War is simply a political movement, though violent and exceptional in its character.  However sudden the occasion from which it arises, it results from antecedent conditions, the general tendency of which should be manifest long before to the statesmen of a nation, and to at least the reflective portion of the people.  In such anticipation, such forethought, as in the affairs of common life, lies the best hope of the best solution,—­peace by ordinary diplomatic action; peace by timely agreement, while men’s heads are cool, and the crisis of fever has not been reached by the inflammatory utterances of an unscrupulous press, to which agitated public apprehension means increase of circulation.  But while the maintenance of peace by sagacious prevision is the laurel of the statesman, which, in failing to achieve except by force, he takes from his own brow and gives to the warrior, it is none the less a necessary part of his official competence to recognize that in public disputes, as in private, there is not uncommonly on both sides an element of right, real or really believed, which prevents either party from yielding, and that it is better for men to fight than, for the sake of peace, to refuse to support their convictions of justice.  How deplorable the war between the North and South! but more deplorable by far had it been that either had flinched from the maintenance of what it believed to be fundamental right.  On questions of merely material interest men may yield; on matters of principle they may be honestly in the wrong; but a conviction of right, even though mistaken, if yielded without contention, entails a deterioration of character, except in the presence of force demonstrably irresistible—­and sometimes even then.  Death before dishonor is a phrase which at times has been abused infamously, but it none the less contains a vital truth.

To provide a force adequate to maintain the nation’s cause, and to insure its readiness for immediate action in case of necessity, are the responsibility of the government of a state, in its legislative and executive functions.  Such a force is a necessary outcome of the political conditions which affect, or, as can be foreseen, probably may affect, the international relations of the country.  Its existence at all and its size are, or should be, the reflection of the national consciousness that in this, that, or the other direction lie clear national interests—­for which each generation is responsible to futurity—­or national duties, equally clear from the mere fact that the matter lies at the door, like Lazarus at the rich man’s gate.  The question of when or how action shall be taken which may result in hostilities, is indeed a momentous one, having regard to the dire evils of war; but it is the question of a moment, of the last moment to which can be postponed a final determination of such tremendous consequence.  To this determination preparation for war has only this relation:  that it should be adequate to the utmost demand that then can be made upon it, and, if possible, so imposing that it will prevent war ensuing, upon the firm presentation of demands which the nation believes to be just.  Such a conception, so stated, implies no more than defence,—­defence of the nation’s rights or of the nation’s duties, although such defence may take the shape of aggressive action, the only safe course in war.