Admitting that an enemy might approach our shores for piracy or plunder or conquest, who can doubt that the surest protection would be found, not in the waste of long-accumulating preparation, not in idle fortresses along the coast, built at a cost far surpassing all our lighthouses and all our colleges, but in the intelligence, union, and pacific repose of good men, with the unbounded resources derived from uninterrupted devotion to productive industry? I think it may be assumed as beyond question, according to the testimony of political economy, that the people who spend most sparingly in Preparations for War, all other things being equal, must possess the most enduring means of actual self-defence at home, on their own soil, before their own hearths, if any such melancholy alternative should occur. Consider the prodigious sums, exceeding in all two thousand millions of dollars, squandered by the United States, since the adoption of the National Constitution, for the sake of the War System. Had such means been devoted to railroads and canals, schools and colleges, the country would possess, at the present moment, an accumulated material power grander far than any it now boasts. There is another power, of more unfailing temper, which would not be wanting. Overflowing with intelligence, with charity, with civilization, with all that constitutes a generous state, ours would be peaceful triumphs, transcending all yet achieved, and surrounding the land with an invincible self-defensive might, while the unfading brightness of a new era made the glory of War impossible. Well does the poet say with persuasive truth,-- "What constitutes a State? Not high-raised battlement or labored mound, Thick wall or moated gate; Not cities proud with spires and turrets crowned; Not bays and broad-armed ports, Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride: No: MEN, high-minded MEN."[315] Such men will possess a Christian greatness, rendering them unable to do an injury; while their character, instinct with all the guardian virtues, must render their neighbors unable to do an injury to them. [315] Sir William Jones, Ode in Imitation of Alcæus: Works, Vol. X. p. 389.