the stubborn resistance and fixity
of ideas in the bureaus can prevent it. The invulnerability of the
Monitors, and the peculiar arrangement by which this important end is
obtained, are but one of the items necessary to make up the complete
efficiency of war steamers. They are only one half what is required.
They accomplish one of the great desiderata in armaments afloat; but
they leave another equally important demand utterly unsatisfied. There
is a counterpart to this achievement--its complement, equally
indispensable to the efficiency of the navy, and waiting to be placed by
the side of the recent improvement. It must and will be brought forth,
whether the naval authorities assist or oppose. American genius, only
give it fair play, is equal to all emergencies.

The immense activity of thought and ingenuity elicited by the war, and
extending to all the departments of enterprise appropriate to the great
crisis, is a phenomenon peculiar to the American people. It could be
exhibited nowhere else, to the same extent, among civilized nations,
because nowhere else is the same stimulus applied with equal directness
to the popular masses. The operation of this peculiar cause is
conspicuously plain. The Government of the United States is the people's
Government; the war is emphatically the people's war. Every man feels
that he has a personal interest in it. He understands, more or less
clearly, the whole question involved, and has fixed opinions, and
perhaps strong feelings, in regard to it. His friends and neighbors and
brothers are in the army, and they have gone thither voluntarily,
perhaps impelled by enlightened and conscientious convictions of duty.
His sympathies follow them; he ardently prays for their success; and he
is stimulated to provide, as well as he can, for their comfort. All
other business being greatly interrupted, if not wholly suspended, he
thinks continuously of the mighty operations of the war. He dwells on
them night and day, and in the laboratory of his active mind, excited by
the mighty stimulus of personal and patriotic feeling natural to the
occasion, he produces those extraordinary combinations which distinguish
the present era.

In addition to these impulses which operate so generally, there is the
still more universal and all-pervading love of gain which stimulates his
inventive faculties, and causes them to operate in the direction in
which his hopes and sympathies are turned. Aroused by motive