9 o POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



peoples ever entered into a strife so fiercely and so unanimously 

 as did the rebels, men and women, to win their independence, and 

 the loyalists, men and women, to save the Union. And yet, ear- 

 nest as we were in the struggle, recruiting our armies by volun- 

 teers, by enlistments, and by conscriptions ; putting into the field 

 patriots and scholars, citizens and aliens, philanthropists, cler- 

 gymen, and criminals, and finally thousands of negro slaves, so 

 deeply is the sentiment grounded in the heart of all civilized and 

 savage men that women must not be put into the actual peril of 

 battle, that the North would have given up the Union and the 

 South its independence rather than have called into the field a 

 single company of arms-bearing women. 



There is plausibility in the contention that the ballot and the 

 rule that the minority must submit to the majority are nothing 

 but a development of primitive war. War puts all questions to 

 the arbitrament of strength, and in the actual trial non-combat- 

 ants do not count. The ballot is the count of the potential 

 fighters, and presupposes and discounts a virtual combat. The 

 right to rule belonging to the superior strength, the array of the 

 combatants declares which is the stronger. 



All through the earlier periods of English history, when some 

 ambitious or reforming chief wished to get an obnoxious law 

 repealed, or to displace an odious minister, or to change a hated 

 dynasty, instead of starting newspapers, holding public discus- 

 sions, and canvassing the country for votes, he summoned his 

 retainers and fellow- chieftains to arms, took the field, and began 

 to lay siege to towns and strongholds. The Government turned 

 out its army and its adherents and met the malcontents in battle. 

 If it was strong enough to overcome them, the leaders were be- 

 headed and their estates confiscated, while the defeated followers 

 were punished and dispersed. If the rebels were victorious, a 

 new order succeeded a new ministry, a new national policy, per- 

 haps a new dynasty. All the great changes in government in 

 England were effected in just this way down to the middle of the 

 last century. In Mexico and the South American republics, 

 though they have written Constitutions and periodic elections, 

 voting seems to be considered a slow method of redressing griev- 

 ances; the actual working system is pronunciamientos that is, 

 armed revolts against the administration in power, and the real 

 battle , not yet evolved into the modern ballot 



Now, when the two forces the one for, the other against, the 

 Government stood confronting each other, what could be more 

 sensible than to anticipate and discount the result of the fighting ? 

 " How many fighting men," asks the loyal general, summoning a 

 conference, " have you on your side ? " " Fifteen thousand," re- 

 plies the rebel chief. * Then why fight it out ? for I have but ten 



