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EDITORIAL NOTICES.

The last number of our Journal contained a critical notice of the two recent New York editions of Coleridge's Aids to Reflection, which, by some, has been understood to imply a charge of disingenuousness against Messrs. Swords, Stanford, and Co., the publishers of one of the editions; and as no such charge was intended by the Review, it is now distinctly disclaimed. The case, according to the statement of these gentlemen, is this; they saw fit to publish a reprint of the work in question, from the fourth English edition, substituting a preliminary essay by Dr. M Vickar for that of Dr. Marsh, not because they were precluded from using the latter by its copy right, but because they considered Dr. M'Vickar's as better suited to their purpose, and more in accordance with their views; and that having omitted Dr. Marsh's essay, they, of course, omitted that part of Henry Nelson Coleridge's advertisement which commended it ;that, moreover, it could not be their intention to keep Dr. Marsh's essay out of sight, or to throw discredit upon it, as their own editor makes it the subject of a long comment, and deems it necessary to state the reasons which, in his view, made its re-publication inexpedient, in connexion with the stereotype edition superintended by him. The insertion of a London publisher's name on the title page, they say, is too common a usage to need explanation. Having before admitted the complaints of the aggrieved party, justice required us to extend the same privilege to the respondents, and we assure them all, that we should be alike unwilling to do wrong to either.

We are obliged to send out our present number of the Review without the usual Quarterly Chronicle, and Quarterly List of new publications. The great but unavoidable length of the articles on the Democracy of Athens, and on Sir Walter Scott, extended the first department of the Journal to the full number of pages properly belonging to the whole; and when to this was added a long list of Critical Notices, we had so far exceeded our limits in quantity, and so nearly reached them in point of time, that we were compelled to stop. We regret it the less, as the Quarter has not been one of great interest, either in the political or literary world.

THE

NEW YORK REVIEW.

No. XIV.

OCTOBER, 1840.

ART. 1.-1. Report of Mr. Keim, from the Committee on the Militia. Washington: 1840.

2. Report of Mr. Triplett, from the minority of the Committee on the Militia. Washington: 1840.

3. Letter of J. R. Poinsett to the Speaker of the House of Representatives. Washington: 1840.

4. Senate Document, No. 531. Washington: 1840.

THERE is an ancient prejudice among many of our citizens against a standing army. Of all the objections urged against the present constitution of the United States, that which had probably the greatest weight with the people, was that it allowed the general government the unlimited right of maintaining an armed force, and thus to levy troops, not only in time of war, but of profound peace; and when the administration of the elder Adams made use of this power, its exercise was the most direct and immediate cause of its downfall. Even to the present day, the ribaldry of the party press, of both the existing divisions in politics, can imagine no term of opprobrium more likely to injure the popularity of

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an opponent, than that of a "black-cockade federalist ;" and the gallant and patriotic youth who took arms in 1798, to be prepared to resist the aggressions of the French Directory, committed a political sin, for which the good service of his manhood, in the war of 1812 against Great Britain, will procure him no absolution.

That the application of this epithet should produce any political effect, is discreditable to the intelligence of the people; and the frequent bandying of it between parties in which all the ancient distinctions are lost, is ridiculous in the extreme to all who are acquainted with the history of party men and party measures. In spite of this, it is not the less true, that up to the present day, the name of federalist has a powerful influence at elections, and to be convicted of the charge of having borne a commission in the provisional army, of which Washington did not disdain the command, is almost sufficient to blast the hopes of the most able and distinguished candidate.

Such then is the popular feeling, and those who either seek for power without regard to the means by which it is to be acquired, or are hurried by excited feelings and the force of party discipline into the support of tenets which in their cooler moments they would repudiate, do not hesitate to take advantage of it. In the case we have cited, this policy was successful, because there was no room for enlisting a popular feeling on behalf of the provisional army; but in the war of the revolution, and in that of 1812, although the outcry raised against a permanent armed force was equally loud, the same results did not follow. On these occasions, the labors, the wounds, and the sufferings of the gallant and patriotic soldiers, overcame the cold-blooded arguments of the politicians.

There is, however, sufficient evidence, that a strong and efficient standing army can never be long maintained in the United States; and even when the opposition to it, on the ground of principle, is in a great degree abandoned, the popular feeling is sufficiently strong to prevent enlistments. The regular soldier is in fact a disgraced man, on whom the journeyman mechanic and the agricultural laborer look with contempt.

It is, notwithstanding, true, that without an armed force of considerable magnitude, our country can never take its proper stand among civilized nations. It is notorious that

our maritime towns may be laid under contribution, our fortresses seized, our northern frontier invaded, and our western outposts of civilization driven in, whenever a war with Great Britain shall take place; and even France, if not engaged in hostilities with England at the time, might be a formidable enemy. Both these nations understand our weakness in this respect, while they do not appreciate the points in which our strength consists. Accustomed to view the nations of Europe which have no other resource for defence except their standing armies, by whose defeat the overthrow of their governments is ensured, they are apt to consider our limited force with contempt. They cannot understand that we have any other reliance than it in case of an invasion, and believe that years of active warfare might elapse before we could train a sufficient armed force even to defend our own soil from foreign conquest.

Our apparent weakness is exhibited in a stronger light by the acts of our own politicians. With them, the doctrine of state sovereignty, in its disorganizing sense, has become predominant, and while the body of the people feel themselves the citizens of one great and united nation, in whose glory and prosperity they take a pride, it might be believed on the evidence of speeches in congress, and from the paragraphs of partisan editors, that we are on the eve of a division into almost as many sections as there are states in the confederation. We know indeed at home how unfounded such opinions are, but it is as injurious to our external relations to have it believed that they are correct, as if they were actually true. Our own day has however seen them brought to the test, and the universal acclamation with which President Jackson's proclamation, in reference to nullification, was received, is an evidence that the people, however favorably they may appear to listen to the preachers of disunion, are in their hearts opposed to any schism among the members of the federal union. That proclamation gave to him who issued it, for a time, a greater degree of popularity than Washington himself enjoyed in his most happy days, and left in fact no opposition to his administration, except the individuals against whose doctrine it was directed.

Experience seems to have proved, that the cardinal doctrine on which our government is founded is true. The people always mean right, and when time is allowed for the mists, in which aspirants for popularity attempt to involve

great questions of policy, to clear away, they never have failed to sanction wise measures, if they have sometimes been ungrateful to the patriotic men by whom they were planned. The existing constitution was opposed on grounds intended to enlist popular feeling, yet its opponents were at the very moment signally defeated and rebuked. The funding of the debt of the revolution, "the price of liberty," excited the loudest clamors, directed to the prejudices and passions of the multitude, yet it prevailed; and half a century has elapsed, before it has been considered prudent to appeal to the same motives, and proclaim that the existing generation has no right to bind its posterity. The navy, while in its infant stage, was assailed by all the weapons of party malice; it is now the cherished object of popular love. A standing army in time of peace was the chosen bugbear of an ambitious party, which on its triumph was compelled to support a military establishment, against which no opposing voice was raised. And so of innumerable other points of state or national policy, opposition to which has made the political fortune of the unprincipled, and which have yet become the established practice of our local and general governments.

A question which must take a similar course is now presented to the public; namely, that of the organization of the militia, in such manner as to render it a sure resource for national defence. The necessity for some provision towards this object is most obvious. But a few months have elapsed since we were threatened with a collision with France, and that it did not occur is to be ascribed rather to the unsettled state of things in that country at the time, than either to the justice of our cause, or fears of our prowess. At the present moment we have a dispute with Great Britain on subjects of importance, and more than once the appearance of things has been such as to cause fears of an immediate war. We are, in fact, in this instance, at the mercy of our own frontier population. Our government has not the power of coercion, from the want of a sufficient armed force, and it is within the limit of possibility that the rash acts of a single night may render a war unavoidable. It is indeed fortunate that the feeling known under the name of "sympathy" has abated; but there are turbulent spirits on the opposite side of the lines, who, under a mere spirit of restlessness, or the hope of seeing English gold again made to circulate for the pay and subsistence of armies, or finally, from a deadly hos

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