It is skill in this art which is meant by the term "physical force" in politics, and it is this physical force which lies behind all successful government. The superiority of the North in numbers, wealth, machinery, literature, and common schools would have profited it nothing, and the American Republic would have disappeared from the map if it had not been possible, thirty years ago, to apply a vast amount of intelligence to the purposes of destruction, and to find large numbers of men willing to fight under orders. In quiet times, under a government in which the numerical majority and the intelligence and property of the community are on the same side, and take substantially the same views of public polity, and the display of coercive force, except for ordinary police purposes, is not called for, we not unnaturally slide readily into the pleasant belief that government is purely a moral agency, and that people obey the law through admiration of intellectual power and the dread of being "cornered" in argument, or of being exposed as selfish or lawless. Such occurrences as the late civil war and the recent deadlock at the South are very useful in uncovering the secret springs of society, and reminding people of the tremendous uncertainties and responsibilities by which national as well as individual life is surrounded, reminding the voter, in short, that he may not always be able to discharge his duty to the country by depositing his ballot in the box; that he may have to make the result sure by putting everything he values in the world at stake. The poor negroes in South Carolina have not been deposed simply because they are ignorant; the Russian peasants who fought at Borodino were grossly ignorant. How many of the English hinds who stood rooted in the soil at Waterloo could read and write? The Carolinian majority failed because it did not contain men willing to fight, or leaders capable of organization for military purposes, or, in other words, did not possess what has since the dawn of civilization been the first and greatest title to political power. The Carolinian minority did not drive their opponents out of the offices by simply offering the spectacle of superior intelligence of self-confidence, but by the creation of a moral certainty that, if driven to extremities, they would outdo the Republicans in the marshalling, marching, provisioning, and manoeuvring of riflemen.