped to generate feelings ( though happily to a very partial extent both rimdngst the higher and lower military grades ) of dislike , contempt and hatred , towards the people and the people's rights , whicn sufficiently show the nature atid tendency of the system . They have contributed to form the men who , in a gfeat popular s £ ruggfe , can speak , with a smile , of a ' little dust to be laid in blood P We Jhonour those whose enlightened minds and sound hearts remain unContami-
Untitled Article
$ & 6 Tagarfis Memo %¥ of Hajpimft tleywotod .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1832, page 806, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1826/page/14/
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