Part 3

And when the youth becomes a man, his country invites his service in war, and holds before his bewildered imagination the prizes of worldly honor. For him the pen of the historian and the verse of the poet. His soul is taught to swell at the thought that he, too, is a soldier,--that his name shall be entered on the list of those who have borne arms for their country; and perhaps he dreams that he, too, may sleep, like the Great Captain of Spain, with a hundred trophies over his grave. The law of the land throws its sanction over this frenzy. The contagion spreads beyond those subject to positive obligation. Peaceful citizens volunteer to appear as soldiers, and affect, in dress, arms, and deportment, what is called the "pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war." The ear-piercing fife has to-day filled our streets, and we have come to this church, on this National Sabbath, by the thump of drum and with the parade of bristling bayonets.

It is not strange, then, that the Spirit of War still finds a home among us, nor that its honors continue to be regarded. All this may seem to illustrate the bitter philosophy of Hobbes, declaring that the natural state of mankind is War, and to sustain the exulting language of the soldier in our own day, when he wrote, "War is the condition of this world. From man to the smallest insect, all are at strife; and the glory of arms, which cannot be obtained without the exercise of honor, fortitude, courage, obedience, modesty, and temperance, excites the brave man's patriotism, and is a chastening corrective for the rich man's pride."[5] This is broad and bold. In madder mood, another British general is reported as saying, "Why, man, do you know that a grenadier is the _greatest character_ in this world,"--and after a moment's pause, with the added emphasis of an oath, "and, I believe, in the next, too."[6] All these spoke in harmony. If one is true, all are true. A French voice has struck another note, chanting nothing less than the divinity of war, hailing it as "divine" in itself,--"divine" in its consequences,--"divine" in mysterious glory and seductive attraction,--"divine" in the manner of its declaration,--"divine" in the results obtained,--"divine" in the undefinable force by which its triumph is determined;[7] and the whole earth, continually imbibing blood, is nothing but an immense altar, where life is immolated without end, without measure, without respite. But this oracle is not saved from rejection even by the magistral style in which it is delivered.

[5] Napier, Peninsular War, Book XXIV. ch. 6, Vol. VI. p. 688.

[6] Southey, Colloquies on the Progress and Prospects of Society, Coll. VIII., Vol. I. p. 211.

[7] Joseph de Maistre, Soirées de Saint-Pétersbourg, Tom. II. pp. 27, 32-35.

Alas! in the existing attitude of nations, the infidel philosopher and the rhetorical soldier, to say nothing of the giddy general and the French priest of Mars, find too much support for a theory which degrades human nature and insults the goodness of God. It is true that in us are impulses unhappily tending to strife. Propensities possessed in common with the beast, if not subordinated to what in man is human, almost divine, will break forth in outrage. This is the predominance of the animal. Hence wars and fightings, with the false glory which crowns such barbarism. But the true civilization of nations, as of individuals, is determined by the extent to which these evil dispositions are restrained. Nor does the teacher ever more truly perform his high office than when, recognizing the supremacy of the moral and intellectual, he calls upon nations, as upon individuals, to declare independence of the bestial, to abandon practices founded on this part of our nature, and in every way to beat down that brutal spirit which is the Genius of War. In making this appeal, he will be startled as he learns, that, while the municipal law of each Christian nation, discarding the Arbitrament of Force, provides a judicial tribunal for the determination of controversies between individuals, International Law expressly _establishes_ the Arbitrament of War for the determination of controversies between nations.

Here, then, in unfolding the True Grandeur of Nations, we encounter a practice, or _custom_, sanctioned by the Law of Nations, and constituting a part of that law, which exists in defiance of principles such as no individuals can disown. If it is wrong and inglorious when individuals _consent and agree_ to determine their petty controversies by combat, it must be equally wrong and inglorious when nations _consent and agree_ to determine their vaster controversies by combat. Here is a positive, precise, and specific evil, of gigantic proportions, inconsistent with what is truly honorable, making within the sphere of its influence all true grandeur impossible, which, instead of proceeding from some uncontrollable impulse of our nature, is _expressly established and organized by law_.

* * * * *

As all citizens are parties to Municipal Law, and responsible for its institutions, so are all the Christian nations parties to International Law, and responsible for its provisions. By recognizing these provisions, nations _consent and agree_ beforehand to the Arbitrament of War, precisely as citizens, by recognizing Trial by Jury, _consent and agree_ beforehand to the latter tribunal. As, to comprehend the true nature of Trial by Jury, we first repair to the Municipal Law by which it is established, so, to comprehend the true nature of the Arbitrament of War, we must first repair to the Law of Nations.

Writers of genius and learning have defined this arbitrament, and laid down the rules by which it is governed, constituting a complex code, with innumerable subtile provisions regulating the resort to it and the manner in which it must be conducted, called the _Laws of War_. In these quarters we catch our first authentic glimpses of its folly and wickedness. According to Lord Bacon, whose authority is always great, "Wars are no massacres and confusions, but they are the highest _Trials of Right_, when princes and states, that acknowledge no superior upon earth, shall put themselves upon the justice of God _for the deciding of their_ _controversies_ by such success as it shall please him to give on either side."[8] This definition of the English philosopher is adopted by the American jurist, Chancellor Kent, in his Commentaries on American Law.[9] The Swiss publicist, Vattel, whose work is accepted as an important repository of the Law of Nations, defines War as "that state in which a nation _prosecutes its right by force_."[10] In this he very nearly follows the eminent Dutch authority, Bynkershoek, who says, "Bellum est eorum, qui suæ potestatis sunt, _juris sui persequendi ergo_, concertatio per vim vel dolum."[11] Mr. Whewell, who has done so much to illustrate philosophy in all its departments, says, in his recent work on the Elements of Morality and Polity, "Though war is appealed to, because there is no other ULTIMATE TRIBUNAL to which states can have recourse, _it is appealed to for justice_."[12] And in our country, Dr. Lieber says, in a work of learning and sagacious thought, that war is undertaken "in order to obtain right,"[13]--a definition which hardly differs in form from those of Vattel and Bynkershoek.

[8] Observations upon a Libel, etc., Works, Vol. III. p. 40.

[9] Lecture III., Vol. I. p. 45.

[10] Book III. ch. 1, sec. 1.

[11] Quæst. Jur. Pub., Lib. I. cap. 1.

[12] Book VI. ch. 2. art. 1146.

[13] Political Ethics, Book VII. sec. 19, Vol. II. p. 643.

In accordance with these texts, I would now define the evil which I arraign. _War is a public armed contest between nations, under the sanction of International Law, to establish_ JUSTICE _between them_: as, for instance, to determine a disputed boundary, the title to territory, or a claim for damages.

This definition is confined to contests between nations. It is restricted to International War, carefully excluding the question, often agitated, concerning the right of revolution, and that other question, on which friends of peace sometimes differ, the right of personal self-defence. It does not in any way throw doubt on the employment of force in the administration of justice or the conservation of domestic quiet.

It is true that the term _defensive_ is always applied to wars in our day. And it is creditable to the moral sense that nations are constrained to allege this seeming excuse, although its absurdity is apparent in the equal pretensions of the two belligerents, each claiming to act on the defensive. It is unreasonable to suppose that war can arise in the present age, under the sanctions of International Law, except to determine an _asserted right_. Whatever its character in periods of barbarism, or when invoked to repel an incursion of robbers or pirates, "enemies of the human race," war becomes in our day, _among all the nations parties to existing International Law_, simply a mode of litigation, or of deciding a _lis pendens_. It is a mere TRIAL OF RIGHT, an appeal for justice to force. The wars now lowering from Mexico and England are of this character. On the one side, we assert a _title_ to Texas, _which is disputed_; on the other, we assert a _title_ to Oregon, _which is disputed_. Only according to "martial logic," or the "flash language" of a dishonest patriotism, can the Ordeal by Battle be regarded in these causes, on either side, as _Defensive War_. Nor did the threatened war with France in 1834 promise to assume any different character. Its professed object was to obtain the payment of five million dollars,--in other words, to determine by this _Ultimate_ _Tribunal_ a simple question of justice. And going back still farther in our history, the avowed purpose of the war against Great Britain in 1812 was to obtain from the latter power an abandonment of the claim to search American vessels. Unrighteous as was this claim, it is plain that war here was invoked only as a _Trial of Right_.

* * * * *

It forms no part of my purpose to consider individual wars in the past, except so far as necessary by way of example. My aim is higher. I wish to expose an irrational, cruel, and impious _custom_, sanctioned by the Law of Nations. On this account I resort to that supreme law for the definition on which I plant myself in the effort I now make.

After considering, in succession, _first_, the character of war, _secondly_, the miseries it produces, and, _thirdly_, its utter and pitiful insufficiency, as a mode of determining justice, we shall be able to decide, strictly and logically, whether it must not be ranked as crime, from which no true honor can spring to individuals or nations. To appreciate this evil, and the necessity for its overthrow, it will be our duty, _fourthly_, to consider in succession the various prejudices by which it is sustained, ending with that prejudice, so gigantic and all-embracing, at whose command uncounted sums are madly diverted from purposes of peace to preparations for war. The whole subject is infinitely practical, while the concluding division shows how the public treasury may be relieved, and new means secured for human advancement.

I.

First, as to the essential character and root of war, or that part of our nature whence it proceeds. Listen to the voice from the ancient poet of Boeotian Ascra:--

"This is the law for mortals, ordained by the Ruler of Heaven: Fishes and beasts and birds of the air devour each other; JUSTICE _dwells not among them: only to_ MAN _has he given_ JUSTICE _the Highest and Best_."[14]

[14] Hesiod, Works and Days, vv. 276-279. Cicero also says, "Neque ulla re longius absumus a natura ferarum, in quibus inesse fortitudinem sæpe dicimus, ut in equis, in leonibus; justitiam, æquitatem, bonitatem non dicimus."--De Offic., Lib. I. cap. 16.

These words of old Hesiod exhibit the distinction between man and beast; but this very distinction belongs to the present discussion. The idea rises to the mind at once, that war is a resort to brute force, where nations strive to overpower each other. Reason, and the divine part of our nature, where alone we differ from the beast, where alone we approach the Divinity, where alone are the elements of that _justice_ which is the professed object of war, are rudely dethroned. For the time men adopt the nature of beasts, emulating their ferocity, like them rejoicing in blood, and with lion's paw clutching an asserted right. Though in more recent days this character is somewhat disguised by the skill and knowledge employed, war is still the same, only more destructive from the genius and intellect which have become its servants. The primitive poets, in the unconscious simplicity of the world's childhood, make this boldly apparent. The heroes of Homer are likened to animals in ungovernable fury, or to things devoid of reason or affection. Menelaus presses his way through the crowd "like a wild beast." Sarpedon is aroused against the Argives, "as a lion against the crooked-horned oxen," and afterwards rushes forward "like a lion nurtured on the mountains, for a long time famished for want of flesh, but whose courage impels him to attack even the well-guarded sheep-fold." In one and the same passage, the great Telamonian Ajax is "wild beast," "tawny lion," and "dull ass"; and all the Greek chiefs, the flower of the camp, are ranged about Diomed, "like raw-eating lions, or wild-boars, whose strength is irresistible." Even Hector, the model hero, with all the virtues of war, is praised as "tamer of horses"; and one of his renowned feats in battle, indicating brute strength only, is where he takes up and hurls a stone which two of our strongest men could not easily lift into a wagon; and he drives over dead bodies and shields, while the axle is defiled by gore, and the guard about the seat is sprinkled from the horses' hoofs and the tires of the wheels;[15] and in that most admired passage of ancient literature, before returning his child, the young Astyanax, to the arms of the wife he is about to leave, this hero of war invokes the gods for a single blessing on the boy's head,--"that he may excel his father, and bring home _bloody spoils_, his enemy being slain, and _so make glad the heart of his mother_!"

[15] Little better than Trojan Hector was the "great" Condé ranging over the field and exulting in the blood of the enemy, which defiled his sword-arm to the elbow.--Mahon, Essai sur la Vie du Grand Condé, p. 60.

From early fields of modern literature, as from those of antiquity, might be gathered similar illustrations, showing the unconscious degradation of the soldier, in vain pursuit of _justice_, renouncing the human character, to assume that of brute. Bayard, the exemplar of chivalry, with a name always on the lips of its votaries, was described by the qualities of beasts, being, according to his admirers, _ram in attack, wild-boar in defence, and wolf in flight_. Henry the Fifth, as represented by our own Shakespeare, in the spirit-stirring appeal to his troops exclaims,--

"When the blast of war blows in our ears, _Then imitate the action of the tiger_."

This is plain and frank, revealing the true character of war.

I need not dwell on the moral debasement that must ensue. Passions, like so many bloodhounds, are unleashed and suffered to rage. Crimes filling our prisons stalk abroad in the soldier's garb, unwhipped of justice. Murder, robbery, rape, arson, are the sports of this fiendish Saturnalia, when

"The gates of mercy shall be all shut up, And the fleshed soldier, rough and hard of heart, In liberty of bloody hand shall range _With conscience wide as hell_."

By a bold, but truthful touch, Shakespeare thus pictures the foul disfigurement which war produces in man, whose native capacities he describes in those beautiful words: "How noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god!" And yet this nobility of reason, this infinitude of faculties, this marvel of form and motion, this nature so angelic, so godlike, are all, under the transforming power of War, lost in the action of the beast, or the license of the fleshed soldier with bloody hand and conscience wide as hell.

II.

The immediate effect of war is to sever all relations of friendship and commerce between the belligerent nations, and every individual thereof, impressing upon each citizen or subject the character of enemy. Imagine this instant change between England and the United States. The innumerable ships of the two countries, the white doves of commerce, bearing the olive of peace, are driven from the sea, or turned from peaceful purposes to be ministers of destruction; the threads of social and business intercourse, so carefully woven into a thick web, are suddenly snapped asunder; friend can no longer communicate with friend; the twenty thousand letters speeded each fortnight from this port alone are arrested, and the human affections, of which they are the precious expression, seek in vain for utterance. Tell me, you with friends and kindred abroad, or you bound to other lands only by relations of commerce, are you ready for this rude separation?

This is little compared with what must follow. It is but the first portentous shadow of disastrous eclipse, twilight usher of thick darkness, covering the whole heavens with a pall, broken only by the lightnings of battle and siege.

Such horrors redden the historic page, while, to the scandal of humanity, they never want historians with feelings kindred to those by which they are inspired. The demon that draws the sword also guides the pen. The favorite chronicler of modern Europe, Froissart, discovers his sympathies in his Prologue, where, with something of apostleship, he announces his purpose, "that the honorable enterprises and noble adventures and feats of arms which happened in the wars of France and England be notably registered and put in perpetual memory," and then proceeds to bestow his equal admiration upon bravery and cunning, upon the courtesy which pardoned as upon the rage which caused the flow of blood in torrents, dwelling with especial delight on "beautiful incursions, beautiful rescues, beautiful feats of arms, and beautiful prowesses"; and wantoning in pictures of cities assaulted, "which, being soon gained by force, were robbed, and men and women and children put to the sword without mercy, while the churches were burnt and violated."[16] This was in a barbarous age. But popular writers in our own day, dazzled by false ideas of greatness, at which reason and humanity blush, do not hesitate to dwell on similar scenes even with rapture and eulogy. The humane soul of Wilberforce, which sighed that England's "bloody laws sent many unprepared into another world," could hail the slaughter of Waterloo, by which thousands were hurried into eternity on the Sabbath he held so holy, as a "splendid victory."[17]

[16] Froissart, Les Chroniques, Ch. 177, 179, Collection de Buchon, Tom. II. pp. 87, 92.

[17] Life of William Wilberforce, by his Sons, Ch. 30, Vol. IV. pp. 256, 261.

My present purpose is less to judge the historian than to expose the horrors on horrors which he applauds. At Tarragona, above six thousand human beings, almost all defenceless, men and women, gray hairs and infant innocence, attractive youth and wrinkled age, were butchered by the infuriate troops in one night, and the morning sun rose upon a city whose streets and houses were inundated with blood: and yet this is called a "glorious exploit."[18] Here was a conquest by the French. At a later day, Ciudad Rodrigo was stormed by the British, when, in the license of victory, there ensued a savage scene of plunder and violence, while shouts and screams on all sides mingled fearfully with the groans of the wounded. Churches were desecrated, cellars of wine and spirits were pillaged, fire was wantonly applied to the city, and brutal intoxication spread in every direction. Only when the drunken dropped from excess, or fell asleep, was any degree of order restored: and yet the storming of Ciudad Rodrigo is pronounced "one of the most brilliant exploits of the British army."[19] This "beautiful feat of arms" was followed by the storming of Badajoz, where the same scenes were enacted again, with accumulated atrocities. The story shall be told in the words of a partial historian, who himself saw what he eloquently describes. "Shameless rapacity, brutal intemperance, savage lust, cruelty, and murder, shrieks and piteous lamentations, groans, shouts, imprecations, the hissing of fires bursting from the houses, the crashing of doors and windows, and the reports of muskets used in violence, resounded for two days and nights in the streets of Badajoz. On the third, when the city was sacked, when the soldiers were exhausted by their own excesses, the tumult rather subsided than was quelled. The wounded men were then looked to, the dead disposed of."[20] All this is in the nature of confession, for the historian is a partisan of battle.

[18] Alison, Hist. of Europe, Ch. 61, Vol. VIII. p. 237.

[19] Ibid., Ch. 64, Vol. VIII. p. 482.

[20] Napier, Hist. Peninsular War, Book XVI. ch. 5, Vol. IV. p. 431.

The same terrible war affords another instance of atrocities at a siege crying to Heaven. For weeks before the surrender of Saragossa, the deaths daily were from four to five hundred; and as the living could not bury the increasing mass, thousands of carcasses, scattered in streets and court-yards, or piled in heaps at the doors of churches, were left to dissolve in their own corruption, or be licked up by the flames of burning houses. The city was shaken to its foundations by sixteen thousand shells, and the explosion of forty-five thousand pounds of powder in the mines,--while the bones of forty thousand victims, of every age and both sexes, bore dreadful testimony to the unutterable cruelty of War.[21]

[21] Napier, Book V. ch. 3, Vol. II. p. 46.