It is not just to the Spanish colonies to blame them for such a procedure, especially when we remember that even our republic is beginning to manifest a marked partiality for military men. The great deed rather than the great thought,--the brilliant act rather than beneficent legislation,--arrests and captivates the multitude. In republics, where an eager strife for wealth, distinction or power, is constantly going on, the notice and position that each man obtains must be won either by intrigue or by the irresistible power of talents and achievements. Ambitious parties sometimes even compromise for the weakest, rather than yield the palm to superior merit of which they are meanly jealous. The great mass of the country has no time to pause in the midst of its earnest labor to meditate wisely on the political abilities and moral claims of individuals. They cannot weigh them in the golden scales of justice;--but, by a more rapid and easy process, they yield their suffrages promptly to those whose manifestations of genius or power are so resistless as to compel admiration. Thus is it that the brave soldier, performing his noble exploit on the field of battle, speaks palpably to the eye and ear of the greedy multitude. His is, indeed, the language of action, and each new deed makes national glory more distinct, and national vanity more confident. But the more quiet and unobtrusive statesman, with a field infinitely less glaring or attractive, exacts from his judges a suspension of party feeling, an investigation of motive and merit, a calm and forbearing justice, which the impatient masses have seldom the time or talent to bestow. It is, therefore, by no means surprising to find in history, that the sword has commonly been mightier than the pen, and that military chieftains become the natural heads of republics which are created by long and bitter revolutions.