THE AMERICAN ARMY IN MEXICO.
The remarks already made respecting the general immoral tendency of the .military profession, are of course more peculiarly applicable to the rank and file of an arm3^ A prudent, intelligent, industrious, pious recruit is a prodigy. The great mass of all armies, it is well known, is collected from the ignorant, reckless, and vicious. When such men are brought into close contact with each other, and at the same time removed from the restraining influences of domestic life and social observation, their vicious propensities are of course strengthened by mutual example and countenance. Discipline may prevent the commission of some gross crimes, but can in no degree improve, or even guard the moral character.
If it be, indeed, true, that the profession of a soldier is peculiarly hazardous to his well-being, exposing him and those within his influence, to crime in this world, and to misery in the next, we discover a new item of the awful responsibility which rests upon those who involve their country in war. In our contest with Mexico, 80,000 or more Americans, and probably three times as many Mexicans, have been exposed to the moral and physical inju- ries of military service. Could we follow the survivors on their return to their homes, what a mass of wretchedness should we discover, caused by the habits they had acquired, and the moral contamination of their example. All experience bears witness to the fidelity of the picture drawn long since, of the discharged recruit, who " His three years of lierosliip expired, Returns indignant to the slighted plough. He hates the field in which no fife or drum Attends him ;—drives his cattle to a march. And sighs for the smart comrades he has left.