Part 8

In the _Fortifications and Arsenals_ of Europe, crowning every height, commanding every valley, frowning over every plain and every sea, wealth beyond calculation has been sunk. Who can tell the immense sums expended in hollowing out the living rock of Gibraltar? Who can calculate the cost of all the Preparations at Woolwich, its 27,000 cannon, and its small arms counted by hundreds of thousands? France alone contains more than one hundred and twenty fortified places; and it is supposed that the yet unfinished fortifications of Paris have cost upward of _fifty millions of dollars_.

The cost of the _Militia_, or irregular troops, the Yeomanry of England, the National Guard of Paris, and the _Landwehr_ and _Landsturm_ of Prussia, must add other incalculable sums to these enormous amounts.

Turn now to the United States, separated by a broad ocean from immediate contact with the Great Powers of Christendom, bound by treaties of amity and commerce with all the nations of the earth, connected with all by strong ties of mutual interest, and professing a devotion to the principles of Peace. Are Treaties of Amity mere words? Are relations of Commerce and mutual interest mere things of a day? Are professions of Peace vain? Else why not repose in quiet, unvexed by Preparations for War?

Colossal as are European expenditures for these purposes, they are still greater among us in proportion to other expenses of the National Government.

It appears that the average _annual_ expenses of the National Government, for the six years ending 1840, exclusive of payments on account of debt, were $26,474,892. Of this sum, the average appropriation each year for military and naval purposes amounted to $21,328,903, being eighty per cent. Yes,--of all the annual appropriations by the National Government, eighty cents in every dollar were applied in this unproductive manner. The remaining twenty cents sufficed to maintain the Government in all its branches, Executive, Legislative, and Judicial,--the administration of justice, our relations with foreign nations, the post-office, and all the light-houses, which, in happy, useful contrast with the forts, shed their cheerful signals over the rough waves beating upon our long and indented coast, from the Bay of Fundy to the mouth of the Mississippi. The relative expenditures of nations for Military Preparations in time of Peace, exclusive of payments on account of debts, when accurately understood, must surprise the advocates of economy in our country. In proportion to the whole expenditure of Government, they are, in Austria, as 33 per cent; in France, as 38 per cent; in Prussia, as 44 per cent; in Great Britain, as 74 per cent; in the UNITED STATES, as 80 per cent![79]

[79] I have verified these results, but do little more than follow Judge Jay, who has illustrated this important point with his accustomed accuracy.--_Address before the American Peace Society_, p. 30.

To this stupendous waste may be added the still larger and equally superfluous expenses of the Militia throughout the country, placed recently by a candid and able writer at $50,000,000 a year![80]

[80] Jay, War and Peace, p. 13.

By a table of the National expenditures,[81] exclusive of payments on account of the Public Debt, it appears, that, _in fifty-four years from the formation of our present Government_, that is, from 1789 down to 1843, $155,282,217 were expended for civil purposes, comprehending the executive, the legislative, the judiciary, the post-office, light-houses, and intercourse with foreign governments. During this same period, $370,981,521 were devoted to the Military establishment, and $169,707,214 to the Naval establishment,--the two forming an aggregate of $540,688,735. Deducting from this amount appropriations during three years of War, and we find that more than _four hundred and sixty millions_ were absorbed by vain Preparations for War in time of Peace. Add to this amount a moderate sum for the expenses of the Militia during the same period, which, as we have seen, are placed at $50,000,000 a year,--for the past years we may take an average of $25,000,000,--and we have the enormous sum-total of $1,350,000,000 piled upon the $460,000,000, the whole amounting to _eighteen hundred and ten millions_ of dollars, a sum not easily conceived by the human faculties, sunk, under the sanction of the National Government, in mere _peaceful Preparations for War_: almost _twelve times_ as much as was dedicated by the National Government, during the same period, to all other purposes whatsoever.

[81] Executive Document No. 15, Twenty-Eighth Congress, First Session, pp. 1018-19.

From this serried array of figures the mind instinctively recoils. If we examine them from a nearer point of view, and, selecting some particular item, compare it with the figures representing other interests in the community, they will present a front still more dread.

Within cannon-range of this city stands an institution of learning which was one of the earliest cares of our forefathers, the conscientious Puritans. Favored child in an age of trial and struggle,--carefully nursed through a period of hardship and anxiety,--endowed at that time by the oblations of men like Harvard,--sustained from its first foundation by the parental arm of the Commonwealth, by a constant succession of munificent bequests, and by the prayers of good men,--the University at Cambridge now invites our homage, as the most ancient, most interesting, and most important seat of learning in the land,--possessing the oldest and most valuable library,--one of the largest museums of mineralogy and natural history,--with a School of Law which annually receives into its bosom more than one hundred and fifty sons from all parts of the Union, where they listen to instruction from professors whose names are among the most valuable possessions of the land,--also a School of Divinity, fount of true learning and piety,--also one of the largest and most flourishing Schools of Medicine in the country,--and besides these, a general body of teachers, twenty-seven in number, many of whose names help to keep the name of the country respectable in every part of the globe, where science, learning, and taste are cherished,--the whole presided over at this moment by a gentleman early distinguished in public life by unconquerable energy and masculine eloquence, at a later period by the unsurpassed ability with which he administered the affairs of our city, and now, in a green old age, full of years and honors, preparing to lay down his present high trust.[82] Such is Harvard University; and as one of the humblest of her children, happy in the memories of a youth nurtured in her classic retreats, I cannot allude to her without an expression of filial affection and respect.

[82] Hon. Josiah Quincy.

It appears from the last Report of the Treasurer, that the whole available property of the University, the various accumulation of more than two centuries of generosity, amounts to $703,175.

Change the scene, and cast your eyes upon another object. There now swings idly at her moorings in this harbor a ship of the line, the Ohio, carrying ninety guns, finished as late as 1836 at an expense of $547,888,--repaired only two years afterwards, in 1838, for $233,012,--with an armament which has cost $53,945,--making an aggregate of $834,845, as the actual outlay at this moment for that single ship,[83]--more than $100,000 beyond all the available wealth of the richest and most ancient seat of learning in the land! Choose ye, my fellow-citizens of a Christian state, between the two caskets,--that wherein is the loveliness of truth, or that which contains the carrion death.

[83] Executive Document No. 132, Twenty-Seventh Congress, Third Session.

I refer to the Ohio because this ship happens to be in our waters; but I do not take the strongest case afforded by our Navy. Other ships have absorbed larger sums. The expense of the Delaware, in 1842, had reached $1,051,000.

Pursue the comparison still further. The expenditures of the University during the last year, for the general purposes of the College, the instruction of the Undergraduates, and for the Schools of Law and Divinity, amounted to $47,935. The cost of the Ohio for one year of service, in salaries, wages, and provisions, is $220,000,--being $172,000 above the annual expenditures of the University, and more than _four times_ as much as those expenditures. In other words, for the annual sum lavished on a single ship of the line, _four_ institutions like Harvard University might be supported.

Furthermore, the pay of the Captain of a ship like the Ohio is $4,500, when in service,--$3,500, when on leave of absence, or off duty. The salary of the President of Harvard University is $2,235, without leave of absence, and never off duty.

If the large endowments of Harvard University are dwarfed by comparison with a single ship of the line, how must it be with other institutions of learning and beneficence, less favored by the bounty of many generations? The average cost of a sloop of war is $315,000,--more, probably, than all the endowments of those twin stars of learning in the Western part of Massachusetts, the Colleges at Williamstown and Amherst, and of that single star in the East, the guide to many ingenuous youth, the Seminary at Andover. The yearly expense of a sloop of war in service is about $50,000,--more than the annual expenditures of these three institutions combined.

I might press the comparison with other institutions of beneficence,--with our annual appropriations for the Blind, that noble and successful charity which sheds true lustre upon the Commonwealth, amounting to $12,000, and for the Insane, another charity dear to humanity, amounting to $27,844.

Take all the institutions of Learning and Beneficence, the crown jewels of the Commonwealth, schools, colleges, hospitals, asylums, and the sums by which they have been purchased and preserved are trivial and beggarly, compared with the treasures squandered within the borders of Massachusetts in vain Preparations for War,--upon the Navy Yard at Charlestown, with its stores on hand, costing $4,741,000,--the fortifications in the harbors of Massachusetts, where untold sums are already sunk, and it is now proposed to sink $3,875,000 more,[84]--and the Arsenal at Springfield, containing, in 1842, 175,118 muskets, valued at $2,099,998,[85] and maintained by an annual appropriation of $200,000, whose highest value will ever be, in the judgment of all lovers of truth, that it inspired a poem which in influence will be mightier than a battle, and will endure when arsenals and fortifications have crumbled to earth. Some of the verses of this Psalm of Peace may relieve the detail of statistics, while they happily blend with my argument.

"Were half the power that fills the world with terror, Were half the wealth bestowed on camps and courts, Given to redeem the human mind from error, There were no need of arsenals or forts:

"The warrior's name would be a name abhorred, And every nation that should lift again Its hand against a brother on its forehead Would wear forevermore the curse of Cain."[86]

[84] Report of Secretary of War, Senate Document No. 2, Twenty-Seventh Congress, Second Session,--where we are asked to invest in a general system of land defences $51,677,929.

[85] Executive Document No. 3, Twenty-Seventh Congress, Third Session.

[86] Longfellow, The Arsenal at Springfield.

Turn now to a high and peculiar interest of the nation, the administration of justice. Perhaps no part of our system is regarded with more pride and confidence, especially by the enlightened sense of the country. To this, indeed, all other concerns of Government, with all its complications of machinery, are in a manner subordinate, since it is for the sake of justice that men come together in communities and establish laws. What part of the Government can compare in importance with the National Judiciary, that great balance-wheel of the Constitution, controlling the relations of the several States to each other, the legislation of Congress and of the States, besides private interests to an incalculable amount? Nor can the citizen who discerns the true glory of his country fail to recognize in the immortal judgments of MARSHALL, now departed, and of STORY, who is still spared to us--_serus in coelum redeat!_--a higher claim to admiration and gratitude than can be found in any triumph of battle. The expenses of this great department under the National Government, in 1842, embracing the cost of court-houses, the salaries of judges, the pay of juries, and of all the law officers throughout the United States, in short, all the outlay by which justice, according to the requirement of Magna Charta, is carried to every man's door, amounted to $560,990,--a larger sum than is usually appropriated for this purpose, but how insignificant, compared with the cormorant demands of Army and Navy!

Let me allude to one more curiosity of waste. By a calculation founded on the expenses of the Navy it appears that the average cost of each gun carried over the ocean for one year amounts to about fifteen thousand dollars,--a sum sufficient to maintain ten or even twenty professors of Colleges, and equal to the salaries of all the Judges of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts and the Governor combined!

* * * * *

Such are illustrations of that tax which nations constituting the great Federation of Civilization, including our own country, impose on the people, in time of profound peace, for no permanent productive work, for no institution of learning, for no gentle charity, for no purpose of good. Wearily climbing from expenditure to expenditure, from waste to waste, we seem to pass beyond the region of ordinary measurement; Alps on Alps arise, on whose crowning heights of everlasting cold, far above the habitations of man, where no green thing lives, where no creature draws breath, we behold the sharp, icy, flashing glacier of War.

In the contemplation of this spectacle the soul swells with alternate despair and hope: with despair, at the thought of such wealth, capable of such service to Humanity, not merely wasted, but bestowed to perpetuate Hate; with hope, as the blessed vision arises of all these incalculable means secured to purposes of Peace. The whole world labors with poverty and distress; and the painful question occurs in Europe more than here, What shall become of the poor,--the increasing Standing Army of the poor? Could the voice that now addresses you penetrate those distant councils, or councils nearer home, it would say, Disband your Standing Armies of soldiers, employ your Navies in peaceful and enriching commerce, abandon Fortifications and Arsenals, or dedicate them to works of Beneficence, as the statue of Jupiter Capitolinus was changed to the image of a Christian saint; in fine, utterly renounce the present incongruous system of _Armed Peace_.

* * * * *

That I may not seem to accept this conclusion too hastily, at least as regards our own country, I shall consider the asserted usefulness of the national armaments,--and then expose the fallacy, at least in the present age and among Christian nations, of the maxim, that in time of Peace we must prepare for War.

_For what use is the Standing Army of the United States?_ For many generations it has been a principle of freedom to avoid a standing army; and one of the complaints in the Declaration of Independence was, that George the Third had quartered large bodies of troops in the Colonies. For the first years after the adoption of the National Constitution, during our period of weakness, before our power was assured, before our name had become respected in the family of nations, under the administration of Washington, a small sum was ample for the military establishment of the United States. It was at a later day that the country, touched by martial insanity, abandoned the true economy of a Republic, and, in imitation of monarchical powers, lavished means, grudged to Peace, in vain preparation for War. It may now be said of our Army, as Dunning said of the influence of the Crown, it has increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished. At this moment there are in the country more than sixty military posts. For any of these it would be difficult to present a reasonable apology,--unless, perhaps, on some distant Indian frontier. Of what use is the detachment of the Second Artillery at the quiet town of New London, in Connecticut? Of what use is the detachment of the First Artillery in that pleasant resort of fashion, Newport? By exhilarating music and showy parade they may amuse an idle hour; but is it not equally true that emotions of a different character will be aroused in thoughtful bosoms? He must have lost something of sensibility to the dignity of human nature who can observe, without at least a passing regret, all the details of discipline--drill, marching, countermarching--which fill the life of the soldier, and prepare him to become the rude, inanimate part of that _machine_ to which an army is likened by the great living master of the Art of War.[87] And this sensibility may be more disturbed by the spectacle of ingenuous youth, in chosen numbers, under the auspices of the Government, amidst the bewitching scenery of West Point, painfully trained to these same exercises,--at a cost to the country, since the establishment of this Academy, of above four millions of dollars.

[87] The Duke of Wellington.

In Europe, Standing Armies are supposed to be needed in support of Government; but this excuse cannot prevail here. The monarchs of the Old World, like the chiefs of the ancient German tribes, are upborne on the shields of the soldiery. Happily, with us, Government needs no janizaries. The hearts of the people are a sufficient support.

I hear a voice from some defender of this abuse, some upholder of this "rotten borough," crying, The Army is needed for defence! As well might you say that the shadow is needed for defence. For what is the Army of the United States, but the feeble shadow of the American people? _In placing the Army on its present footing, so small in numbers, compared with the forces of great_ _European States, our Government tacitly admits its superfluousness for defence._ It only remains to declare that the country will repose in the consciousness of right, without the extravagance of soldiers, unproductive consumers of the fruits of the earth, who might do the country good service in the various departments of useful industry.

_For what use is the Navy of the United States?_ The annual expense of our Navy, during recent years, has been upwards of six millions of dollars. For what purpose? Not for the apprehension of pirates, since frigates and ships of the line are of too great bulk for this service. Not for the suppression of the Slave Trade; for, under the stipulations with Great Britain, we employ only eighty guns in this holy alliance. Not to protect our coasts; for all agree that our few ships would form an unavailing defence against any serious attack. Not for these purposes, you admit; _but for the protection of our Navigation_. This is not the occasion for minute estimates. Suffice it to say, that an intelligent merchant, extensively engaged in commerce for the last twenty years, and who speaks, therefore, with the authority of knowledge, has demonstrated, in a tract of perfect clearness,[88] that the annual profits of the whole mercantile marine of the country do not equal the annual expenditure of our Navy. Admitting the profit of a merchant ship to be four thousand dollars a year, which is a large allowance, it will take the earnings of one hundred ships to build and employ for one year a single sloop of war, of one hundred and fifty ships to build and employ a frigate, and of nearly three hundred ships to build and employ a ship of the line. Thus more than five hundred ships must do a profitable business to earn a sufficient sum for the support of this little fleet. Still further, taking a received estimate putting the mercantile marine of the United States at forty millions of dollars, we find that it is only a little more than six times the annual cost of the Navy; so that this interest is protected at a charge of more than _fifteen per cent_ of its whole value! Protection at such price is not less ruinous than one of Pyrrhus's victories.

[88] I refer to the pamphlet of S.E. Coues, "United States Navy: What is its Use?"

It is to the Navy as an unnecessary arm of national defence, and part of the War establishment, that I confine my objection. So far as it is required for science, or for the _police_ of the seas,--to scour them of pirates, and, above all, to defeat the hateful traffic in human flesh,--it is a fit engine of Government, and cannot be obnoxious as a portion of the machinery of War. But, surely, a most costly navy to protect navigation in time of Peace against assaults from civilized nations is absurdly superfluous. The free cities of Hamburg and Bremen, survivors of the powerful Hanseatic League, with a commerce whitening the most distant seas, are without a single ship of war. Following this prudent example, the United States might be willing to abandon an institution already become a vain and expensive toy.

_For what use are the Fortifications of the United States?_ We have already seen the enormous sums locked in the odious mortmain of their everlasting masonry. Like the Pyramids, they seem by mass and solidity to defy Time. Nor can I doubt that hereafter, like these same monuments, they will be looked upon with wonder, as the types of an extinct superstition, not less degrading than that of Ancient Egypt. Under the pretence of saving the country from conquest and bloodshed they are reared. But whence the danger? On what side? What people to fear? No civilized nation threatens our borders with rapine or trespass. None will. Nor, in the existing state of civilization, and under existing International Law, is it possible to suppose any war with such a nation, unless, renouncing the peaceful Tribunal of Arbitration, we voluntarily appeal to Trial by Battle. The fortifications might be of service then. But perhaps they would invite the attack they might be inadequate to defeat. According to a modern rule, illustrated with admirable ability in the diplomatic correspondence of Mr. Webster, non-combatants and their property on land are not molested. So firmly did the Duke of Wellington act upon this rule, that, throughout the revengeful campaigns of Spain, and afterwards entering France, flushed with the victory of Waterloo, he directed his army to pay for all provisions, even the forage of their horses. War is carried on against _public_ property,--against _fortifications, navy-yards, and arsenals_. If these do not exist, where is its aliment, where the fuel for the flame? Paradoxical as it seems, and disparaging to the whole trade of War, it may be proper to inquire, whether, according to acknowledged laws, now governing this bloody arbitrament, every new fortification and every additional gun in our harbor is not less a safeguard than a danger. Do they not draw the lightning of battle upon our homes, without, alas! any conductor to hurry its terrors innocently beneath the concealing bosom of the earth?