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 ®:i)e ®rue ®ranbeur of NatioitB. 
 
 MR SUMNER^S ORATION, 
 
 JULY 4, 1845. 
 
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THE 
 
 TRUE GRANDEUR OP NATIONS 
 
 ORATION 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE THE AUTHORITIES 
 
 OP THE CITY OF BOSTON, 
 
 Ma 4, 1845. 
 
 BY CHARLES SUMNER. 
 
 ! yet a nobler task a-waits thy hand ! 
 
 !For what can War but endless War still breed? 
 Till Truth and Right from Violence be freed. 
 
 Milton, Sonnet to Fairfax. 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 ^ BOSTON: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN PEACE SOCIETY, 
 
 Depository No. 60^ Cornhill. 
 
 1845. 
 

 Certainly, if all who look upon themselves as men, not so much from the shape 
 of their bodies, as because they are endowed with reason, would listen awhile 
 unto Christ's wholesome and peaceable decrees, and not, puffed up with arro- 
 gance and conceit, rather believe their owne opinions than his admonitions; the 
 whole world long ago (turning the use of iron into milder workes), should have 
 lived in most quiet tranquillity, and have met together in a firme and indissoluble 
 League of most safe Concord. — Aknobius, Adverscs Gentes, Lib. 1, p. 6. 
 
 All high titles come hitherto from fighting. Your Herzog (Duke, Dux) is leader 
 of armies; your Earl (Jarl) is strong man; Marshal, cavalry horse-shoer. A 
 millennium, or reign of Peace, having been prophesied, and becoming daily more 
 and more indubitable, may it not be apprehended that such Fighting titles [also 
 General, Admiral, Colonel, Captain] will cease to be palatable, and new and 
 higher need to be devised? — Carlyle's Sartor Resartus. 
 
CITY OF BOSTON. 
 
 In the Board of Aldermen, July 7, 1845. 
 Resolved, That the thanks of this Board be presented in behalf of the City 
 Council, to Charles Sumner, Esq., for the able and eloquent oration, delivered 
 by him, before the Municipal Authorities of the City, at the recent celebration of 
 the anniversary of the Declaration of the Independence of the United States; — 
 and that he be requested to fui;nish a copy for the press. 
 
 Attest, S. F. McCLEARY, City Clerk. 
 
 Boston, July 10, 1845. 
 Sir: 
 
 1 am grateful to my fellow-citizens for listening with such indulgence to 
 sentiments which, I was sorry to believe, would not be in harmony with the 
 opinions of all ; and I now place at your disposal a copy of the Oration, much of 
 which was necessarily omitted in the delivery, on account of its length. 
 
 In undertaking to present my views of the True Grandeur of Nations, I thought 
 that I was most fitly fulfilling the trust that had been reposed in me, when I was 
 selected as the voice of the City of Boston on the National Anniversary. 
 Believing that, in the present state of Christian society, all war and all preparation 
 for war, are irrational, unnecessary and inconsistent with that true greatness at 
 which our Republic should aim, I deemed it my duty on that occasion to uphold 
 that truth. 1 was also anxious that our country should seek the true glory, and 
 what is higher than glory, the great good, of taking the lead in the disarming of 
 the nations. 
 
 Allow me to add, that 1 wish to be understood as restraining my opinions 
 precisely within the limits which I have assigned them in these pages ; and, 
 particularly, to disclaim the suggestion which has be^n volunteered with regard 
 to them, that Force may not be employed, under the sanction of Justice, in the 
 conservation of the laws and of domestic quiet. All good men must unite in 
 condemning, as barbarous and unchristian, the resort to external Force; in other 
 words, to the arbitrament of War; to International Lynch Law; or the great 
 Trial by Battle, to determine justice between nations. 
 
 I am, sir, your obedient servant, 
 
 CHARLES SUMNER. 
 Thomas A. Davis, Esq., Mayor, Sj'C, SfC, 
 
ORATION. 
 
 It is in obedience to an uninterrupted usage in our 
 community that, on this Sabbath of the Nation, we have all 
 put aside the common cares of life, and seized a respite from 
 the never-ending toils of labor, to meet in gladness and 
 congratulation, mindful of the blessings transmitted from the 
 Past, mindful also, I trust, of the duties to the Present and 
 the Future. May he who now addresses you be enabled so 
 to direct your minds, that you shall not seem to have lost a 
 day ! 
 
 All hearts first turn to the Fathers of the Republic. 
 Their venerable forms rise before us, and we seem to behold 
 them, in the procession of successive generations. They 
 come from the frozen rock of Plymouth, from the wasted 
 bands of Raleigh, from the Heavenly companionship of Wil- 
 liam Penn, from the anxious councils of the Revolution, and 
 from all those fields of sacrifice, on which, in obedience to 
 the Spirit of their Age, they sealed their devotion to duty 
 with their blood. They seem to speak to us, their children : 
 " Cease to vaunt yourselves of what you do, and of what 
 has been done for you. Learn to walk humbly, and to 
 think meekly of yourselves. Cultivate habits of self-sacrifice 
 and of devotion to duty. May our words be always in your 
 minds, never aim at aught which is not right, persuaded 
 that without this, every possession and all knowledge will 
 become an evil and a shame. Strive to increase the inherit- 
 ance which we have bequeathed ; know, that, if we excel 
 you in virtue, such a victory will be to us a mortification, 
 while defeat will bring happiness. It is in this way, that 
 you may conquer us. Nothing is more shameful for a man, 
 
 1* 
 
6 
 
 than to found his title to esteem, not on his own merits, but 
 on the fame of his ancestors. The glory of the Fathers is 
 doubtless to their children a most precious treasure ; but to 
 enjoy it without transmitting it to the next generation, and 
 without adding to it yourselves, this is the height of imbecility. 
 Following these counsels, when your days shall be finished 
 on earth, you will come to join us, and we shall receive you 
 as friends receive friends ; but if you neglect our words, 
 expect no happy greeting then from us." * 
 
 Honor to the memory of our Fathers ! May the turf lie 
 gently on their sacred graves ! But let us not in words 
 only, but in deeds also, testify our reverence for their name. 
 Let us imitate what in them was lofty, pure and good ; let 
 us from them learn to bear hardship and privation. Let us, 
 who now reap in strength what they sowed in weakness, 
 study to enhance the inheritance we have received. To do 
 this, we must not fold our hands in slumber, nor abide content 
 with the Past. To each generation is committed its peculiar 
 task ; nor does the heart, which responds to the call of duty, 
 find rest except in the world to come. 
 
 Be ours, then, the task which, in the order of Providence, 
 has been cast upon us ! And what is this task ? How shall 
 we best perform the part assigned to us ? What can we do 
 to make our coming welcome to our Fathers in the skies, 
 and to draw to our memory hereafter the homage of a grate- 
 ful posterity ? How can we add to the inheritance we have 
 received ? The answer to these questions cannot fail to 
 interest all minds, particularly on this Anniversary of the 
 birth-day of our country. Nay, more ; it becomes us, on 
 this occasion, as patriots and citizens, to turn our thoughts 
 inward, as the good man dedicates his birth-day, to the 
 consideration of his character and the mode in which its 
 vices may be corrected and its virtues strengthened. Avoid- 
 ing, then, all exultation in the prosperity that has enriched 
 our land, and in the extending influence of the blessings of 
 freedom, let us consider what we can do to elevate our 
 character, to add to the happiness of all, and to attain to 
 that righteousness which exalteth a nation. In this spirit, I 
 propose to inquire what, in our age, are the true objects of , 
 national ambition — ivhat is truly national glory — national ^ 
 honor — what is the true grandeur of nations. 
 
 * The chief of this is borrowed almost literally from the words attributed by Pla- 
 to to the Fathers of Athens, in the beautiful Funeral Discourse of the Menexenus. 
 
I hope to rescue these terms, so powerful over the minds 
 of men, from the mistaken objects to which they are apphed, 
 from deeds of war and the extension of empire, that hence- 
 forward they may be attached only to acts of Justice and 
 Humanity. 
 
 The subject will raise us to the contemplation of things 
 that are not temporary or local in their character ; but which 
 belong to all ages and all countries ; which are as lofty as 
 Truth, as universal as Humanity. But it derives a peculiar 
 interest, at this moment, from transactions in which our 
 country has become involved. On the one side, by an act 
 of unjust legislation, extending our power over Texas, we 
 have endangered Peace with Mexico ; while on the other, by 
 a presumptuous assertion of a disputed claim to a worthless 
 territory beyond the Rocky Mountains, we have kindled 
 anew on the hearth of our Mother Country, the smothered 
 fires of hostile strife. Mexico and England both aver the 
 determination to vindicate what is called the national honor; 
 and the dread arbitrament of war is calmly contemplated by 
 our Government, provided it cannot obtain what is called an 
 honorable peace.* 
 
 Far be from our country and our age the sin and shame of 
 contests hateful in the sight of God and all good men, having 
 their origin in no righteous though mistaken sentiment, in no 
 true love of country, in no generous thirst for fame, that last 
 infirmity of noble minds, but springing in both cases from an 
 ignorant and ignoble passion for new territories ; strengthened 
 in one case, by an unnatural desire, in this land of boasted 
 freedom, to fasten by new links the chains which promise 
 soon to fall from the limbs of the unhappy slave! In such 
 contests, God has no attribute which can join with us. Who 
 believes that the national honor will be promoted by a war 
 with Mexico or England ? What just man would sacrifice a 
 single human life, to bring under our rule both Texas and 
 Oregon ? It was an ancient Roman, touched, perhaps, by a 
 transient gleam of Christian truth, who said, when he turned 
 aside from a career of Asiatic conquest, that he would rather 
 save the life of a single citizen than become master of all the 
 dominions of Miihridates. 
 
 A war with Mexico would be mean and cowardly ; but 
 
 *The official paper at Washington has said, " We presume the negotiation is 
 really resumed, and will be prosecuted in this city, and not in London, to some 
 definite conclusion — peaceably we should hope — but we wish for no peace but an 
 honorable peace." 
 
8 
 
 with England it would be at least bold, though parricidal. 
 The heart sickens at the murderous attack upon an enemy, 
 distracted by civil feuds, weak at home, impotent abroad ; 
 but it recoils in horror from the deadly shock between chil- 
 dren of a common ancestry, speaking the same language, 
 soothed in infancy by the same words of love and tenderness, 
 and hardened into vigorous manhood under the bracing 
 influence of institutions drawn from the same ancient founts 
 of freedom. Curam acuebat, quod adversus Latinos bellan- 
 dum erat, lingua moribus, armorum genere, institutis ante 
 omnia miUtaribus congnientes ; milites miJitibiis, centurion- 
 ibus centuriones, tribuni tribunis compares, collegceque, iisdem 
 jp(zrsidis, sape iisdem manipxdis permixti fuerant* 
 
 In our age there can be no peace that is not hon- 
 orable ; THERE CAN BE NO WAR THAT IS NOT DISHONORA- 
 
 BLE.f The true honor of a nation is to be found only in 
 deeds of justice and in the happiness of its people, all of 
 which are inconsistent with war. In the clear eye of Chris- 
 tian judgment vain are its victories ; infamous are its spoils. 
 He is the true benefactor and alone worthy of honor who 
 brings comfort where before was wretchedness ; who dries 
 the tear of sorrow ; who pours oil into the wounds of the 
 unfortunate ; who feeds the hungry and clothes the naked ; 
 who unlooses the fetters of the slave ; who does justice ; who 
 enlightens the ignorant ; who enlivens and exalts, by his 
 virtuous genius, in art, in literature, in science, the hours of 
 life ; who, by words or actions, inspires a love for God and 
 for man. This is the Christian hero ; this is the man of 
 honor in a Christian land. He is no benefactor, nor deserv- 
 ing of honor, whatever may be his worldly renown, whose 
 life is passed in acts of force ; who renounces the great law 
 of Christian brotherhood ; whose vocation is blood ; who 
 triumphs in battle over his fellow-men. Well may old Sir 
 Thomas Browne exclaim, " the world does not know its 
 
 *T. Liv. VlIT, c. 6. 
 
 tit will be observed that this proposition is restrained to ovr age. It is not 
 intended to express any opinion with regard to the Past, and, particularly, with 
 regard to the War of the Revolution. Wars are the natural consequence of the 
 predominance of the animal part of our nature; but the day has now arrived in 
 which we should declare Independence of the bestial propensities, and recognize 
 the supremacy of the moral and intellectual faculties. The question of the 
 justifiablencss of the War of the Revolution has been handled with great strength 
 and freedom by Hon. William Jay, in his admirable publication. Peace and War; 
 in a sermon by Rev. Mr. Judd, and by the late Mr. Grimke, of South Carolina, 
 in his address before the Connecticut Peace Society. For some considerations 
 bearing on this question, and another occurring in these pages, I beg leave to 
 refer to a letter printed in the Appendix, Note A. 
 
greatest men ; " for thus far it has chiefly discerned the violent 
 brood of battle, the armed men springing up from the dragon's 
 teeth sown by Hate, and cared little for the truly good men, 
 children of Love, Cromwells guiltless of their country's blood, 
 whose steps on earth have been as noiseless as an angel's 
 wing. 
 
 It is not to be disguised that these views differ from the 
 generally received opinions of the world down to this day. 
 The voice of man has been given mostly to the praise of 
 military chieftains, and the honors of victory have been 
 chanted even by the lips of woman. The mother, while 
 rocking her infant on her knees, has stamped on his tender 
 mind, at that age more impressible than wax, the images of 
 war; she has nursed his slumbers with its melodies ; she has 
 pleased his waking hours with its stories ; and selected for 
 his playthings the plume and the sword. The child is father 
 to the man ; and who can weigh the influence of these early 
 impressions on the opinions of later years ? The mind which 
 trains the child is like the hand which commands the end of 
 a long lever ; a gentle effort at that time suffices to heave 
 the enormous weight of succeeding years. As the boy 
 advances to youth he is fed, like Achilles, not only on honey 
 and milk, but on bear's flesh and lion's marrow. He draws 
 the nutriment of his soul from a literature, whose beautiful 
 fields have been moistened by human blood. Fain would I 
 offer my tribute to the Father of Poetry, standing, with harp 
 of immortal melody, on the misty mountain top of distant 
 antiquity ; to all those stories of courage and sacrifice which 
 emblazon the annals of Greece and Rome ; to the fulmina- 
 tions of Demosthenes and the splendors of Tully ; to the 
 sweet verse of Virgil and the poetic prose of Livy. Fain 
 would I offer my tribute to the new literature, which shot up 
 in modern times as a vigorous forest from the burnt site of 
 ancient woods ; to the passionate song of the Troubadour of 
 France, and the Minnesinger of Germany ; to the thrilling 
 ballads of Spain, and the delicate music of the Itahan lyre. 
 But from all these has breathed the breath of war, that has 
 swept the heart-strings of innumerable generations of men ! 
 
 And when the youth becomes a man, his countjy invites 
 his services in war, and holds before his bewildered imagina- 
 tion the highest prizes of honor. For him is the pen of the 
 historian and the verse of the poet. His soul swells at the 
 thought, that he also is a soldier ; that his name shall be 
 
10 
 
 entered on the list of those who have borne arms in the 
 cause of their country ; and, perhaps, he dreams, that he too 
 may sleep, like the Great Captain of Spain, with a hundred 
 trophies over his grave. But the contagion spreads among 
 us, beyond those bands on whom is imposed the positive 
 obligation of law. Respectable citizens volunteer to look 
 like soldiers, and to affect in dress, in arms and deportment, 
 what is called " the pride, pomp and circumstance of glo- 
 rious war." The ear-piercing fife has to-day filled our 
 streets, and we have come together, on this Anniversary, by 
 the thump of drum and the sound of martial music. 
 
 It is not strange, then, that the spirit of war still finds a 
 home among us ; nor that its honors are still regarded. This 
 fact may seem to give point to the bitter philosophy of 
 Hobbes, who held that the natural state of mankind was 
 war, and to sustain the exulting languaire of the soldier in 
 our own day, who has said : " 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 
 cha^ening correction of the rich man's pride."* 
 
 I now ask what is ivar 1 Let me give a short but strictly 
 scientific answer. War is a public, armed, contest, hetivcen 
 nations, in order to estahlish justice hetiveen them; as, for 
 instance, to determine a disputed boundary line, or the title 
 to a territory. It has been called by Lord Bacon " one of 
 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."f 
 
 * Napier Penins. War. VI. 688. "Why, man," said a British General, "do 
 you know that a grenadier is the greatest cliaracter in this world," and after a 
 moment's pnuse, adding the emphasis of an oath to his speech, " and, I believe, 
 in the next too." Southey's Colloquies on the Progress and Prospects of So- 
 ciety, I. 211. 
 
 t Bacon's Works, Vol. III. p. 40. This definition of Lord Bacon has been 
 adopted by Mr. Chancellor Kent in his authoritative work. — Kent, Commenta- 
 ries on American Law, Vol. I. p. 46. \'attel defines war as " that state in which 
 we prosecute our rights by force." — Law of Nations, Book 3, ch. L vS 1 ; in 
 which he very nearly follows Bynkershoek, who says ; Belium est corum, qui 
 SUE potestatis sunt, juris sui pcrsequcndi ergo, concertatio per vim vel dolum. — 
 Qu;rst. Jur. Pub. Lib. I. c. 6. Mr. Whewell, in his recent v.-ork, says ; Though 
 war is appealed to because there is no other ultimate tribunal to which States 
 can have recourse, it is appealed to for justice — Elements of Morality and 
 Polity, Vol. II. ^S 1116. Mr. Licber says, in a work aboimding in learning and 
 sagacious thought, Political Ethics, II. 613, that war is a mode of obtaining 
 rights ; a definition which does not differ in substance from that in the text ; 
 though he imagines that such wars may justly be regarded as defensive in their 
 
11 
 
 This definition may seem, at first view, to exclude what 
 are termed by "martial logic," defensive wars. But a close 
 consideration of the subject will make it apparent that no 
 war can arise among Christian nations, at the present day, 
 except to determine an asserted right. The wars usually 
 and falsely called defensive are of this character. They are 
 appeals for justice to force ; endeavors to redress evils by 
 force. They spring from the sentiment of vengeance or 
 honor. They inflict evil for evil, and vainly essay to over- 
 come evil by evil. The wars that now lower from Mexico 
 and England are of this chat-acter. On the one side, we 
 assert a title to Texas, which is disputed ; and on the other 
 a title to Oregon, which is disputed. Who can regard the 
 ordeal by battle in these causes as a defensive war ? The 
 object proposed in 1834 by war with France, was to secure 
 the payment of five millions of dollars, in other words, to 
 determine, by the arbitrament of war, a question of justice. 
 It would be madness to term this a case of self-defence ; it 
 has been happily said,* if, because a man refuses to pay a 
 just debt, I go to his house and beat him, that is not self- 
 dejence ; but such was precisely the conduct proposed to he 
 adopted by our country. The avowed purpose of the war, 
 declared by the United States against Great Britain in 1812, 
 was to obtain from the latter power an abandonment of her 
 unrighteous claim to search American vessels. It is a mock- 
 ery to miscall such a contest a defensive war. 
 
 I repeat, therefore, that war is a public armed contest, be- 
 tween nations, in order to establish justice between them. 
 
 When we have considered the character of war ; the mis- 
 eries it produces ; and its utter and shameful insufficiency, as 
 a means of establishing justice, we may then be able to de- 
 termine, strictly and logically, whether it must not be ranked 
 with crimes from which no true honor can spring, to individ- 
 uals or nations, but rather condemnation and shame. 
 
 I. And first as to the character of war, or that part of our 
 nature in which it has its origin. Listen to the voice of the 
 ancient poet of Boeotian Ascra : 
 
 character. He advocates war with the ardor of one inspired by the history of 
 the past, and looking no higher than to history for rules of conduct, while his 
 own experience of suffering on fields of slaughter has failed to make him 
 discern the folly and wickedness of such a mode of determining questions be- 
 tween nations. 
 
 * Rev. Andrew P. Peabody, in his Address on the Nature and Influence of 
 War, where he treats this topic, as well as the whole subject of war, with great 
 point and effect. 
 
12 
 
 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* 
 
 The first idea that rises to the mind, in regarding war, is 
 that it is a resort to force, whereby each nation strives to 
 overpower the other. Reason, and the divine part of our 
 nature, in which alone we differ from the beasts, in which 
 alone we approach the Divinity, in which alone are the ele- 
 ments of justice, the professed object of war, are dethroned. 
 It is, in short, a temporary adoption, by men, of the character 
 of wild beasts, emulating their ferocity, rejoicing like them in 
 blood, and seeking, as with a lion's paw, to hold an asserted 
 right. This character of war is somewhat disguised, in more 
 recent days, by the skill and knowledge which it employs ; 
 it is, however, still the same, made more destructive by the 
 genius and intellect which have been degraded to its servants. 
 The early poets, in the unconscious simplicity of the world's 
 childhood, make this strikingly apparent. All the heroes of 
 Homer are likened in their rage to the ungovernable fury of 
 animals or things devoid of human reason or human affec- 
 tion. Menelaus presses his way through the crowd, " like a 
 beast." f Sarpedon was aroused against the Argives, " as 
 a lion against the crooked-horned oxen ; " J and afterwards 
 rushes forward " like a lion nourished on the mountains for 
 a long time famished for want of flesh, but whose courage 
 compels him to go even to the well-guarded sheep-fold." <§> 
 The great Telamonian Ajax in one and the same passage is 
 likened to " a beast," " a tawny lion " and " an obstinate 
 ass ; " II and all the Greek chiefs, the flower of the camp, 
 are described as ranged about Diomed, " like raw-eating lions 
 or wild boars whose strength is irresistible."1[ And Hector, 
 the hero in whom cluster the highest virtues of polished war, 
 is called by the characteristic term, " the tamer of horses," 
 and one of his renowned feats in battle, indicating only brute 
 strength, is where he takes up and hurls a stone which two 
 of the strongest men could not easily put into a wagon ; ** 
 and he drives over dead bodies and shields, while the axle is 
 defiled by gore, and the guard about the seat, sprinkled from 
 
 * Hesiod, Works and Days, Tv. 276—279. Cicero also says ; Neque ulla re 
 longius absumus a natura ferarum, in quibus inesse fortitudincin sa;pe dicimus, ut 
 in equis, in leonibus; justitiam, a;quitatem, bonitatem non dicimus. — De Offic. 
 Lib. 1 cap. 16. 
 
 i &ijol ioix6g. 11.111.4-19. +Aiov6' {!>; ^ovab' ih^ii'. II. XIT. 293. 
 
 § 11. XII. 300—306. II II. XI. 51G— .558. H II. V. 782. 
 
 **I1. XII. 445— 449. See a similar act, yEneid XII, 826. 
 
13 
 
 the horse's hoofs and from the tires of the wheels ; * and, 
 in that most admired passage of ancient Hterature, before 
 returning his child, the young Astyanax, to the arms of 
 his wife, he invokes the gods for a single blessing on his 
 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.''^ f 
 
 Illustrations of this nature might be gathered from the 
 early fields of modern literature, as well as from the more 
 ancient, all showing the unconscious degradation of the sol- 
 dier, who, in the pursuit of justice, renounces the human 
 character to assume that of the beasts. Henry V, in our 
 own Shakspeare, in the spirit-stirring appeal to his troops, says ; 
 
 When the blast of war blows in our ears, 
 Then imitate the action of the tiger.X 
 
 This is plain and frank, and reveals the true character of war. 
 I need not dwell on the moral debasement of man that 
 must ensue. All the passions of his nature are unleashed 
 like so many blood-hounds, and suffered to rage. All the 
 crimes which fill our prisons stalk abroad, plaited with the 
 soldier's garb, and unwhipt of justice. Murder, robbery, 
 rape, arson, theft, 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 the liberty of bloody hand shall range 
 With conscience wide as hell. 
 
 Such is the foul disfigurement which war produces in man ; 
 man, of whom it has been said, " 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 hke a God ! " 
 
 11. Let us now consider more particularly the effects or 
 consequences of this resort to brute force, in the pursuit of 
 justice. 
 
 The immediate effect of war is to sever all relations of 
 friendship and commerce between the two nations and every 
 
 * II. XI. 534. See a similar scene, .^Eneid XII. 337. In modern warfare, we 
 find a similar sketch of the great Conde. The soul is startled by the picture of 
 a distinguished person, in whom the human character has been blotted out; " Le 
 Due etait couvert de sueur, de poussiere, et de fumee ; le feu jaillissait de ses 
 yeux, et le bras dont it tenait son ep^c Hait ensanglante jusqu 'au coude. ' Vous 
 etes blesse, Monseigneur ? ' Lui demanda Bussaq.'JVon, non,' repondit Enghien 
 [Conde] ; ' c'est le sang de ces coquins ! ' II voulait parler des ennemis." Mahon, 
 Essai sur la vie du Grand Conde, p. 60. 
 
 + 11. Vi. 476—481. X Hen, V. Act 3, Scene 1. 
 
 2 
 
14 
 
 individual thereof, impressing upon each citizen or subject the 
 character of enemy. Imagine this between England and 
 the United States. The innumerable ships of the two coun- 
 tries, the white doves of commerce, bearing the olive of 
 peace, would be driven from the sea, or turned from their 
 proper purposes to be ministers of destruction : the threads 
 of social and business intercourse which have become woven 
 into a thick web would be suddenly snapped asunder ; friend 
 could no longer communicate with friend ; the twenty thou- 
 sand letters, which each fortnight are speeded, from this port 
 alone, across the sea, could no longer be sent, and the human 
 affections and desires, of which these are the precious ex- 
 pression, would seek in vain for utterance. Tell me, you, 
 who have friends and kindred abroad, or who are bound to 
 foreigners by the more worldly relations of commerce, are 
 you prepared for this rude separation ? 
 
 But this is little compared with what must follow. This 
 is only the first portentous shadow of the disastrous eclipse, 
 the twilight usher of thick darkness, that is to cover the 
 whole heavens, as with a pall, to be broken only by the 
 blazing lightnings of the battle and the siege. 
 
 The horrors of these redden every page of history ; while, 
 to the disgrace of humanity, the historian has rarely applied 
 to their brutal authors the condemnation they deserve. A 
 popular writer, in our own day, dazzled by those false ideas 
 of greatness at which reason and Christianity blush, does not 
 hesitate to dwell on them with terms of rapture and eulogy.* 
 
 *The same spirit pervades the Histoire de la Revolution Francaise , by Thiers, 
 and so far as 1 have read it, his later work, the History of the Consulate and 
 Empire. For a degrading picture of what is called glory, I would refer to the 
 Histoire de la Revohdion, Tom. 8, p. 430. War in every age has been the same ; 
 and to the shame of human nature has never wanted historians, who described 
 its deeds with feelings kindred to those by which they were inspired. Frois- 
 eart, who takes special delight in describing " les rencontres ou Ton pouvoit 
 yoir d'uiie et d'autre part, belles envahies, belles rescousses, beaux faits d'armes, 
 et belles prouesses," has recounted with much detail all the assaults of cities 
 and castles, the almost constant result of which was, " que la viJle etoit assez 
 • t6t gagnee par force et tant6t robee et mise a I'opoe, sans mercy, honimes et 
 femmes et enfans, et less eglises arses et bruslees." Lewis of Spain trans- 
 ported his troops to Basse-Bretannque, " pour aller ardoir et rober tout le pays, 
 et trouvt-rent si grand avoir que merveille seroit araconter." Gaultier de Maury 
 pursued them ; but he occupied himself " a maisons et villes ardoir, et a gagner 
 du butin." Froissart, c. 178, p. 88. Sismondi has correctly remarked that 
 Froissart accorded his admiration equally to bravery and to cunning, to the 
 courtesy which pardoned as to the rage which caused the flow of torrents of 
 blood. Sismondi, Histoire des Fran^ais, Tom. X. 373. Even the beautiful soul 
 of Wilberforce, which sighed that " the bloody laws of his country sent many 
 unprepared into another world," by capital punishment, could hail the slaughter 
 of Waterloo, on the Sabbath that he held so holy, by which thousands were 
 hurried into Eternity, as " asplendid victory ! " Life of Wilberforce, IV'. ~36, 26L 
 
15 
 
 At Tarragona, above six thousand human beings, ahnost all 
 defenceless, men and women, grey hairs and infant inno- 
 cence, attractive youth and wrinkled age, were butchered by 
 the infuriated 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." * This 
 was a conquest by the French. At a later day Ciudad Rod- 
 rigo was stormed by the British, when there ensued in the 
 license of victory, a frightful scene of plunder and violence, 
 while shouts and screams on all sides fearfully intermingled 
 with the groans of the wounded. The churches were dese- 
 crated, the cellars of wine and spirits were pillaged ; fire was 
 wantonly applied to different parts of the city ; and brutal 
 intoxication spread in every direction. It was only when the 
 drunken men dropped from excess, or fell asleep, that any 
 degree of order was restored, and yet the storming of Ciudad 
 Rodrigo is pronounced "one of the most brilliant exploits of 
 the British army." f This exploit was followed by the storm- 
 ing of Badajoz, in which the same scenes were enacted again 
 with added atrocities. Let the story be told in the words of 
 a partial historian ; " Shameless rapacity, brutal intemper- 
 ance, savage lust, cruelty and murder, shrieks and piteous 
 lamentations, groans, shouts, imprecations, the hissing of fire 
 bursting from the houses, the crashing of doors and windows, 
 and the report 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 excesses, the tumult rather subsided than was quelled ! 
 The wounded were then looked to, the dead disposed of." | 
 The same terrible war affords another instance of the hor- 
 rors of a siege, which cries to Heaven for judgment. For 
 weeks before the surrender of Saragossa, the deaths were 
 from four to five hundred daily ; the living were unable to 
 bury the dead, and thousands of carcasses, scattered about 
 the streets and court-yards, or piled in heaps at the doors of 
 churches, were left to dissolve in their own corruption or to 
 be licked up by the flames of the burning houses. The city 
 was shaken to its foundation by sixteen thousand shells 
 thrown during the bombardment, and the explosion of forty- 
 five thousand pounds of powder in the mines, while the bones 
 
 * Alison, Hist, of French Rev. VI IT. 114. t Alison, Hist. VIII. 189. 
 
 I Napier, History of Penins. War, IV. 431. 
 
16 
 
 of forty thousand persons of every age and both sexes bore 
 dreadful testimony to the unutterable atrocity of war.* 
 
 These might be supposed to be pictures from the age of 
 Alaric, Scourge of God, or of Attila, whose boast was, that 
 the grass did not grow where his horse had set his foot ; but 
 no ; they belong to our own times. They are portions of 
 the wonderful but wicked career of him, who stands out as 
 the foremost representative of worldly grandeur. The 
 heart aches, as we follow him and his marshals from field to 
 field of glory, f At Albuera in Spain, we see the horrid 
 piles of carcasses, while all the night the rain pours down, 
 and the river and the hills and the woods on each side, re- 
 sound with the dismal clamors and groans of dying men. J 
 At Salamanca, long after the battle, we behold the ground 
 still blanched by the skeletons of those who fell, and strewn 
 with the fragments of casques and cuirasses. We follow in 
 the dismal traces of his Russian campaign ; at Valentina <§> 
 we see the soldiers black with powder, their bayonets bent 
 with the violence of the encounter ; the earth ploughed with 
 cannon shot, the trees torn and mutilated, the field covered 
 with broken carriages, wounded horses and mangled bodies, 
 while disease, sad attendant on military suffering, sweeps 
 thousands from the great hospitals of the army, and the mul- 
 titude of amputated limbs, which there is not time to destroy, 
 accumulate in bloody heaps, filling the air with corruption. || 
 What tongue, what pen, can describe the horrors of the 
 field of Borodino, where between the rise and set of a single 
 sun, more than one hundred thousand of our fellow-men, 
 equalling in number the population of this whole city, sank 
 to the earth dead or wounded ? Fifty days after the battle, 
 no less than twenty thousand are found lying where they 
 
 * Napier, Hist, of Pen. War, II. 46. For the terrific storming of St. Sebastian, 
 see Napier, VI. 197—219. 
 
 t A living poet of Italy, who will be placed by his prose, among the great 
 names of his country's literature, in a deathless ode, which he has thrown on the 
 Urn of Napoleon, leaves to posterity to judge, whether his was true glory. 
 Dall' Alpi alle Piramidi, 
 Dal Manzanare al Reno 
 Di quel securo il fulniine, 
 Tenea dielro il baleno, 
 Scoppii> da iScilla al Tanai 
 Dall' uno all' altro mar. 
 Fu vera gloria? Ai posteri 
 
 L' ardua senlenza. Manzoni, 11 Cinque Maggio. 
 
 When men learn to appreciate moral grandeur the easy sentence will be ren- 
 dered, and the glory of tlie warrior be scattered like the unclean dust of his 
 earthly body. 
 
 I Napier, III. 543. § Alison, VII. 241. || Alison, VII. 355. . 
 
17 
 
 have fallen, and the whole plain is strewn with half-buried 
 carcasses of men and horses, intermingled with garments 
 dyed in blood, and bones gnawed by dogs and vultures. 
 Who can follow the French army, in their dismal retreat, 
 avoiding the pursuing spear of the Cossack, only to sink 
 under the sharper frost and ice, in a temperature below zero, 
 on foot, without a shelter for their bodies, and famishing on 
 horse-flesh and a miserable compound of rye and snow-water? 
 Still later we behold him with a fresh array, contending 
 against new forces under the walls of Dresden ; and as the 
 Emperor rides over the field of battle, having supped with 
 the king of Saxony the night before, ghastly traces of the 
 contest of the preceding day are to be seen on all sides ; out 
 of the newly made graves hands and arms are projecting, 
 stark and stiff above the earth.* And shortly afterwards 
 when shelter is needed for the troops, direction is given to 
 occupy the Hospitals for the Insane, with the order " turn out 
 the mad." f 
 
 But why follow further in this career of blood ? There Is, 
 however, one other picture of the atrocious, though natural 
 consequences of war, occurring almost within our own day, 
 that I would not omit. Let me bring to your mind Genoa, 
 called the Suburb, City of palaces, dear to the memory of 
 American childhood as the birthplace of Christopher Colum- 
 bus, and one of the spots first enlightened by the morning 
 beams of civilization, whose merchants were princes, and 
 whose rich argosies, in those early days, introduced to Europe, 
 the choicest products of the East, the linen of Egypt, the 
 spices of Arabia, and the silks of Samarcand. She still sits 
 in Queenly pride, as she did then, her mural crown studded 
 with towers, her churches rich with marble floors and rarest 
 pictures, her palaces of ancient Doges and Admirals yet 
 spared by the hand of Time, her close streets, thronged by 
 one hundred thousand inhabitants, at the feet of the maritime 
 Alps, as they descend to the blue and tideless waters of the 
 Mediterranean sea, leaning with her back against their strong 
 mountain sides, overshadowed by the foliage of the fig tree 
 and the olive, while the orange and lemon fill with their 
 perfume the air where reigns perpetual spring. Who can 
 contemplate such a city without delight ? Who can listen to 
 the story of her sorrows without a pang ? 
 
 In the autumn of 1799, the armies of the French Republic, 
 
 * Alison, IX. 226. t Alison, IX. 267. 
 
 2* 
 
18 
 
 which had dominated over Italy, were driven from their con- 
 quests, and compelled with shrunk forces, under Massena, 
 to seek shelter within the walls of Genoa. After various 
 efforts by the Austrian General on the land, aided by a bom- 
 bardment from the British fleet in the harbor, to force the 
 strong defences by assault, the city is invested by a strict 
 blockade. All conmiunication with the country is cut off on 
 the one side, while the harbor is closed by the ever-wakeful 
 British watch-dogs of war. Within the beleaguered and un- 
 fortunate city, are the peaceful inhabitants, more than those 
 of Boston in number, besides the French troops. Provisions 
 soon become scarce ; scarcity sharpens into want, till fell 
 Famine, bringing blindness and madness in her train, rages 
 like an Erinnys. Picture to yourself this large population, 
 not pouring out their lives in the exulting rush of battle, but 
 wasting at noon-day, the daughter by the side of the mother, 
 the husband by the side of the wife. When grain and rice 
 fail, flax-seed, millet, cocoas and almonds are ground by 
 hand-mills into flour, and even bran, baked with honey, is 
 eaten not to satisfy, but to deaden hunger. During the 
 siege, but before the last extremities, a pound of horse-flesh 
 is sold for 32 cents : a pound of bran for 30 cents ; a pound 
 of flour for ^1,75. A single bean is soon sold for four cents, 
 and a biscuit of three ounces for ^'2,25, and none are finally 
 to be had. The miserable soldiers, after devouring all the 
 horses in the city, are reduced to the degradation of feeding 
 on dogs, cats, rats and worms, which are eagerly hunted out 
 in the cellars and common sewers. Happy were now, ex- 
 claims an Italian historian, not those who lived, but those 
 who died ! The day is dreary from hunger ; the night more 
 dreary still from hunger accompanied by delirious fancies. 
 Recourse is now had to herbs ; monk's rhubarb, sorrel, 
 mallows, wild succory. People of every condition, women 
 of noble birth and beauty, seek on the slope of the mountain 
 enclosed within the defences, those aliments which nature 
 destined solely for the beasts. A little cheese and a few 
 vegetables are all that can be afforded to the sick and 
 wounded, those sacred stipendaries upon human charity. 
 Men and women, in the last anguish of despair, now fill the 
 air with their groans and shrieks ; some in spasms, convulsions 
 and contortions, gasping their last breath on the unpitying 
 stones of the streets ; alas ! not more unpitying than man. 
 Children, whom a dying mother's arms had ceased to pro- 
 
19 
 
 tect, the orphans of an hour, with piercing cries, seek in 
 vain the compassion of the passing stranger ; but none pity 
 or aid them. The sweet fountains of sympathy are all 
 closed by the selfishness of individual distress. In the gene- 
 ral agony, the more impetuous rush out of the gates, and 
 impale themselves on the Austrian bayonets, while others 
 precipitate themselves into the sea. Others still (pardon the 
 dire recital !) are driven to eat their shoes and devour the 
 leather of their pouches, and the horror of human flesh has 
 so far abated that numbers feed like cannibals, on the bodies 
 of the dead.* 
 
 At this stage the French general capitulated, claiming and 
 receiving what are called "the honors of war;" but not be- 
 fore twenty thousand innocent persons, old and young, women 
 and children, having no part or interest in the war, had died 
 the most horrible of deaths. The Austrian flag floated over 
 the captured Genoa but a brief span of time ; for Bonaparte 
 had already descended, like an eagle, from the Alps, and in 
 less than a fortnight afterwards, on the vast plains of Maren- 
 go, shattered, as with an iron mace, the Austrian empire in 
 Italy. 
 
 But wasted lands, ruined and famished cities, and slaugh- 
 tered armies are only a part of " the purple testament of 
 bleeding war." Every soldier is connected, as all of you, 
 by dear ties of kindred, love and friendship. He has been 
 sternly summoned from the warm embraces of family. To 
 him there is, perhaps, an aged mother, who has fondly hoped 
 to lean her decaying frame upon his more youthful form ; 
 
 * This picture has been drawn from the animated sketches of Botta ( History 
 of Italy, under Napoleon, vol. I. chap. I.) Alison, (Hist, of French Rev. vol. IV. 
 chap. XXX.) and Arnold, (Modern History, Leo. IV.) The humanity of the 
 latter is particularly aroused to the condemnation of this most atrocious murder 
 of innocent people, and he suggests, as a sufficient remedy, a modification of the 
 laws of war, permitting all non-combatants to withdraw from a blocliaded town ! 
 They may be spared in this way the languishing death by starvation ; but they 
 must desert their firesides, their pursuits, all that makes life dear, and become 
 homeless exiles ; a fate little better than the former. It is strange that Ar- 
 nold's pure soul and clear judgment did not recognize the great truth, that all 
 war is unrighteous and unlawful, and that the horrors of this siege are its natural 
 consequence. Laws of war! Laws in that which is lawless ! order in disorder ! 
 rules of wrong ! There can be only one law of war ; that is the great law, 
 which pronounces it unwise, unchristian and unjust. The term. Laws, or Rights 
 of War, has been referred to the ancient Greeks 5 but, it is believed, that they 
 are not chargeable with the invention of such a contradictory combination of 
 words. Grotius was misled, and it would seem after him, Sir James Mackintosh 
 (Lecture on the Law of Nature and Nations) into the belief that Aristotle wrote 
 a treatise ^ixutwfittra noXsftbJJ', by a corrupted passage of Ammonius, the 
 Grammarian, in his Treatise, of like and different words, where there is noleuojp 
 Wars, instead of noXscov States. See Barbeyrac's note to § 38 of the Preliminary 
 Discourses of Grotius on the Rights of Peace and War; Selden, Of the Law of 
 Nature and Nations, juxta Discipl. Hebr. Lib. chap. 1, p. 4. 
 
20 
 
 perhaps a wife, whose life has been just entwined insepara- 
 bly with his, now condemned to wasting despair; perhaps 
 brothers, sisters. As he falls on the field of battle, must not 
 all these rush with his blood ? But who can measure the 
 distress that radiates as from a bloody sun, penetrating innu- 
 merable homes? Who can give the guage and dimensions 
 of this incalculable sorrow ? Tell me, ye who have felt the 
 bitterness of parting with dear friends and kindred, whom 
 you have watched tenderly till the last golden sands have run 
 out, and the great hour-glass is turned, what is the measure 
 of your anguish ? Your friend has departed, soothed by 
 kindness and in the arms of love ; the soldier gasps out his 
 life, with no friend near, while the scowl of hate darkens all 
 that he beholds, darkens his own departing soul. Who can 
 foroet the antruish that fills the bosom and crazes the brain 
 of Leonora, in the matchless ballad of Burger, who seeks in 
 vain among the returning squadrons for her lover left dead on 
 Prague's ensanguined plain ? But every field of blood has 
 many Leonoras. From a poet of antiquity, we draw a vivid 
 picture of homes made desolate by the murders of battle.* 
 
 But through the bounds of Grecia's land, 
 
 Who sent her sons for Tro}' to part, 
 
 See mourning, with much suffering heart, 
 
 On each man's threshold stand, 
 
 On eacti sad hearth in Grecia's land. 
 
 Weil may lier soul with grief be rentj 
 
 She well remembers whom she sent, 
 
 She sees them not return ; 
 
 Instead of men, to each man's home. 
 
 Urns and ashes only come, 
 
 And the armor which they wore; 
 
 Sad relics to their native shore. 
 
 For Mars, the barterer of the lifeless clay, 
 
 Who sells for gold the slain, 
 
 And holds the scale in battle's doubtful day, 
 
 High balanced o'er the plain, 
 
 From Ilium's walls for men returns 
 
 Ashes and sepulchral urns ; 
 
 Ashes wet with many a tear, 
 
 Sad relics of the fiery bier. 
 
 Round the full urns the general groan 
 
 Goes, as each their kindred own. 
 
 One they mourn in battle strong, 
 
 And one, that 'mid the armed throng 
 
 He sunk in glory's slaughtering tide. 
 
 And for another's consort died. 
 
 * * * # # 
 
 Others they mourn whose monuments stand 
 By Ilium's walls on foreign strand; 
 Where they fell in beauty's bloom. 
 There they lie in hated tomb; 
 Sunk beneath the massy mound, 
 Tn eternal chambers bound. 
 
 *Agamemnon of iEschylus; Chorus, This is from the beautiful translation of 
 John Symmons. 
 
21 
 
 III. From this dreary picture of the miseries of war, I 
 turn to another branch of the subject. 
 
 War is utterly ineffectual to secure or advance the object 
 at which it aims. The misery which it excites, contributes 
 to no end, helps to establish no right, and therefore, in no 
 respect determines justice between the contending nations. 
 
 The fruitlessness and vanity of war appear in the results 
 of the great wars by which the world has been lacerated. 
 After long struggles, in which each nation has inflicted and 
 received incalculable injury, peace has been gladly obtained 
 on the basis of the condition of things before the war. — 
 Status ante Bellum. Let me refer for an example to our 
 last war with Great Britain, the professed object of which 
 was to obtain from the latter Power a renunciation of her 
 claim to impress our seamen. The greatest number of 
 American seamen ever officially alleged to be compulsorily 
 serving in the British navy was about eight hundred. To i 
 overturn this injustice, the whole country was doomed, for 777* *' 
 more than three years to the accursed blight of war. Our ■ 
 commerce was driven from the seas ; the resources of the 
 land were drained by taxation ; villages on the Canadian 
 frontier were laid in ashes ; the metropolis of the Republic 
 was captured, while gaunt distress raged every where within 
 our borders. Weary with this rude trial, our Government 
 appointed Commissioners to treat for Peace, under these 
 instructions : " Your first duty will be to conclude peace 
 with Great Britain, and you are authorized to do it, in case 
 you obtain a satisfactory stipulation against impressment, 
 one which shall secure under our flag protection to the crew. 
 If this encroachment of Great Britain is not provided against, 
 the United States have appealed to arms in vain.^' * After- 
 wards, despairing of extorting from Great Britain a relin- 
 quishment of the unrighteous claim, and foreseeing only an 
 accumulation of calamities from an inveterate prosecution of 
 the war, our Government directed their negociators, in con- 
 cluding a Treaty of Peace, " to omit any stipulation on the 
 subject of impressment." The instructions were obeyed and 
 the Treaty that once more restored to us the blessings of 
 Peace, which we had rashly cast away, and which the coun- 
 try hailed with an intoxication of joy, contained no allusion 
 to the subject of impressment, nor did it provide for the 
 surrender of a single American sailor detained in the service 
 
 * American State Papers, vol, VII. p. 577. 
 
22 
 
 of the British navy, and thus, by the confession of our own 
 Government, " the United States had appealed to arms in 
 
 VAIN." * 
 
 All this is the natural result of an appeal to war in order 
 to establish justice. Justice implies the exercise of the 
 judgment in the determination of right. Now war not only 
 supersedes the judgment, but delivers over the results to 
 superiority of force, or to chance. 
 
 Who can measure before-hand the currents of the heady 
 fight ? In common language we speak of the chances of 
 battle ; and soldiers, whose lives are devoted to this harsh 
 calling, yet speak of it as a game. The Great Captain of 
 our age, who seemed to chain victory to his chariot wheels, 
 in a formal address to his officers, on entering Russia, says : 
 " In war, fortune has an equal share with ability in procuring 
 success." f The mighty victory of Marengo, the accident 
 of an accident, wrested unexpectedly at the close of the day 
 from a foe, who at an earlier hour was successful, must have 
 taught him the uncertainty of war. Afterwards, in the 
 bitterness of his spirit, when his immense forces had been 
 shivered, and his triumphant eagles driven back with broken 
 wing, he exclaimed, in that remarkable conversation recorded 
 by the Abbe de Pradt : " Well ! this is war. High in the 
 morning, — low enough at night. From a triumph to a fall is 
 often but a step. "J The military historian of the Peninsular 
 campaigns, says : " Fortune always asserts her supremacy 
 in war, and often from a slight mistake, such disastrous 
 consequences flow, that in every age and in every nation, 
 the uncertainty of wars has been proverbial ;" <§> and again, 
 in another place, in considering the conduct of Wellington, 
 he says : "A few hours' delay, an accident, a turn of fortune, 
 and he would have been foiled ! ay ! but this is war, always 
 dangerous and uncertain, an ever-rolling wheel and armed 
 with scythes." || And can intelligent man look for justice 
 to an ever-rolling wheel armed with scythes ? 
 
 The character of war, as dependent upon chance, might be 
 illustrated from every page of history. It is less discerned, 
 perhaps, in the conflict of large masses, than of individuals, 
 though equally present in both. How capriciously the 
 
 *This sketch has been drawn from the War and Peace^hy Hon William Jay, 
 a gentleman whose various writings in the cause of humanity, marked by rare 
 power of logic, accuracy of statement and elevated sentiment, will shed upon his 
 name a fame not inferior to that of his illustrious father. 
 
 tAlison, Vlll. 316. :tIb,IX. 239. § Napier, VI. 687. || lb., IV. 477. 
 
23 
 
 wheel turned when the fortunes of Rome were staked on the 
 combat between the Horatii and Curiatii, and who, at one 
 time, could have augured that the single Horatius, with his 
 two slain brothers on the field, would have overpowered the 
 three living enemies ? 
 
 But the most interesting illustration is to be found in the 
 history of the private wars, and particularly of the judicial 
 combat, or of trial by battle, in the dark ages. The object 
 proposed in these cases was precisely the professed object of 
 modern war, the determination of justice. Did time permit, 
 it would be interesting and instructive to trace the curious 
 analogies between this early ordeal by battle, child of super- 
 stition and brute force, and the great ordeal of war.* Like 
 the other ordeals, by burning ploughshares, by holding hot 
 iron, by dipping the hand in hot water, or hot oil, they are 
 both a presumptuous appeal to Providence, under an appre- 
 hension and hope, that Heaven will give the victory to him 
 who has the right. The monstrous usage pf trial by battle 
 prevailed in the early modern centuries throughout Europe ; 
 it was a part of the common law of England ; and though it 
 fell into desuetude, overruled by the advancing spirit of civi- 
 lization, still, to the disgrace of the English law, it was not 
 legislatively abolished, until in 1817 the right to it had been 
 distinctly claimed in Westminster Hall. Abraham Thornton, 
 on appeal against him for murder, when brought into court, 
 pleaded as follows : " Not guilty, and I am ready to defend 
 the same by my body ; " and thereupon taking off his glove, 
 he threw it upon the floor of the court. The appellant did 
 not choose to submit to this trial, and abandoned his proceed- 
 ings. In the next session of Parliament, trial by battle was 
 abolished in England.f The Attorney General, on introduc- 
 ing the bill for this purpose remarked, that, " if the party had 
 persevered he had no doubt the legislature would have felt it 
 their imperious duty to interfere and pass an ex post facto law, 
 to prevent so degrading a spectacle from taking place. ''"l 
 
 To an early monarch of France belongs the honor of first 
 interposing the royal authority, for the entire suppression 
 within his jurisdiction of this impious usage, so universally 
 adopted, so dear to the nobility and so profoundly rooted in 
 the institutions of the Feudal Age. And here let me pause 
 with reverence, as I mention the name of St. Louis, a prince, 
 
 * See Appendix, Note B. t Blackstone, Com. III. 337, Chitty's note. 
 
 t Annual Register, Vol. 61. p. 52 (1819). 
 
24 
 
 whose unenlightened errors may find easy condemnation in 
 our age of larger toleration and wider knowledge, but whose 
 firm and upright soul, whose exalted sense of justice, whose 
 fatherly regard for the happiness of his people, whose respect 
 for the rights of others, whose conscience void of offence 
 before God and man, make him foremost among Christian 
 rulers, the highest example for a Christian prince or a Chris- 
 tian people. He was of conscience all-compact, subjecting 
 all that he did to the single and exclusive test of moral recti- 
 tude, disregarding all considerations of worldly advantage, 
 all fear of worldly consequences. 
 
 His soul, thus tremblingly sensitive to questions of right, 
 was shocked by the judicial combat. In his sight, it was a 
 sin thus to tempt God, by demanding of him a miracle, when- 
 ever judgment was to be pronounced. In 1260 he assembled 
 a parliament, where he issued an ordinance, to take effect 
 throughout the royal dominion, in which he expressly says : 
 " We forbid to all persons throughout our dominions the 
 trial by battle ; and, instead of battles, we establish proofs 
 by witnesses ; and we do not take away the other good and 
 loyal proofs which have been used in lay courts to this day. 
 * * * And these battles we abolish in our 
 
 dominions for ever." f 
 
 Such were the restraints on the royal authority, that this 
 Ordinance was confined in its operation to the demesnes of 
 the King ; and did not extend to those of the barons and 
 feudatories of the realm. But where the power of St. Louis 
 did not reach, there he labored by his example, his influence 
 and his express intercession. He treated with many of the 
 great vassals of the crown, and induced them to renounce 
 this unnatural usage. Though for many years later France 
 continued in some parts to be vexed by it, still its overthrow 
 commenced with the Ordinance of St. Louis. 
 
 Honor and blessings attend the name of this truly Christian 
 King ; who submitted all his actions to the Heaven-descend- 
 ed sentiment of duty ; who began a long and illustrious 
 reign by renouncing and restoring a portion of the conquests 
 
 * " Nous deffendons a tous les batailles par tout nostre demengnc (domaine); 
 mes nous n'ostons mie les claims, les respons, les convenants, ne tous autres 
 convenants que Ten fait en court laie, siques a ore selon les usages de divers pays, 
 fors que nous ostoiis les batailles; et en lieu des batailles nous inetons prueves de 
 tesmoins ; et si n'oston pas les autres bones prueves et loyaux qui out este en 
 court laie siques a ore. * * * Et ces batailles nous ostons en mestre demaigne 
 a toujours." Recueil des Ordonnances, t. 1. p. 86 — 93. Guizot, Histoire de la 
 Civilization en France, IV. 162 — 164. 
 
25 
 
 of his predecessor, saying to those about him, whose souls 
 did not ascend to the height of his morahty, " I know that 
 the predecessors of the King of England have lost by the 
 right of conquest the land which I hold ; and the land which 
 I give him, I do not give because I am bound to him or his 
 heirs, hut to put love between my children and his children, 
 who are cousin-germans ; and it seems to me that what I 
 thus give, I employ to good purpose ! " * Honor to him 
 who never grasped by force or cunning any new acquisition ; 
 who never sought advantage from the turmoils and dissen- 
 sions of his neighbors, but studied to allay them ; who, first 
 of Christian Princes, rebuked the spirit of war, saying to 
 those who would have him profit by the dissensions of his 
 neighbors, " Blessed are the Peace-makers ;" f who abolished 
 trial by battle throughout his dominions ; who aimed to do 
 justice to all his people, and to all neighbors, and in the ex- 
 tremity of his last illness, on the sickening sands of Tunis, 
 among the bequests of his spirit, enjoined on his son and 
 successor, " in maintaining justice, to be inflexible and loyal, 
 neither turning to the right hand nor to the left ! " J 
 
 The history of the trial by battle will illustrate and bring 
 home to your minds the chances of war, and the consequent 
 folly and wickedness of submitting any question to its arbit- 
 rament. As we revert to those early periods in which it 
 prevailed, our minds are impressed by the barbarism which 
 we behold ; we recoil, with horror, from the awful subjection 
 of justice to brute force ; from the impious profanation of the 
 character of God in deeming him present in these outrages ; 
 from the moral degradation out of which they sprang, and 
 which they perpetuated ; we involve ourselves in our self- 
 complacent virtue, and thank God that we are not as these 
 men, that ours is, indeed, an age of light, while theirs was 
 an age of darkness ! 
 
 But are we aware that this monstrous and impious usage, 
 which our enlightened reason so justly condemns in the cases 
 of individuals is openly avowed by our own country, and by 
 the other countries of the earth, as a proper mode of deter- 
 mining justice between them ? Be upon our heads and upon 
 our age the judgment of barbarism, which we pronounce 
 
 *Joinville, Hist, de St. Louis, p, 142; Guizot, Histoire de la Civilization en 
 France, Tome IV, 151. 
 
 fBenoist soient tuit li apaiseur, Joinville, pp- 143, 144; Guizot. 
 ifSismondi, Histoire des Franc. VIII. 196. 
 3 
 
26 
 
 upon those that have gone before ! At tliis moment, in this 
 period of hght, when the noon-day sun of civihzation seems, 
 to the contented souls of many, to be standing still in the 
 heavens, as upon Gibeon, the relations between nations are 
 governed by the same rules of barbarous, brutal force, which 
 once prevailed between individuals. The dark ages have 
 not passed away ; Erebus and black Night, born of Chaos, 
 still brood over the earth ; nor shall we hail the clear day, 
 until the mighty hearts of the nations shall be touched, 
 as those of children, and the whole earth, individuals and 
 nations alike, shall acknowledge one and the same rule of 
 Right. 
 
 Who has told you, fond man ! to regard that as a glory 
 when performed by a nation, which is condemned as a crime 
 and a barbarism, when committed by an individual ? In 
 what vain conceit of wisdom and virtue do you find this in- 
 congruous morality ? Where is it declared, that God, who is 
 no respecter of persons, is a respecter of multitudes ? Whence 
 do you draw these partial laws of a powerful and impartial 
 God? Man is immortal; but States are mortal. He has a 
 higher destiny than States. Shall States be less amenable 
 to the great moral laws? Each individual is an atom of the 
 mass. Must not the mass be like the individuals of which 
 it is composed ? Shall the mass do what individuals may 
 not do ? No. The same moral laws which govern individ- 
 uals govern masses, as the same laws in nature prevail over 
 large and small, controlling the fall of an apple and the orbits 
 of the planets. It was the beautiful discovery of Newton, that 
 gravity is a universal property of matter, a law obeyed by 
 every particle in reference to every other particle, and con- 
 necting the celestial mechanism with terrestrial phenomena. 
 So the Rule of Right, which binds the single individual, 
 binds two or three when gathered together — binds conven- 
 tions and congregations of men — binds villages, towns and 
 cities — binds states, nations and empires — clasps the whole 
 human family in its seven-fold embrace ; nay more, 
 
 Beyond the flaming bounds of place and time, 
 The living throne, the sapphire blaze, 
 
 it binds the angels of Heaven, the Seraphim, full of love, 
 the Cherubim, full of knowledge : above all, it binds, in self- 
 imposed bonds, a just and omnipotent God. It is of this, 
 and not of any earthly law, that Hooker speaks in that mag- 
 nificent period which sounds like an anthem ; " Of law no 
 
27 
 
 less can be said, than that her seat is the bosom of God, her 
 voice the harmony of the world ; all things in Heaven and 
 earth do her homage, the very least as feeling her care, the 
 greatest as not exempted from her power ; both angels and 
 men, and creatures of what condition soever, though each in 
 different sort and manner, yet all with uniform consent ad- 
 miring her as the mother of their peace and joy." 
 
 We are struck with horror and our hair stands on end, at 
 the report of a single murder ; we think of the soul that has 
 been hurried to its final account ; we seek the murderer ; and 
 the law puts forth all its energies to secure his punishment. 
 Viewed in the clear light of truth, what are war and battle but 
 organized murder ; murder of malice afore-thought ; in cold 
 blood ; through the operation of an extensive machinery of 
 crime ; with innumerable hands ; at incalculable cost of 
 money ; through subtle contrivances of cunning and skill ; 
 or by the savage brutal assault ? Was not the Scythian 
 right, when he said to Alexander, " Thou boastest, that the 
 only design of thy marches is to extirpate robbers ; thou thy- 
 self art the greatest robber in the world." Among us one 
 class of sea-robbers is hanged as pirates ; another is hailed 
 with acclamation : 
 
 lUe crucem sceleris pretium tulit, hie diadema.* 
 
 It was amidst the thunders which made Sinai tremble, that 
 God declared ; " Thou shalt not kill ;" and the voice of 
 these thunders, with this commandment, has been prolonged 
 to our own day in the echoes of Christian churches. What 
 mortal shall restrain the application of these words ? Who 
 on earth is empowered to vary or abridge the commandments 
 of God ? Who shall presume to declare, that this injunction 
 was directed, not to nations, but to individuals only ; not to 
 many but to one only ; that one man may not kill, but that 
 many may ; that it is forbidden to each individual to destroy 
 the life of a single human being, but that it is not forbidden 
 to a nation to cut off by the sword a whole people ? 
 
 When shall the St. Louis of the nations arise ? the Chris- 
 tian ruler or Christian people, who shall proclaim to the 
 whole earth, that henceforward for ever the^greo^ trial by bat- 
 tle shall cease , that it is the duty and policy of nations to 
 
 * Juvenal, Sat. XIII. 105. The ancient laws of Ina recognize numbers as the 
 only distinction between an army and a band of robbers ; " Fures appellamus soci- 
 etatem septem hominum 5 et septem usque ad XXXV turmam 5 ct deinde esto 
 exercitus," 
 
28 
 
 establish love between each other ; and in all respects, at all 
 times, towards all persons, as well their own people, as the 
 people of other lands, to be governed by the sacred rules of 
 right, as between man and man ! May God speed the com- 
 ing of that day ! 
 
 I have already alluded, in the early part of my remarks, to 
 some of the obstacles to be encountered by the advocate of 
 Peace. One of these is the war-like tone of the literature, 
 by which our minds and opinions are formed. The world 
 has supped so full with battles, that all its inner modes of 
 thought, and many of its rules of conduct seem to be incar- 
 nadined with blood ; as the bones of swine, fed on madder, 
 are said to become red. But I now pass this by, though a 
 most fruitful theme, and hasten to other topics. I propose 
 to consider in succession, very briefly, some of those influ- 
 ences and prejudices, which are most powerful in keeping 
 alive the delusion of war. 
 
 1. One of the most important of these is the prejudice to 
 a certain extent in its favor founded on the belief in its ne- 
 cessity. The consciences of all good men condemn it as a 
 crime, a sin ; even the soldier, whose profession it is, con- 
 fesses that it is to be resorted to only in the last necessity. 
 But a benevolent and omnipotent God cannot render it 
 necessary to commit a crime. When war is called a neces- 
 sity, it is meant, of course, that its object cannot be gained 
 in any other way. Now I think that it has already appeared 
 with distinctness, approaching demonstration, that the pro- 
 fessed object of war, which is justice between nations, is in 
 no respect promoted by war ; that force is not justice, nor in 
 any way conducive to justice ; that the eagles of victory can 
 be only the emblems of successful force and not of estab- 
 lished right.* Justice can be obtained only by the exercise 
 of the reason and judgment ; but these are silent in the din 
 of arms. Justice is without passion ; but war lets loose all 
 the worst passions of our nature, while "high arbiter Chance 
 more embroils the fray." The age has passed in which a 
 nation, within the enchanted circle of civilization, will make 
 
 *Le recours a. la force, soil par le combat judiciaire, soil par la guerre privee, 
 ("■tail le mode le plus commun de mettre fin au>f proccs. Muis la force n'est pas 
 lajiustice; Us plus f^rossiers esprifs 7ie les confondc7it pas long tewps. La neces- 
 site d'un autre systr me judiciaire, d'un vtritaljje jugement, devint bient6t evidente. 
 Guizol, liistoire de la Civilization, Tome IV. 8y. 
 
29 
 
 war upon its neighbor, for any professed purpose of booty or 
 vengeance. It does " nought in hate, but all in honor." 
 There are professions even of tenderness which mingle with 
 the first mutterings of the dismal strife. Each of the two 
 governments, as if conscience-struck at the abyss into which 
 it is about to plunge, seeks to fix on the other the charge of 
 hostile aggression, and to assume to itself the ground of de- 
 fending some right ; some stolen Texas ; some distant, worth- 
 less Oregon. Like Pontius Pilate, it vainly washes its hands 
 of innocent blood, and straightway allows a crime at which 
 the whole heavens are darkened, and two kindred countries are 
 severed, as the veil of the Temple was rent in twain. 
 
 The various modes, which have been proposed for the de- 
 termination of disputes between nations, are Negotiation, 
 Arbitration, Mediation, and a Congress of Nations ; * all of 
 them practicable and calculated to secure peaceful justice. 
 Let it not be said, then, that war is a necessity ; and may 
 our country aim at the true glory of taking the lead in the 
 recognition of these, as the only proper modes of determin- 
 ing justice between nations ! Such a glory, unlike the earthly 
 fame of battles, shall be immortal as the stars, dropping per- 
 petual light upon the souls of men ! 
 
 2. Another prejudice in favor of war is founded on the 
 practice of nations, past and present. There is no crime or 
 enormity in morals, which may not find the support of human 
 example, often on a most extended scale. But it is not to be 
 urged in our day that we are to look for a standard of duty 
 in the conduct of vain, mistaken, fallible man. It is not in 
 the power of man, by any subtle alchemy, to transmute 
 wrong into right. Because war is according to the practice 
 of the world, it does not follow that it is right. For ages 
 the world worshipped false gods ; but these gods were not 
 the less false, because all bowed before them. At this moment 
 the larger portion of mankind are Heathen ; but Heathenism 
 is not true. It was once the practice of nations to slaughter 
 prisoners of war ; but even the spirit of war recoils now from 
 this bloody sacrifice. In Sparta, theft, instead of being exe- 
 crated as a crime, was dignified into an art and an accom- 
 plishment, and as such admitted into the system of youthful 
 education ; and even this debasing practice, established by 
 
 * For a sketch of the labors and examples which tend to the establishment of a 
 System of Arbitration, or a Congress of Nations, see Appendix, Note C, 
 
30 
 
 local feeling, is enlightened, like war, by an instance of uncon- 
 querable firmness, which is a barbaric counterfeit of virtue. 
 The Spartan youth, who allowed the fox concealed under 
 his robe to eat into his heart, is an example of mistaken 
 fortitude, not unlike that which we are asked to admire in 
 the soldier. Other illustrations of this character crowd upon 
 the mind ; but I will not dwell upon them. We turn with 
 disgust from Spartan cruelty and the wolves of Taygetus ; 
 from the awful cannibalism of the Feejee Islands ; from 
 the profane rites of innumerable savages ; from the crushing 
 Juggernaut ; from the Hindoo widow lighting her funeral 
 pyre ; from the Indian dancing at the stake. But had not all 
 these, in their respective places and days, like war, the sanc- 
 tion of established usage ? 
 
 But it is often said, " Let us not be wiser than our fathers." 
 Rather let us try to excel our fathers in wisdom. Let us 
 imitate what in them was good, but let us not bind ourselves, 
 as in the chains of Fate, by their imperfect example. There 
 are principles which are higher than human examples. Ex- 
 amples are to be followed when they accord with the sugges- 
 tions of duty. But he is unwise and wicked, who attempts 
 to lean upon these, rather than upon those truths, which, like 
 the Everlasting Arm, cannot fail ! 
 
 In all modesty be it said, we have lived to little purpose, 
 if we are not wiser than the generations that have gone before 
 us. It is the grand distinction of man that he is a progres- 
 sive being ; that his reason at the present day is not merely 
 the reason of a single human being, but that of the whole 
 human race, in all ages from which knowledge has descended, 
 in all lands from which it has been borne away. We are the 
 heirs to an inheritance of knowledge, which has been accu- 
 mulating from generation to generation. The child is now 
 taught at his mother's knee the orbits of the heavenly bodies, 
 
 Where worlds on worlds compose one Universe; 
 
 the nature of this globe ; the character of the tribes of men 
 by which it is covered, and the geography of nations, all of 
 which were far beyond the ken of the most learned of other 
 days. It is, therefore, true, as has been said, that antiquity 
 is the real infancy of man ; it is then that he is immature, 
 ignorant, wayward, childish, selfish, finding his chief happi- 
 ness in pleasures of sense, all unconscious of the higher 
 delights of knowledge and of love. The animal part of his 
 
31 
 
 nature reigns over his soul, and he is driven on by the gross 
 impulses of force. He seeks contests, war and blood. But 
 we are advanced from the childhood of man ; reason and 
 the kindlier virtues of age, repudiating and abhorring force, 
 now bear sway. We are the true Ancients. The single 
 lock on the battered forehead of Old Time is thinner now than 
 when our fathers attempted to grasp it ; the hour-glass has 
 been turned often since ; the scythe is heavier laden with the 
 work of death. 
 
 Let us cease, then, to look for a lamp to our feet, in the 
 feeble tapers that glimmer in the sepulchres of the Past. 
 Rather let us hail those ever-burning lights above, in whose 
 beams is the brightness of noon-day ! 
 
 3. There is a topic to which I allude with diffidence ; but 
 in the spirit of frankness. It is the influence which war, 
 though condemned by Christ, has derived from the Chris- 
 tian Church. When Constantine on one of his marches, at 
 the head of his army, beheld the luminous trophy of the 
 cross in the sky right above the meridian sun, inscribed with 
 these words. By this conquer, had his soul been penetrated 
 by the true spirit of Him, whose precious symbol it was, he 
 would have found in it no inspiration to the spear and the 
 sword. He would have received the lesson of self-sacrifice, 
 as from the lips of the Saviour, and would have learned that 
 it was not by earthly weapons that any true victory was to 
 be won. The pride of conquest would have been rebuked, 
 and the bauble sceptre of Empire would have fallen from his 
 hands. By this conquer ; that is, by patience, suffering, for- 
 giveness of evil, by all those virtues of which the cross is the 
 affecting token, conquer ; and the victory shall be greater 
 than any in the annals of Roman conquest ; it may not find 
 a place in the records of man ; but it shall appear in the 
 register of everlasting life. 
 
 The Christian Church, after the first centuries of its exist- 
 ence, failed to discern the peculiar spiritual beauty of the 
 faith which it professed. Like Constantine, it found new 
 incentives to war in the religion of Peace ; and such has 
 been its character, let it be said fearlessly, even to our own 
 day. The Pope of Rome, the asserted head of the church, 
 the Vicegerent of Christ on earth, whose seal is a fisherman, 
 on whose banner is a Lamb before the Holy Cross, assumed 
 the command of armies, often mingling the thunders of bat- 
 
32 
 
 tie with those of the Vatican. The dagger which projected 
 from the sacred vestments of the Archbishop de Retz, as he 
 appeared in the streets of Paris, was called by the people, 
 " the Archbishop's Prayer Book." We read of mitred pre- 
 lates in armor of proof, and seem still to catch the jingle of 
 the golden spurs of the bishops in the streets of Cologne. 
 The sword of knighthood was consecrated by the church ; 
 and priests were often the expert masters in military exer- 
 cises. I have seen at the gates of the Papal Palace in 
 Rome, a constant guard of Swiss soldiers ; I have seen, too, 
 in our own streets a show, as incongruous and as inconsistent, 
 a pastor of a Christian church parading as the chaplain of a 
 military array ! Ay ! more than this ; some of us have 
 heard, within a few short weeks, in a Christian pulpit, from 
 the lips of an eminent Christian divine, a sermon in which 
 we are encoLiraged to serue the God of Battles, * and, as 
 citizen soldiers, to fight for Peace ; f a sentiment, which 
 can find no support in the Religion of Him who has expressly 
 enjoined, when one cheek is smitten to turn the other, and 
 to which we listen with pain and mortification from the lips 
 of one, who has voluntarily become a minister of Christian 
 truth ; alas ! in his mind, inferior to that of the Heathen, 
 who declared that he preferred the unjustest peace to the 
 justest war.* 
 
 And who is the God of Battles ! It is Mars ; man-slay- 
 ing, blood-polluted, city-smiting Mars ! f Him we cannot 
 adore. It is not He who binds the sweet influences of the 
 
 *Deo imperante, qucm adesse bellantibus credunt, are the appropriate words of 
 astonishment by which Tacitus describes the barbarous superstition of the an- 
 cient Germans. — De Morihus, Germ. § 7 It was afterwards on tlie German 
 soil, that Frederick of Prussia said that he always found the God of Battles to be 
 on the side of the strongest regiments. When it was proposed to him to adopt 
 as an inscription for his banner, that was soon to flout the sky of Silesia, " For 
 God and Country," he rejected the first words — saying it was not proper to intro- 
 duce the name of the Deity in the quarrels of men. 
 
 t Lord Abington said, May 30th, 1794, in the House of Lords ; " The best road 
 to Peace, my Lords, is War ; and War carried on in the same manner in which 
 we are taught to worship our Creator, namely, with all our souls, with all our 
 minds, with all our hearts and with all our strength ! "' 
 
 i Iniquhsimam pace7n,jtcstissimo bello antefero, are the words of Cicero. Only 
 eight days after Franklin had placed his name to the Treaty of Peace, which 
 acknowledged the Independence of his country, he wrote to a friend ; " may we 
 never see another war, for, in my opinion, there never was a good war, nor a bad 
 peace." It was with great reluctance, that I here seemed to depart for a moment 
 from so great a theme to allude to any person ; but the person and the theme 
 here become united. I cannot refrain from the effort to tear this iron branch of 
 War from the golden tree of Christian truth, even though a voice come forth 
 from the breaking bough. For a few observations on Dr. Vinton's Sermon, see 
 Appendix, notes A. and B. 
 
33 
 
 Pleiades, and looses the bands of Orion ; who causes the 
 sun to shine on the just and the unjust ; who tempers the 
 wind to the shorn lamb ; who distils the oil of gladness upon 
 every upright heart ; the fountain of Mercy and Goodness, 
 the God of Justice and Love. The God of Battles is not 
 the God of X^hristians ; to him can ascend none of the 
 prayers of Christian thanksgiving ; for him there can be no 
 words of worship in Christian temples ; no swelling anthem 
 to peal the note of praise. 
 
 There is now floating in this harbor a ship of the line of 
 our country. Many of you have, perhaps, pressed its deck, 
 and observed with admiration the completeness which pre- 
 vails in all its parts ; its lithe masts and complex net-work of 
 ropes ; its thick wooden walls, within which are more than 
 the soldiers of Ulysses ; its strong defences, and its numerous 
 dread and rude-throated engines of war. There each Sab- 
 bath, amidst this armament of blood, while the wave comes 
 gently plashing against the frowning sides, from a pulpit sup- 
 ported by a cannon, or by the side of a cannon, in repose 
 now, but ready to awake its dormant thunder, charged with 
 death, a Christian preacher addresses the officers and crew ! 
 May his instructions carry strength and succor to their souls ! 
 But he cannot pronounce in such a place, those highest words 
 of the Master he professes, " Blessed are the Peace-makers ;" 
 '" Love your Enemies ;" " Render not evil for evil." Like 
 Macbeth's "Amen," they must stick in his throat. 
 
 It cannot be doubted that this strange and unblessed con- 
 junction of the clergy with war, has had no little influence 
 in blinding the world to the truth now beginning to be recog- 
 nized, that Christianity forbids war in all cases. 
 
 Individual interests are mixed up with prevailing errors, 
 and are concerned in maintaining them to such an extent, that 
 it is not surprising that military men yield reluctantly to this 
 truth. They are naturally in this matter, like lawyers, ac- 
 cording to Voltaire, " the conservators of ancient barbarous 
 usages ; " but that these usages should obtain countenance in 
 the Christian church is one of those anomalies, which make 
 us feel the weakness of our nature and the elevation of 
 Christian truth. It is important to observe, as an unanswer- 
 able fact of history, that for some time after the Apostles, 
 while the lamp of Christianity burnt pure and bright, not 
 only the Fathers of the church held it unlawful for Chris- 
 tians to bear arms, but those who came within its pale, 
 
34 
 
 abstained from the use of arms, although at the cost of their 
 lives. Marcellus the Centurion, threw down his mihtary 
 belt at the head of the legion, and in the face of the stand- 
 ards declared with a loud voice, that he would no longer 
 serve in the army, for he had become a Christian ; and many 
 others followed his example. It was not until Christianity 
 became corrupted, that its followers became soldiers, and its 
 priests learned to minister at the altar of the God of Battles.* 
 
 Thee to defend the Moloch priest prefers 
 The prayer of Hate, and bellows to the herd 
 That Deity, accomplice Deity, 
 In ihe fierce jealousy of waked wrath 
 Will go forth with our armies and our fleets 
 To scatter the red ruin on their foes ! 
 O blasphemy ! to mingle fiendish deeds 
 With ijlessedness 1 1 
 
 A motion has been brought forward in Congress, to dispense 
 with the services of chaplains in the army and navy, mainly 
 on account' of the incompatibility between the principles of the 
 Gospel and the practice of War. It is to be hoped that 
 what God has placed so far asunder, may no longer be joined 
 together by man. If chaplains are to be employed, it should 
 be to preach the religion they profess as to the Heathen, and 
 not to offer incense to the idol of war. 
 
 When will Christian ministers look for their faith, not to 
 the ideas, opinions and practices of the people by whom they 
 are surrounded, but to the written words of the texts from 
 which they preach ? It has been said of a monarch of Eng- 
 land that he " read Gospel truth in Anna Boleyn's eyes." 
 Not less hyperbolical and impossible is their discernment who 
 can find in the flasliing bayonet, any token of Peace, any 
 illumination of Christian Love. That truly great man, the 
 , beloved Channing, whose spirit speaks to us from no scep- 
 
 ^"^^ tered urn, but from that sweet grassy bed at Mount Auburn, 
 
 ''*^*'^* says: "When I think of duelling and war in the Chris- 
 tian world, and then of the superiority to the world and 
 the unbounded love and forbearance which characterize 
 
 * This subject, so interesting to the student of history, and to the conscientious 
 inquirer into the true signification of the Gospel, has been treated with fullness 
 and learning by Mr. Clarkson in his Essay on the Doctrines and Practice of the 
 Early Christians as they relate to war. Mr. Jay, in his recent address before the 
 Peace Society, justly cliarges the Christian Church " with awful delinquencies 
 on the subject of war, and directs the attention of her members to the duty of 
 repentance and reformation." He sustains the charge by numerous illustrations 
 of the conduct of the clergy, through a succession of ages, but particularly in 
 our own day. He finds the English Episcopal Church peculiarly reprehensible ; 
 and his testimony on this point is of special authority, from his known eminence 
 as a lay member of the sister Church in the United States. 
 
 t Religious Musings by Coleridge, written Christmas Eve of 17M. 
 
35 
 
 our religion, I am struck with the Httle progress which Chris- 
 tianity has as yet made." 
 
 One of the beautiful pictures, adorning the dome of a 
 Church in Rome, by that master of art, whose immortal colors 
 breathe as with the voice of a Poet, the Divine Raffaelle, 
 represents Mars, in the attitude of war, with a drawn sword 
 uplifted and ready to strike while an unarmed Angel from 
 behind, with gentle but irresistible force, arrests and holds 
 the descending arm. Such is the true image of Christian 
 duty ; nor can I readily perceive the difference in principle 
 between those ministers of the Gospel, who themselves gird 
 on the sword, as in the olden time, and those others, who, 
 unarmed, and in customary suit of solemn black, lend the 
 sanction of their presence to the martial array, or to any form 
 of preparation for war. The drummer, who pleaded that he 
 did not fight, was held more responsible for the battle than 
 the mere soldief ; for it was the sound of his drum that in- 
 flamed the flagging courage of the troops. 
 
 4. From the prejudices engendered by the Church, I pass 
 to the prejudices engendered by the army itself; prejudices 
 having their immediate origin more particularly in military 
 life, but unfortunately diffusing themselves, in widening 
 though less apparent circles, throughout the community. I 
 allude directly to what is called the jjoint of honor, early 
 child of chivalry, the living representative in our day of an 
 age of barbarism. It is difficult to define what is so evanes- 
 cent, so impalpable, so chimerical, so unreal ; and yet which 
 exercises such power over many men, and controls the rela- 
 tions of states. As a little water, which has fallen into the 
 crevice of a rock, under the congelation of winter, swells till 
 it burst the thick and stony fibres ; so a word, or a slender 
 act, dropping into the heart of man, under the hardening 
 influence of this pernicious sentiment, dilates till it rends in 
 pieces the sacred depository of human affections, while Hate 
 and the demon Strife, no longer restrained, are let loose 
 abroad. The musing Hamlet saw the strange and unnatural 
 power of this sentiment, when his soul pictured to his con- 
 templations 
 
 the army of such mass and charge, 
 
 Led by a delicate and tender prince 
 Exposing what is mortal and unsure 
 To all that fortune, death and danger, dare 
 Even for an egg-shell ; 
 
36 
 
 and when he says, with a point which has given to this sen- 
 timent Its strongest and most popidar expression, 
 
 -Rightly to be great 
 
 Is not to stir without great argument; 
 But greatly to find quarrel in a straw 
 IVhen honor's at the stake. 
 
 And when is honor at stake ? This question opens again 
 the views with which I commenced, and with which I hope 
 to close this discourse. Honor can only be at stake, where 
 justice and happiness are at stake ; it can never depend on 
 an egg-shell, or a straw ; it can never depend on an impotent 
 word of anger or folly, not even if that word be followed by 
 a blow. In fine, true honor is to be found in the highest 
 moral and intellectual excellence, in the dignity of the hu- 
 man soul, in its nearest approach to those qualities which we 
 reverence as the attributes of God. Our community frowns 
 with indignation upon the profaneness of the duel, which has 
 its rise in this irrational point of honor. But are they aware 
 that they themselves indulge the sentiment, on a gigantic 
 scale, when they recognize what is called the honor of the 
 country, as a proper ground for war? We have already seen 
 that justice is in no respect promoted by war ? Is true honor 
 promoted where justice is not ? 
 
 But the very word honor, as used by the world, does not 
 express any elevated sentiment. How infinitely below the 
 sentiment of duty ! It is a word of easy virtue, that has 
 been prostituted to the most opposite characters and transac- 
 tions. From the field of Pavia, where France suffered one 
 of the greatest reverses in her annals, Francis writes to his 
 mother ; " all is lost except honor." At a later day, the 
 renowned cook, the grand Vatel, in a paroxysm of grief and 
 mortification at the failureof two dishes expected on the table, 
 exclaimed, "I have lost my honor."* Montesquieu, whose 
 
 * Accable d'embarras, Vatel estaverti 
 
 Que deux tables en vain reclamaient leur r6ti ; 
 
 11 nrend pour en trouvcr une peine inutile. 
 
 " Ah ! " dit-il, s'adressant a son ami Gourville, 
 
 De larmes, de sanglots, de douleur suffoque, 
 
 " Je suis perdu d'honncur, deux rutis ont manques !" 
 
 Berchoux. 
 This scene is also described, with the accustomed coldness and brilliancy of 
 her fashionable i)cn, by Madame de Si'vignc, (Lettrcs L and LI, Tom. I. pp. 164, 
 1G8.) In the same place she recounts the death of this culinary martyr. Dis- 
 appointed by the failure of the purveyors to arrive with the turbots for an enter- 
 tainment in proper season, ho withdrew to his chamber, where he placed his 
 Bword against the door, and stabbed himself to the heart, but it was not until 
 the third blow, after giving himself two not mortal, that he fell dead. "The 
 fish now arrives from all quarters, they seek Vatel to distribute it ; they go to 
 
37 
 
 writings are a constellation of epigrams, places it in direct 
 contrast with virtue. He represents what he calls the preju- 
 dice of honor as the animating principle of monarchy, while 
 virtue is that of a republic, saying that in well governed 
 monarchies almost every body will be a good citizen, but it 
 will be rare to meet with a really good man.* By an instinct 
 that points to the truth, we do not apply this term to the 
 high columnar virtues which sustain and decorate life, to pa- 
 rental affection, to justice, to the attributes of God. We do 
 not speak of an honorable father, an honorable mother, an 
 honorable judge, an honorable angel, an honorable God. In 
 such sacred connections we feel, beyond the force of any 
 argument, the vulgar and debasing character of the senti- 
 ment to which it refers. 
 
 The degrading rule of honor is founded in the supposed 
 necessity of resenting by force, a supposed injury, whether 
 by word or act.f But suppose such an injury is received, 
 sullying, as is falsely imagined, the character ; is it wiped 
 away by a resort to force, by descending to the brutal level 
 of its author? "Could I have wiped your blood from 
 my conscience as easily as I can this insult from my face," said 
 a IMarshal of France, greater on this occasion than . on any 
 field of fame, " I would have laid you dead at my feet." It 
 is Plato, reporting the angelic wisdom of Socrates, who de- 
 clares in one of those beautiful dialogues, which shine with 
 stellar light across the ages, that it is more shameful to do a 
 
 his room, they knock, tliey force open the door; he is found bathed in blood. 
 They hasten to tell the Prince, [the great Condc] who is in despair ; the Duke 
 wept 5 it was on Vatel that his journey from Burgundy hinged. The Prince 
 related what had passed to the King, with marks of the deepest sorrow. It 
 was attributed to the high sense of honor which he had after his oio>i way (on dit 
 que c'etoit a force d'avoir de I'honneur a sa maniere.) He was highly com- 
 mended ; his courage was praised and blamed at the same time " The Epistle 
 Dedicatory pretixetl to tiie concluding volume of the Almanac des Gourmands, 
 addressing the shade of Vatel, says ; " So noble a death secures you, venerable 
 shade, the most glorious immortality ! You have proved that the fanaticism of 
 honor can exist in the kitchen as well as the camp, and that the spit and sauce- 
 pan have also their Catos and their Deciuses." " Enfin," are the words of a 
 French Vaudeville, " Manette, voila ce que c'etoit que Madame de Sevigne, 
 et Vatel, ce sent les gens la qui ont /lonore le siecle de Louis Quatorze." See 
 London Quarterly Rev. Vol. 54. p. 122. 
 
 * Montesquieu, Esprit des Lo^is, Liv. 3. cap. 5, 6, 7; 
 
 + Don Pedre. Souhaitez-vous quelque chose de moi ? 
 
 Hali. Oui, un conseil sur un fait d'honneur. Je sais qu'en ces matieres 11 
 est mal-aise de trouver un cavalier plus consomme que vous. 
 
 Seigneur, j'ai recu un soujflet. Vous savez ce qu'est un soufflet, lorsqu'il se 
 donne a main ouverte sur le beau milieu de la joue. J'ai ce soufflet fort sur le 
 coeur ; et je suis dans Vincerlitude si, pour me venger de V affront, je dois me 
 baftre avec wo?i homme, ou bien le faire assassiner. 
 
 Don Pedre. Assassiner c'est le plus sur et le plus court chemin. — Moliere, Le 
 Sicilien, So. 13. 
 
 4 
 
38 
 
 tvrong than to receive a wrong* And this benign sentiment 
 commends itself, alike to the Christian, who is told to render 
 good for evil, and to the universal heart of man. But who 
 that confesses its truth, can vindicate a resort to force, for the 
 sake of honor ? Better far to receive the blow that a false 
 morality has thought degrading, than that it should be re- 
 venged by force. Better that a nation should submit to what 
 is wrong, rather than vainly seek to maintain its honor by the 
 great crime of war. 
 
 It seems that in ancient Athens, as in unchristianized 
 Christian lands, there were sophists, who urged that to svffer 
 was unbecoming a man, and would draw down upon him 
 incalculable evils. The following passage will show the 
 manner in which the moral cowardice of these persons of 
 little faith was rebuked by him, whom the Gods pronounced 
 wisest of men : "These things being so, let us inquire what 
 it is you reproach me with ; whether it is well said, or not, 
 that I, forsooth, am not able to assist either myself, or any of 
 my friends or my relations, or to save them from the greatest 
 dangers ; but that, like the outlaws, I am at the mercy of 
 any one, who may choose to smite me on the temple — and 
 this was the strong point in your argument — or to take away 
 my property, or to drive me out of the city, or (to take the 
 extreme case) to kill me ; now, according to your argument, 
 to be so situated is the most shameful thing of all. But my 
 view is — a view many times expressed already, but there is 
 no objection to its being stated again : — my view, I say, is, 
 O Callicles, that to be struck unjustly on the temple is not 
 most shameful, nor to have my body mutilated, nor my purse 
 cut ; but to strike me and mine unjustly, and to mutilate me 
 and to cut my purse is more shameful and worse ; and steal- 
 ing too, and enslaving, and housebreaking, and in general, 
 doing any wrong whatever to me and mine is more shame- 
 ful and toorse for him who does the ivrong, than for me 
 who suffer it. These things, thus established in the former 
 arguments, as I maintain, are secured and bound, even if the 
 expression be somewhat too rustical, with iron and adamantine 
 arguments, and unless you, or some one more vigorous than 
 you, can break them, it is impossible for any one, speaking 
 otherwise than I now speak, to speak well : since, for my 
 part, I always have the same thing to say, that I know not 
 
 * This proposition is enforced by Socrates with admirable and unanswerable 
 reasoning and illustration, throughout the whole of the Gorgias. 
 
39 
 
 how these things are, hut that of all ivhom I have ever dis- 
 coursed with as now, not one is able to say otherwise without 
 heing ridiculous." Such is the wisdom of Socrates.* 
 
 But the modern point of honor does not find a place in 
 warlike antiquity. Themistocles at Salamis did not send a 
 cartel to the Spartan commander, when threatened by a 
 blow. " Strike, but hear," was the response of that firm 
 nature, which felt that true honor was to be gained only in 
 the performance of duty. It was in the depths of modern 
 barbarism, in the age of chivalry, that this sentiment shot up 
 in the wildest and most exuberant fancies ; not a step was 
 taken without reference to it ; no act was done which had 
 not some point tending to " the bewitching duel," and every 
 stage in the combat, from the ceremonies of its beginning to 
 its deadly close, were measured by this fantastic law.f The 
 Chevalier Bayard, the cynosure of chivalry, the knight with- 
 out fear and without reproach, in a contest with the Spaniard 
 Don Alonzo de Soto Mayor, by a feint struck him such a 
 blow in the throat, that despite the gorget, the weapon pen- 
 etrated four fingers deep. The wounded Spaniard grasped 
 his adversary, and, struggling with him, they both rolled on 
 the ground, when Bayard, drawing his dagger, and thrusting 
 its point in the nostrils of the Spaniard, exclaimed, " Senor 
 Alonzo, surrender, or you are a dead man ! " A speech 
 which appeared superfluous, as Don Diego de Guignones, his 
 second, exclaimed, " Senor Bayard, he is dead ; you have 
 conquered." Bayard, says the chronicler, would have given 
 one hundred thousand crowns to spare his life ; but, he now 
 fell upon his knees, kissed the ground three times and then 
 dragged his dead enemy out of the camp, saying to the sec- 
 ond of his fallen foe, " Senor Don Diego, have I done 
 enough?" To which the other piteously replied, "too 
 much, Senor, for the hojior of Spain ! " when Bayard very 
 generously presented him with the corpse, although it was 
 his right, by the laws of honor, to do whatever he thought 
 
 * Gorgias, Cap. LXIV. It appears that Cicero read the Gorgias diligently at 
 Athens ; but his admiration was bestowed chiefly upon its distinguished rhetorical 
 excellence. (De Oratore, I. 11.) If his soul had been penetrated by its sublime 
 morality, he could never have written ; Fortes igitur et magnanimi sunt habendi, 
 t\on, qu\ fa.ciunt, sed q^d propidsant injuriam. De ofRc. Lib. 1. cap. 19. This 
 is an instance of the fickle eclectic philosophy of the great Roman, which renders 
 his writings so uncertain a rule of conduct. 
 
 t Nobody can forget the humorous picture of the progress of a quarrel to a 
 duel, through the seven degrees of Touchstone in .4s You Like It, Act. 5, 
 Scene 4. 
 
40 
 
 proper with it ; an act which is highly commended by Bran- 
 tome, who thinks it difficult to say which did him most 
 honor — not having ignominiously dragged the body like the 
 carcass of a dog by a leg out of the field, or having conde- 
 scended to fight while laboring under an ague ! * 
 
 If such a transaction conferred honor on the brightest son 
 of chivalry, we may understand therefrom something of the 
 real character of that age, the departure of which has been 
 lamented with such touching but inappropriate eloquence. 
 Do not condescend to draw a great rule of conduct from 
 such a period. Let the point of honor stay with the dag- 
 gers, the swords and the weapons of combat, by which it was 
 guarded ; let it appear only with its inseparable companions, 
 the bowie-knife, and the pistol ! 
 
 Be ours a standard of conduct derived, not from the de- 
 gradation of our nature, though it affects the semblance of 
 sensibility and refinement, but having its sources in the loftiest 
 attributes of man, in truth, in justice, in duty ; and may this 
 standard, which governs our relations to each other, be recog- 
 nized among the nations ! When shall we behold the dawn- 
 ing of that happy day, harbinger of infinite happiness beyond, 
 in which nations shall feel that it is better to receive a 
 wroncr than to do a wron<T. 
 
 Apply this principle to our relations with England at this 
 moment. Suppose that proud monarchy, refusing all sub- 
 mission to negotiation or arbitration, should absorb the whole 
 Territory of Oregon into her own overgrown dominions, and 
 add, at the mouth of the Columbia River, a new morning 
 drum-beat to the national airs with which she has encircled 
 the earth, who, then, is in the attitude of the truest honor, Eng- 
 land, who has appropriated, by an unjust act, what is not her 
 own, or the United States, the victim of the injustice ? f 
 
 5. There is still another influence which stimulates war, 
 and interferes with the natural attractions of Peace ; I refer 
 to a selfish and exaggerated love of country, leading to its 
 physical aggrandizement, and the strengthening of its institu- 
 
 * Millingen on Duels, T. 81, 82. 
 
 t If this view needs any confirmation in the minds of just and reasonable men, 
 having a true regard for the happiness and real greatness of their country, it may 
 be found in the clear and weighty reasoning of I'residcnt Waylandon War, in his 
 F.lements of Morals, \\\m\\\s in such harmony witli the great truths sustained 
 throughout this Oration tliat I have taken the liberty to transfer some pages of it 
 to the Appendix, iNote E. 
 
41 
 
 tions at the expense of other countries. Our minds, nursed by 
 the hteralure of antiquity, have imbibed the narrow sentiment 
 of heathen patriotism.* Exckisive love for the land of birth 
 was a part of the religion of Greece and Rome. It is an 
 indication of the lowness of their moral nature, that this 
 sentiment was so exclusive, and so material in its character. 
 The Oracle directed the returning Roman to kiss his mother, 
 and he kissed the Mother Earth. Agamemnon, on regaininor 
 his home after a perilous separation of more than ten years 
 at the siege of Troy, before addressing his family, his friends, 
 his countrymen, first salutes Argos : 
 
 By your leave, Lords, first Argos 1 salute.t 
 
 The school-boy cannot forget the cry of the victim of Verres, 
 which was to stay the descending fasces of the lictor, " I am 
 a Roman citizen ; " nor those other words sounding in the 
 dark Past, " How sweet it is to die for one's country ! " 
 The Christian cry did not rise, " I am a man ; " the Christian 
 ejaculation did not swell 4he soul, " How sweet it is to die 
 for duty ! " The beautiful genius of Cicero, at times instinct 
 with truth almost divine, did not ascend to that highest 
 heaven, where is taught, that all mankind are neighbors and 
 kindred, and that the relations of fellow-countryman are less 
 holy than those of fellow-man. To the love of universal 
 man may be applied those words by which the great Roman 
 elevated his selfish patriotism to a virtue, when he said that 
 country alone embraced all the charities of all. % Attach this 
 
 *The legislation of Rome, which has exercised such an influence over mankind, 
 was inspired by selfishness. Self was at the foundation of all rights. Property 
 was held under rigorous and exclusive laws, which knew nothing of the spirit of 
 accommodation, or of good neighborhood. There were no common partition 
 walls; but houses stood apart (insula;), to avoid all contact which could be only 
 hostile. In domestic life, the head of the family (pater familias) was a despot. 
 He held for a long tmie, the right of life and death over his wife and children ; 
 having no obligations towards them, but only rights over them. This great power 
 was not given for the benefit of the children; securing to them a guardian in their 
 immature years, but selfishly, unnaturally, for the exclusive benefit of the father, 
 to whom belonged all the acquisitions of the son. We may well suspect any 
 principle of duty, public or private, which has its rise in fountains so strongly 
 impregnated with the iron of the soil. For an interesting view of the true char- 
 acter of the Roman Law, see Kleimrath,Travaux sur I'Histoire de droit Fran9ais, 
 Tom. 1, 39. 
 
 t Agamemnon of iEschylus ; translated by Symmons, p. 73. Cato in a didactic 
 work, says to the farmer on his return home, Primum Larem saluiato. 
 
 jSed quum omnia ratione, animoque lustraris, omnium societatum nulla est 
 gravior, nulla carior, quam ea, quce cum republica est unicuique nostrum. Cari 
 sunt parentes, cari liberi,propinqui, familiares; sed omnes omnium caritates patria 
 una complexa est; pro qua quis bonus dubitet mortem oppetere, si ei sit profutu- 
 rus ? De Offic. Lib. I, Cap. 17, §37. It is curious to observe how Cicero puts 
 aside that expression of true Humanity, which fell from Terence, Humani nihil a 
 4# 
 
42 
 
 admired phrase for a moment to the single idea of country, 
 and you will see how contracted are its charities compared 
 with the world-wide circle of Christian love, whose neighbor 
 is the suffering man, though at the farthest pole. Such a 
 sentiment would dry up those fountains of benevolence, which 
 now diffuse themselves in precious waters in distant unenlight- 
 ened lands, bearing the blessings of truth to the icy mountains 
 of Greenland, and the coral islands of the Pacific sea. 
 
 It has been a part of the policy of rulers, to encourage 
 this exclusive patriotism ; and the people of modern times 
 have each inherited the feeling of Antiquity. I do not know 
 that any one nation is in a condition to reproach the other 
 with this patriotic selfishness. All are selfish. Among us, 
 the sentiment has become active, while it has derived new 
 force from the point with which it has been expressed. An 
 officer of our Navy, one of the so called heroes nurtured by 
 war, whose name has been praised in churches, has gone 
 beyond all Greek, all Roman example. " Our country, be 
 she right or wro7ig,'^ was his exclamation ; a sentiment 
 dethroning God and enthroning the devil, whose flagitious 
 character should be rebuked by every honest heart.* " Our 
 country, our whole country, and nothing but our country," 
 are other words, which have often been painted on banners, 
 and echoed by the voices of innumerable multitudes. Cold 
 and dreary, narrow and selfish, would be this life, if nothing 
 but our country occupied our souls ; if the thoughts that 
 wander through eternity, if the infinite affections of our nature, 
 were restrained to that spot of earth where we have been 
 placed by the accident of birth. 
 
 I do not inculcate an indifference to country. We incline, 
 
 me alienum pttto. He says, Est enim difficilis cura rerun alienarum. De Offic. 
 Lib. 1, Cap. 9. Since tlie delivery of this Oration, 1 have met the following 
 opportune testimony to the truth of the text, in the journals and opinions of the 
 late Blanco White, one of the most ingenuous and conscientious characters of 
 the age. " Would you have a clear, practical conception of Virtue? Study the 
 early, the mythic history of Rome, and try to sympathize with her heroes, — those 
 men who lived only for the State ; who appear to have lost their own personality, 
 and to have identified themselves with the republic. Having done this, reflect 
 npon the incompleteness (and we may well say, absurdity) of limiting our moral 
 relations to any portion of the whole mass of mankind, and embrace the immova- 
 ble conviction, on this point, that every individual man belongs to the whole race 
 or, more properly speaking, to the Universe, more truly than Roman patriots 
 conceived themselves to belong to the State. And now you will have obtained 
 the true idea of 7iatio7ial real virtue, if you conceive your duties to God and his 
 creation to be exactly analogous to those of those ancient heroes." Blanco 
 White's Journals and Correspondence, Vol. H. pp. 299, 300, 301. 
 
 * Unlike this is what has been said of the virtuous Andrew P'letcher, in the days 
 of the English Revolution of 1G88, who "would lose his life to serve his country, 
 but would not do a base tiling to save it." Mackintosh, Eth. Philosophy. 
 
43 
 
 by a natural sentiment, to the spot where we were born, to 
 the fields which witnessed the sports of childhood, to the seat 
 of youthful studies, and to the institutions under which we 
 have been trained. The finger of God writes in indelible 
 colors all these things upon the heart of man, so that in the 
 dread extremities of death, he reverts in fondness to early 
 associations, and longs for a draught of cold water from the 
 bucket in his father's well. This sentiment is independent 
 of reflection, for it begins before reflection, grows with our 
 growth, and strengthens with our strength. It is blind in its 
 nature ; and it is the duty of each of us to take care that it 
 does not absorb the whole character.* In the moral night 
 which has enveloped the world, each nation, thus far, has 
 lived ignorant and careless, to much extent, of the interests 
 of others, which it imperfectly saw ; but this thick darkness 
 has now been scattered, and we begin to discern, all gilded 
 by the beams of morning, the distant mountain-peaks of other 
 lands. We find that God has not placed us on this earth 
 alone; that there are other nations, equally with us, children 
 of his protecting care. 
 
 The curious spirit goes further, and while it recognizes an 
 inborn sentiment of attachment to the place of birth, inquires 
 into the nature of the allegiance which is due to the State. 
 The old idea, still too much received, is, that man is made 
 for the State, and not the State for man. Far otherwise is 
 the truth. The State is an artificial body, intended for the 
 security of the people. How constantly do we find, in human 
 history, that the people have been sacrificed for the State ; 
 to build the Roman name, to secure to England the trident 
 of the sea. This is to sacrifice the greater for the less; for 
 the fleeting possessions of earth to barter the immortal soul. 
 Let it be remembered that the State is not worth preserving 
 at the cost of the lives and happiness of the people. 
 
 It is not that I love country less, but Humanity more, that 
 now, on this National Anniversary, I plead the cause of a 
 higher and truer patriotism. Remember that you are men, 
 by a more sacred bond than you are citizens ; that you are 
 children of a common Father more than you are Americans. 
 
 *" When any natural propensity is consecrated into a virtue, the greatest evils 
 ensue. Patriotism is an instance of this. We are naturally led to give undue 
 importance to ourselves ; this, when the individual is clearly the object of his 
 own feeling, is called selfishness. But wheu under the name of patriotism, each 
 individual indulges himself in vanity, in pride, in ambition, in cruelty, and yet 
 does it as an Englishman, a Frenchman, as a Spaniard [he might have added as 
 an American], all these vices are reckoned virtues." — Life of Blanco White, Vol. 
 II. p. 6. 
 
44 
 
 Viewing, then, the different people on the globe, as all 
 deriving their blood from a common source, and separated 
 only by the accident of mountains, rivers and seas, into those 
 distinctions around which cluster the associations of country, 
 we must regard all the children of the earth as members of 
 the great human family. Discord in this family is treason to 
 God ; while all war is nothing else than civil war. It will 
 be in vain that we restrain this odious term, importing so 
 much of horror, to the petty dissensions of a single State. It 
 belongs as justly to the feuds between nations. The soul 
 stands aghast, as we contemplate fields drenched in fraternal 
 gore, where the happiness of homes has been shivered by the 
 unfriendly arms of neighbors, and where kinsmen have sunk 
 beneath the cold steel that was nerved by a kinsman's hand. 
 This is civil war, which stands forever accursed in the calen- 
 dar of time. But the Muse of History, in the faithful record 
 of the future transactions of nations, inspired by a new and 
 loftier justice, and touched to finer sensibilities, shall extend 
 to the general sorrows of Universal Man the sympathy which 
 has been profusely shed for the selfish sorrow of country, 
 and shall pronounce all ivar to he civil war, and the jjartaJcers 
 in it as traitors to God and enemies to man. 
 
 6. I might here pause, feeling that those of ray hearers 
 who have kindly accompanied me to this stage, would be 
 ready to join in the condemnation of war, and hail peace, as 
 the only condition becoming the dignity of human nature, 
 and in which true greatness can be achieved. But there is 
 still one more consideration, which yields to none of the 
 others in importance ; perhaps it is more important than all. 
 It is at once cause and effect ; the cause of much of the feel- 
 ing in favor of war, and the effect of this feeling. I refer to 
 the costly preparations for war, in time of peace. 
 
 I do not propose to dwell upon the immense cost of war 
 itself. That will be present to the minds of all in the moun- 
 tainous accumulations of debt, piled like Ossa upon Pelion, 
 with which Europe is pressed to the earth. According to 
 the most recent tables to which I have had access, the public 
 debt of the different European States, so far as it is known, 
 amounts to the terrific sum of §6,387,000,000, all of this 
 the growth of War ! It is said that there are throughout 
 these states, 17,900,000 paupers, or persons subsisting at 
 the expense of the country, without contributing to its re- 
 sources. If these millions of the public debt, forming only 
 
45 
 
 a part of what has been wasted in war, could be apportioned 
 among these poor, it would give to each of them ^5 375, a 
 sum which would place all above want, and which is about 
 equal to the average value of the property of each inhabi- 
 tant of Massachusetts. 
 
 The public debt of Great Britain amounted in 1839 to 
 ^4,265,000,000, all of this the growth of War since 1688 ! 
 This amount is about equal to the sum total, according to the 
 calculations of Humboldt, of all the treasures which have 
 been reaped from the- harvest of gold and silver in the mines 
 of Spanish America, including Mexico and Peru, since the 
 first discovery of our hemisphere by Christopher Columbus ! 
 It is much larger than the amount of all the precious metals, 
 which at this moment form the circulating medium of the 
 world ! It is said rashly by some persons, who have given 
 little attention to this subject, that all this expenditure was 
 good for the people ; but these persons do not bear in mind 
 that it was not bestowed on any useful object. It was wasted. 
 The aggregate capital of all the joint stock companies in 
 England, of which there was any known record in 1842, 
 embracing canals, docks, bridges, insurance companies, banks, 
 gas-lights, water, mines, railways, and other miscellaneous 
 objects, was about ,^'835,000,000; a sum which has been 
 devoted to the welfare of the people, but how infinitely less 
 in amount than the War Debt ! For the six years ending in 
 1836, the average payment for the interest on this debt was 
 about ,f 140,000,000 annually. If we add to this sum, 
 ^60,000,000 during this same period paid annually to the 
 army, navy and ordnance, we shall have .$200,000,000 as the 
 annual tax of the English people, to pay for former wars and 
 to prepare for new. During this same period there was an 
 annual appropriation of only $20,000,000 for all the civil 
 purposes of the government. It thus appears that War 
 absorbed ninety cents of every dollar that was pressed by 
 heavy taxation from the English people, who almost seem to 
 sweat blood ! What fabulous monster, or chimera dire, 
 ever raged with a maw so ravenous! The remaining ten 
 cents sufficed to maintain the splendor of the throne, the ad- 
 ministration of justice, and the diplomatic relations with foreign 
 powers, in short all the proper objects of a Christian State.* 
 
 * 1 have here relied upon McCulloch's Commercial Dictionary; The Edin- 
 burgh Geography, founded on the works of Malte Brun and Baibi; and the 
 calculations of Mr. Jay in Peace and War, p. 16, and in his Address before the 
 Peace Society, pp. 28, 29. 
 
46 
 
 Let us now look exclusively at the preparations for war in 
 time of peace. It is one of the miseries of war that, even 
 in peace, its evils continue to be felt by the world, beyond 
 any other evils by which poor suffering humanity is op- 
 pressed. If Bellona withdraws from the field, we only 
 lose the sight of her flaming torches ; the bay of her dogs is 
 heard on the mountains, and civilized man thinks to find pro- 
 tection from their sudden fury, only by enclosing himself in 
 the defences of war. At this moment the Christian nations, 
 worshipping a symbol of common brotherhood, live as in 
 entrenched camps, in which they keep armed watch, to pre- 
 vent surprise from each other. 
 
 It is difficult, if not impossible, to arrive at any exact esti- 
 mate of the cost of these preparations, ranging under four 
 different heads ; the standing army ; the navy ; the fortifica- 
 tions, and ordnance ; and the militia or irregular troops. 
 
 The number of soldiers now keeping the peace of Euro- 
 pean Christendom, as a standing army, without counting the 
 Navy, is upwards of two millions. Some estimates place it 
 as high as three millions.* The army of Great Britain ex- 
 ceeds 300,000 men ; that of France 350,000 ; that of Rus- 
 sia 730,000, and is reckoned by some as high as 1,000,000 ; 
 that of Austria about 275,000; that of Prussia 150,000. 
 Taking the smaller number, suppose these two millions to 
 require for their annual support an average sum of only ^150 
 each, the result would be ^'300,000,000, for their sustenance 
 alone ; and reckoning one officer to ten soldiers, and allowing 
 to each of the latter an English shilling a day, or ^'87 a 
 year, for wages, and to the former an average salary of 
 ^500 a year, we should have for the pay of the whole no 
 less than .^ 256.000,000, or an appalling sum total for both 
 sustenance and pay of .^ 556,000,000. If the same calcu- 
 lation be made, supposing the forces to amount to three mil- 
 lions, the sum total will be ^'835,000,000 ! But to this 
 enormous sum another still more enormous must be added on 
 account of the loss sustained by the withdrawal of two mil- 
 lions of hardy, healthy men, in the bloom of life, from useful, 
 productive labor. It has been supposed that it costs an 
 
 * I have here relied upon tlie Edinburgh Geography, founded on the works of 
 Make Bruri and Bilbi, which milces the standing army of the Kuropean I'owers 
 upwards of two millions. The tract on the Waste of Properly by War, which 
 illustrates tliis subject by many im[)ortant statistics, makes it upward of three 
 millions. The annu:il expense of supporting a soldier differs in dillerent countries. 
 In Austria it is about $\6{); in France ^I'KJ} in Prussia nearly ^200, and in 
 England still greater. 
 
47 
 
 average of ^500 to rear a soldier; and that the value of his 
 labor if devoted to useful objects would be ^150 a year. 
 The Christian Powers, therefore, in setting apart two mil- 
 lions of men, as soldiers, sustain a loss of ,^1,000,000,000 
 on account of their training; and ^'300,000,000 annually, 
 on account of their labor. So much for the cost of 
 the standing army of European Christeridom in time of 
 Peace. 
 
 Glance now at the Navy of European Christendom. The 
 Royal Navy of Great Britain consists at- present of 556 
 ships of all classes ; but deducting such as are used as con- 
 vict ships, floating chapels, coal depots, the efficient navy 
 consists of 88 sail of the line; 109 frigates; 190 small 
 frigates, corvettes, brigs and cutters, including packets ; 65 
 steamers of various sizes ; 3 troop-ships and yachts ; in all 
 455 ships. Of these there were in commission in July, 
 1839, 190 ships, carrying in all 4,202 guns. The number 
 of hands employed in 1839, was 34,465. The Navy of 
 France, though not comparable in size with that of England, 
 is of vast force. By royal ordinance of 1st January, 1837, 
 it was fixed in time of peace at 40 ships of the line, 50 
 frigates, 40 steamers, and 190 smaller vessels ; and the 
 amount of crews in 1839, was 20,317 men. The Russian 
 Navy consists of two large fleets in the Gulf of Finland and 
 the Black Sea ; but the exact amount of their force and their 
 available resources has been a subject of dispute amongst 
 naval men and politicians. Some idea may be formed of the 
 size of the navy from the number of hands employed. The 
 crews of the Baltic fleet amounted in 1837, to not less than 
 30,800 men ; and those of the fleet in the Black Sea to 
 19,800, or altogether 50,600. The Austrian Navy con- 
 sisted in 1837, of 8 ships of the line, 8 frigates, 4 sloops, 6 
 brigs, 7 schooners or galleys, and a number of smaller ves- 
 sels ; the number of men in its service in 1839, was 4,547. 
 The Navy of Denmark consisted at the close of 1837 of 7 
 ships of the line, 7 frigates, 5 sloops, 6 brigs, 3 schooners, 5 
 •cutters, 58 gun-boats, 6 gun-rafts, and 3 bomb vessels, re- 
 quiring about 6,500 men to man them. The Navy of Swe- 
 den and Norway consisted recently of 238 gun-boats, 11 
 ships of the line, 8 frigates, 4 corvettes, 6 brigs, with several 
 smaller vessels. The Navy of Greece consists of 32 ships 
 of war, carrying 190 guns, and 2,400 men. The Navy of 
 Holland in 1839 consisted of 8 ships of the line, 21 frigates, 
 
48 
 
 15 corvettes, 21 brigs, and 95 gun-boats.* It is impossible 
 to give any accurate idea of the immense cost of all these 
 mighty prejDarations for war. It is melancholy to contem- 
 plate such gigantic means, applied by European Christendom 
 to the erection of these superfluous wooden walls in time of 
 Peace ! 
 
 In the fortifications and arsenals of Europe, crowning 
 every heigiit, commanding every valley, and frowning over 
 every plain and every sea, wealth has been sunk which is 
 beyond calculation. Who can tell the immense sums that 
 have been expended in hollowing out, for the purposes of 
 defence, the living rock of Gibraltar ? Who can calculate 
 the cost of all the preparations at Woolwich, its 27,000 
 cannons, and its hundreds of thousands of small arms ? 
 France alone contains upwards of one hundred and twenty 
 fortified places. And it is supposed that the yet unfinished 
 fortifications of Paris have cost upwards o{ fifty millions of 
 dollars ! 
 
 The cost of the militia or irregular troops, the Yeomanry 
 of England, the National Guards 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 the 
 strong ties of mutual interest ; and professing a devotion to 
 the princijiles of Peace. Are the Treaties of Amity mere 
 words ? Are the relations of commerce and mutual interest 
 mere things of a day ? Are the professions of Peace vain ? 
 Else why not repose in quiet un vexed by preparations for war ? 
 
 Enormous as are the expenses of this character in Europe, 
 those in our country are still greater in proportion to the 
 other expenditures of the Federal Government. 
 
 It appears that the average expenditures of the Federal 
 Government for the six years ending with 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, of the whole amount ! Yes ; of all the income which 
 was received by the Federal Government, eighty cents in 
 every dollar was applied in this useless way. The remaining 
 
 * I have drawn these details from the Edinburgh Geograph)' ; and from Mc- 
 CuUoch's Dictionary of Geography. 
 
49 
 
 twenty cents sufficed to maintain the Government, the admin- 
 istration of justice, our relations with foreign nations, the 
 Hght-houses which shed their cheerful signals over the rough 
 waves which beat upon our long and indented coast, from the 
 Bay of Fundy to the mouth of the Mississippi. Let us ob- 
 serve the relative expenditures of the United States, in the 
 scale of the nations, for military preparations, in time of 
 Peace, exclusive of payments on account of the debts. 
 These expenditures are in proportion to the whole expendi- 
 ture of Government ; 
 
 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 ! * 
 To these superfluous expenditures of the Federal Govern- 
 ment, are to be added the still larger and equally superfluous 
 expenses of the militia throughout the country, which have 
 been placed at ^50,000,000 a year ! f 
 
 By a table J of the expenditures of the United States, ex- 
 clusive of payments on account of the Public Debt, it 
 appears, that, in the fifty-three years from the formation of our 
 present Government, in 1789 down to 1843, there have been 
 ^'246,620,055 spent for civil purposes, comprehending the ex- 
 penses of the executive, the legislative, the judiciary, the post 
 office, light houses, and intercourse with foreign governments. 
 During this same period there have been ^'368,526,594 
 devoted to the military establishment, and ^170,437,684 
 to the naval establishment ; the two, forming an aggregate 
 of ^'538,964,278. Deducting from this sum the appropria- 
 tions during three years of war, and we shall find that more 
 than four hundred millions were absorbed by vain prepara- 
 tions in time of peace for war. Add to this amount a mod- 
 erate sum for the expenses of the militia during the same 
 period, which a candid and able writer places at present at 
 $50,000,000 a year; for the past years we may take an 
 average of .'^25,000,000, and we shall have the enormous 
 sum of $'1,335,000,000 to be added to the $400,000,000; 
 the whole amounting to seventeen hundred and thirty-Jive 
 
 * [ have verified these results by the tables of expenditures of these different 
 nations, but I do little more than follow Mr. Jay, who has illustrated this impor- 
 tant point with his accustomed accuracy. Address, p. 30. 
 
 t Jay's Peace and War, p. 13. :j: American Almanac for 1845, page 143. 
 
 5 
 
50 
 
 millions of dollars, a sum beyond the conception of human 
 faculties, sunk under the sanction of the Government of the 
 United States in mere peaceful preparations for war ; more 
 than seven times as much as was dedicated by the Govern- 
 ment, during the same period, to all other purposes whatsoever. 
 
 From this serried array of figures the mind instinctively 
 retreats. If we examine them from a nearer point of view, 
 and, selecting some particular part, compare it with the fig- 
 ures representing other interests in the community they will 
 present a front still more dread. 
 
 Within a short distance of this city stands an institution of 
 learning, which was one of the earliest cares of the early 
 forefathers of the country, the conscientious Puritans. Fa- 
 vored child of 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 paternal arm of the Commonwealth, 
 by a constant succession of munificent bequests, and by the 
 prayers of all good men, the University at Cambridge now 
 invites our homage as the most ancient, the most interesting 
 and the most important seat of learning in the land ; possess- 
 ing the oldest and most valuable library, one of the largest 
 museums of mineralogy and natural history, — 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 ])rofessors whose names have 
 become a\nong the most valuable possessions of the land * — 
 a School of Divinity, the nurse of true learning and piety — 
 one of the largest and most flourishing Schools of Medicine 
 in the country — ^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 bis uncon(|uerable energies and 
 his masculine eloquence, at a later period, by the unsur- 
 passed ability with which he administered the aflairs of our 
 city, now, in a green old age, full of years and honors, pre- 
 paring to lay down his present high trust. f Such is Harvard 
 
 * Mr. Justice Story, whose various juridical writings have caused liim to be 
 hailed, in foreiijn lands, among the firpt jurists of the age ; and Professor Green- 
 leaf, whoso classic work on the Law of Kvidence has already become an author- 
 ity on both sides of the Atlantic. 
 
 t Hon. Josiah Qiiincy, 
 
51 
 
 University ; and as one of the humblest of her childrenj 
 happy in the recollection of a youth nurtured in her classic 
 retreats, I cannot allude to her without an expression of filial 
 affection and respect. 
 
 It appears from the last Report of the Treasurer,* that 
 the whole available property of the University, the v^arious 
 accumulations of more than two centuries of generosity, 
 amounts to ,f 703,175. 
 
 t 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 for .^'547,888; repaired only two years after- 
 wards m 1838, for J^'223,012; with an armament which has 
 cost ^53,945; making an amount of ,^834,845,f as the 
 actual cost at this moment of that single ship ; more than 
 ^'100,000 beyond all the available accumulations 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 knowledge and 
 truth, or that which contains the carrion death. 
 
 Let us pursue the comparison still further. The account 
 of 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 Divin- 
 ity, amoujjis tu ^45,949. The cost of ilie Oliio for one 
 year in service, in salaries, wages and provisions, is !^* 220,000 ; 
 being ,^'175,000 more than the annual expenditures of 
 the University ; more than four times as much. In other 
 words, for the annual sum which is lavished on one ship of 
 the line, four Institutions, like Harvard University, might be 
 sustained throughout the country ! 
 
 Still further let us pursue the comparison. The pay of 
 the Captain of a ship like the Ohio, is ,^4,500, when in ser- 
 vice ; ^3,500, when on leave of absence, or off duty. The 
 salary of the President of the Harvard University is ^* 2,205 ; 
 without leave of absence, and never being, off duty ! 
 
 If the large endowments of Harvard L^niversity are dwarfed 
 by a comparison with the expense of a single ship of the 
 line, how much more must it be so with those of other insti- 
 tutions of learning and beneficence, less favored by the 
 
 * Hon. S. A. Eliot's Report in 1844. 
 
 t Document, No. 132, House of Representatives, 3d session, 27th Congress. 
 Reference is here made to the Ohio, because she happens to be in our waters. 
 The expense of the Delaware in 1342 had been ,jj' 1,05 1,000. 
 
52 
 
 bounty of many generations. The average cost of a sloop 
 of war is ,^'315,000 ; more, probably, than all the endow- 
 ments 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 ingen- 
 uous youth, the Seminary at Andover. The yearly cost of 
 a sloop of war in service is above .'fj? 50,000 ; more than the 
 annual expenditures of these three Institutions combined. 
 
 I might press the comparison with other Institutions of be- 
 neficence ; with the annual expenditures for the Blind — that 
 noble and successful charity, which has shed true lustre upon 
 our Commonwealth — amounting to ,^'12,000 ; and the annual 
 expenditures for the Insane of the Commonwealth, another 
 charity dear to humanity, amounting to ^'27,844. 
 
 Take all the Institutions of learning and beneficence, the 
 precious jewels of the Commonwealth, the schools, colleges, 
 hospitals and 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 Massa- 
 chusetts in vain preparations for war. There is the Navy 
 Yard at Charlestown, with its stores on hand, all costing 
 ^'4,741,000; the fortifications in the harbors of Massachu- 
 setts, in which have been sunk already incalculable sums, 
 
 and in which it is nuw piupuscti lu sink .'||<0,0C»0,OOO inuie , * 
 
 and besides, the Arsenal at Springfield, containing in 1842, 
 175,118 muskets, valued at ^2,999,998,1 and which is fed 
 by an annual appropriation of about .'l 200,000 ; but whose 
 highest value will ever be, in the judgment of all lovers of 
 truth, that it inspired a poem, which, in its influence shall be 
 mightier than a battle, and shall endure when arsenals and 
 fortifications have crumbled to the earth.J 
 
 Look for one moment at a high and peculiar interest of 
 
 * Document; Report of Secretary of War; No. 2. Senate, 27th Congress, 
 2nd sf'ssion; where it is proposed to invest in a system of land defences 
 g31,G77,9'2y. 
 
 t Exec. Documents of 1842-43, Vol. I. No. 3. 
 
 I From Mr. Longfellow's " Arsenal at Springtiold" I extract two stanzas, wliich, 
 in poetical exiiression, are the least attractive of any in the poem, but which 
 commend themselves by their intrinsic truth and moral force; 
 
 Were half the power ihatfill.-i llie world wiih terror. 
 Were half the wealth, bestowed oiicampji and Courts, 
 
 Given lo redeem the liiirnaM mind from error, 
 There were no need of arsenals and forts. 
 
 The warrior's name would be a name abhorred ! 
 
 And every nation that shoiiUl liflat'ain 
 Its hand agiiin.sl its brother, on its forehead 
 
 Would wear for evermore the curse t.f Cam! 
 
53 
 
 the nation, the administration of justice. Perhaps no part 
 of our system is regarded with more pride and confidence by 
 the enhghtened sense of the country. To this, indeed, all the 
 other concerns of Government, all its complications of 
 machinery, are in a manner subordinate, since it is for the 
 sake of justice that men come together in states and estab- 
 lish laws. What part of the Government can compare in 
 importance, with the Federal Judiciary, that great balance 
 wheel of the Constitution, controlling the relations of the 
 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 judicial labors of Marshall, 
 now departed, and in the immortal judgments of Story, who 
 is still spared to us, — serus in cceJum redeat — a higher claim 
 to admiration and gratitude than can be found in any triumph 
 of battle. The expenses of the administration of Justice, 
 throughout the United States, under the Federal Government, 
 in 1842, embracing the salaries of the judges, the cost of 
 juries, court-houses and all officers thereof, in short all the 
 outlay by which Justice, according to the requirements 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 demands of 
 the army and navy ! 
 
 Let me allude to one more curiosity of waste. It appears, 
 by a calculation founded on the expenses of the Navy, that 
 the average cost of each gun, carried, over the ocean, for 
 one year, amounts to about fifteen thousand dollars ; * a sum 
 sufficient to sustain ten professors of Colleges, and equal to 
 the salaries of all the judges of the Supreme Court of 
 Massachusetts and the Governor combined ! 
 
 Such are a few brief illustrations of the tax which the 
 nations of the world, and particularly our own country, 
 impose on the people, in time of profound peace, for no pur- 
 pose of good, but only in obedience to the spirit of war. As we 
 wearily climb, in this survey, from expenditure to expenditure, 
 from waste to waste, we seem to pass beyond the region of or- 
 dinary calculation ; Alps on Alps arise, on whose crowning 
 heights of everlasting ice, far above the habitations of man, 
 where no green thing lives, where no creature draws its breath, 
 we behold the cold, sharp, flashing glacier of War. 
 
 * Mr. Coues' tract, What is the use of the Navy of the United States? 
 5* 
 
54 
 
 In the contemplation of this spectacle the soul swells with 
 alternate despair and hope ; with despair, at the thought of 
 such wealth, capable of rendering such service to humanity, 
 not merely wasted but given to perpetuate hate ; with hope, 
 as the blessed vision arises of the devotion of all these incal- 
 culable means to the purposes of peace. The whole world 
 labors at this moment with poverty and distress ; and the 
 painful question occurs to every observer, in Europe as well 
 as at home, — what shall become of the poor, — the increasing 
 standing army of the poor. Could the humble voice that 
 now addresses you penetrate those distant counsels, or coun- 
 sels nearer home, it would say, disband your standing armies 
 of soldiers ; abandon your fortifications and arsenals, or dedi- 
 cate them to works of beneficence, as the statue of Jupiter 
 Capitolinus was changed to the image of a Christian saint ; 
 apply your navy to purposes of commerce ; in fine, utterly 
 forsake the present incongruous system of armed peace ! 
 
 That I may not seem to press to this conclusion with too 
 much haste, at least as regards our own country, I shall con- 
 sider briefly, as becomes the occasion, the asserted usefulness 
 of the national defences which it is proposed to abandon. 
 -^- What is the use of the Standing Army of the United 
 ' States ? It has been a principle of freedom, during many 
 generations, to avoid a standing army ; and one of the com- 
 plaints in the Declaration of Independence was that George 
 III had quartered large bodies of troops in the colonies'. For 
 the first few years, after the adoption of the Federal Consti- 
 tution, during our 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 deemed ample for tiie military establishment of the 
 United States. It was only when the country, at a later day, 
 had been touched by the insanity of war, that it surrendered 
 to mihtary prejudices, and, abandoning the true economy of 
 a Republic, cultivated a military spirit, and lavished the 
 means, which it begrudged to the purposes of Peace, in vain 
 preparation for War. It may now be said of the army of 
 the United States, as Dunning said of the prerogatives of 
 the crown,' it has increased, is increasing, and ought to be 
 diminished." At this moment there are more than fifty -five 
 military posts in the country. Of what use is the detach- 
 ment of the second regiment of Artillery in the quiet town 
 of New London in Connecticut ? Of what use is the de- 
 
55 
 
 tachment of the first regiment of Artillery in that pleasant 
 resort of fashion, Newport? No person, who has not lost 
 all sensibilitypto the dignity of human nature, can observe, 
 without mortification, the discipline, the drilling, the marching 
 and countermarching, the putting guns to the shoulder and 
 the dropping them to the earth, which fill the lives of the 
 poor soldiers, and prepare them to become the mere inani- 
 mate parts of a mere machine, to which the great living 
 master of the art of war has likened an army. And this 
 sensibility must be much more offended when he beholds a 
 number of the ingenuous youth of the country, under the 
 auspices of the Government, amidst the bewitching scenery 
 of West Point, trained to these same farcical and humiliating 
 exercises.* It is time that the people should declare the 
 army to be an utterly useless branch of the public service ; 
 but not merely useless, also a seminary of idleness and vice, 
 breeding manners uncongenial with our institutions, shortening 
 the lives of those whom it enlists, and maintained at an ex- 
 pense, as we have already seen, which far surpasses all that 
 is bestowed on all the civil purposes of the Government. 
 
 But I hear the voice of some defender of this abuse, some 
 upholder of this "rotten borough" of our Constitution, 
 crying,''the army is needed for the defence of the country !»'' 
 As well might you say, that the shadow is needed for the 
 defence of the body ; for what is the army of the United 
 States but the feeble shadow of the power of the American 
 people ! In placing the army on its present footing, so small 
 in numbers compared with the forces of the great European 
 States, our Government has tacitly admitted its superfluous- 
 ness as a means of defence. Moreover, there is one plea for 
 standing a mies in Europe which cannot prevail here. They 
 are supposed to be needed by Governments, which do not 
 proceed from the popular voice, to sustain their power. 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 the Government springs from the hearts of 
 the people, and needs no janizaries for its support. It only 
 remains to declare distinctly that the country will repose, in 
 the consciousness of rightj without the wasteful excess of 
 supporting soldiers, lazy consumers of the fruits of the earth, 
 
 * The amount appropriated by Congress for the Institution of West Point, 
 since its establishment, is ^4,002,901 15. 
 
56 
 
 who might do the State good service in the various depart- 
 ments of useful industry. 
 
 ■ " What is the use of the Navy of the United States 1 The 
 annual expense of our Navy for several years past has been 
 upwards of six millions of dollars. For what purpose is 
 this paid ? Not for the apprehension of pirates ; for frigates 
 and ships of the line are of too great bulk to be of service 
 for this purpose. 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 pro- 
 tect our coasts ; for all agree that our few ships would form 
 an unavailing defence against any serious attack. Not for 
 these purposes all will admit ; hut for the protection of our 
 Navigation. This is not the occasion for minute calcula- 
 tions. Suffice it to say, that an intelligent merchant, who 
 has been 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, 
 that the annual amount of the freights of the whole mercan- 
 tile marine of the country does not equal the annual expen- 
 diture of the Navy of the United States.* Protection at 
 such cost is more ruinous than one of Pyrrhus' victories ! 
 
 In objecting to the Navy, I wish to limit myself to the 
 Navy as an asserted arm of national defence. So far as it 
 may be necessary, as a part of the police of the seas, to 
 purge them of pirates, and above all, to defeat the hateful 
 traffic in human flesh, it is a proper arm of government. 
 The free cities of Hamburgh and Bremen, survivors of the 
 great Hanseatic League, with a commerce that whitens the 
 most distant seas, are without a jingle ship of war. Let the 
 United States be willing to follow their wise example, and 
 abandon an institution which has already become a vain and 
 most expensive toy ! ^^ 
 
 ^ Wliat is the use of the fortif cations of the United States 1 
 We have already seen the enormous sums which have been 
 locked in the dead hands, in the odious mortmain, of their 
 everlasting masonryy This is in the hope of saving the 
 courjtry thereby from the horrors of conquest and bloodshed. 
 And here let me meet this /Suggestion with frankness and 
 
 *1 refer to Mr. Coues' tract, " VVhi is ^e use of the JNavy of the United 
 States ? " which has already produced^^fong effect on many minds, the natural 
 consequence of its unanswerable argujamts and statements. No person should 
 undertake to vindicate the Navy, or amctren appropriations for its support, with- 
 out answering this tract. r \ 
 
 
57 
 
 distinctness. I will not repeat what has. been set forth in an 
 eai4ier part of my remarksy the considerations showing that 
 in our age, no war of strict self-defence can possibly arise, 
 no war which can be supported by the consciences of those 
 even who disclaim the highest standard of the gospel ; but 
 I will suppose the case of a war, unjust and unchristian it 
 must be, between our country and one of the great powers 
 of Europe. In such a war, what would be the effect of the 
 fortifications ? Clearly to invite the attack, which they 
 would in all probability be inadequate to defeat. It is a rule 
 now recognized even in the barbarous code of war, one 
 branch of which has been illustrated with admirable ability 
 in the diplomatic correspondence of Mr. Webster, that non- 
 combatants shall not, in any way, be molested, and that the 
 property of private persons shall in all cases lie held sacred. 
 So firmly did the Duke of Wellington act upon this rule, that 
 throughout the murderous campaigns of Spain, and afterwards 
 when he entered France, flushed with the victory of Water- 
 loo, he directed that his army should pay for all provisions, 
 and even for the forage of their horses. The war is carried 
 on against public property, — against fortifications, navy-yards 
 and arsenals. But if these do not exist, there can be no 
 aliment, no fuel fur the flame. Every new fortification and 
 ever)' adduiuaal gun in uui liarburSis, llierefure, nui a safe- 
 guard, but a source of danger to our city. Better throw them 
 in the sea, than madly allow them to draw to our homes the 
 lightning of battle, without, alas, any conductor to hurry its 
 terrors innocently beneath the concealing bosom of the earth ! 
 What is the use of the Militia of the United States? 
 This immense system spreads, with more than a hundred 
 arms, over the whole country, sucking its best life-blood, the 
 unbought energies of the youth. The same farcical discipline, 
 shouldering arms and carrying arms, which we have observed 
 in the soldier, absorbs their time, though, of course, to a 
 much less degree than in the regular army. We read with 
 astonishment of the painted flesh, and uncouth vestments of 
 our progenitors, the ancient Britons. The generation will 
 soon come that will regard with equal wonder the pictures of 
 their ancestors, closely dressed in padded and well-buttoned 
 coats of blue, " besmeared with gold," surmounted by a huge 
 mountain-cap of shaggy bear-skin, and with a barbarous 
 device, typical of brute force, a tiger, painted on oil-skin, 
 tied with leather to their backs ! In the streets of Pisa, the 
 
58 
 
 galley-slaves are compelled to wear dresses stamped with the 
 name of the crime for which they are suffering punishment ; 
 as theft, robbery, murder. It is not a little strange, that 
 Christians, living in a land " where bells have tolled to 
 church," should voluntarily adopt devices which, if they have 
 any meaning, recognize the example of beasts as worthy of 
 imitation by man.* The general considerations which belong 
 to the subject of preparations for war will illustrate the inanity 
 of the militia for purposes of national defence. I do not 
 know, indeed, that it is now strongly advocated on this 
 ground. It is most often spoken of as an important part of 
 the police of the country. I would not undervalue the 
 blessings to be derived from an active, efficient, ever-wakeful 
 police ; and I believe that such a police has been long 
 required in our country. But the militia, composed of youth 
 of undoubted character, though of untried courage, is clearly 
 inadequate for this purpose. No person, who has seen them 
 in an actual riot, can hesitate in this judgment.f A very 
 
 * It is a curious illustration of the low standard of conduct to which men and 
 nations have appealed, that they have chosen emblems and armorial bearings from 
 beasts and birds of prey. The lion is rampant on the flag of England ; the leopard 
 on that of Scotland; a double-headed eagle spreads its wings on the imperial 
 standard of Austria. After exhausting ihe known kingdom of nature, the [jenmnis 
 of knights, like the knapsacks of our militia, were disfigured by imaginary and 
 
 impUS^iblc ir>->iijtcra, giimila, hlppogilffo, unioovno, all into.iJod to i-opi-coor»t tho 
 
 excess of brute force. Froissart records as a miracle, that a dove once rested in 
 its flight on the royal banner of France The people of Massachusetts have 
 unconsciously adopted the same degrading standard. In the escutcheon which 
 is used as the seal of the State, there is a most unfortunate combination of dis- 
 agreeable and unworthy suggestions. On that part which, in the language of 
 heraldry, is termed the shield, is placed an Indian, with a bow in his hand ; cer- 
 tainly no agreeable memento, except to those who find honor in the disgraceful 
 wars' in which our fathers robbed and murdered King Philip, of Pokanokct, and 
 his tribe, the rightful possessors of the soil. The crest is a raised arm, holding, 
 in a threatening attitude, a drawn sabre ; being precisely the emblem which is 
 borne on the flag of Algiers! The scroll, or legend, consists of the last of those 
 two lines, in bad Latin, from an unknown source, wliich we first encounter, as 
 they were inscribed by Algernon Sydney, in the Album at the University of 
 Copenhagen, in Denmark : 
 
 Manus hffic inimica tyrannis, 
 Eiise petit p/acidam sufj libertate quielini. 
 
 The Legislature of Massachusetts has adopted, with singular unanimity, resolu- 
 tions expressing its earnest desire for the establishment of a General Convention, 
 or Congress of A'ations, to adjudge questions between nations, and thus supersede 
 the imagined necessity of war. VVould it not be an act of moral dignity, becoming 
 the character which it vaunts before the world, to adopt a new seal ; at least to 
 erase that Algerine emblem, fit only for Corsairs, and those words of barbarous 
 Latin, which can awaken only the idea of ignorance, and brute force. If a Latin 
 motto be needed, it might be those words of Virgil, " Pacisqiie iinponere mo- 
 rem;" or that sentence of noble truth from Cicero, " Sine sumima justitia 
 rempublicam geri nuUo modo posse.'' De Republ. Lib. FI. Cap. 44, 
 
 t The riot in Broad Street, in 1837, is often invoked by the devotees of the 
 militia (for it has devotees!) as an instance of the important aid derived from this 
 arm of the police. It will not be denied, however, that an apparatus much less 
 costly would have sufliced for the purpose. 1 hope I shall be pardoned if I ven- 
 
59 
 
 small portion of the means which are absorbed by the mihtia, 
 would provide a police that should be competent to all the/ 
 emergences of domestic disorder and violence. — ^ 
 
 The City of Boston has long been convinced of the inex- ^ 
 pediency of a Fire Department composed of mere volunteers. 
 It is to be hoped that a similar conviction may pervade the 
 country with regard to the police. I am well aware, however, 
 that efforts to abolish the militia system will be encountered 
 by some of the dearest prejudices of the common mind ; not 
 only by the war spirit ; but by that other spirit, which first 
 animates childhood, and at a later day, "children of a larger 
 growth," inviting to finery of dress and parade, — the same ^ 
 spirit which fantastically bedecks the dusky feather-cinctured ^ 
 chiefs of the soft regions warmed by the tropical sun ; which 
 inserts rings in the noses of the North American Indians ; 
 which slits the ears of the Australian savages; and tattoes 
 the New Zealand cannibals. — ,,, 
 
 Such is a review of the true character and value of the N. 
 national defences of the United States ! It will be observed ) 
 that I have thus far regarded them in the plainest light of 
 ordinary worldly economy, without reference to those higher 
 considerations, founded on the history and nature of man, and 
 the truths of Christianity, which pronounce them to be vain. 
 It is grateful to know, that though they may yet have the 
 support of what Jeremy Taylor calls the " popular noises," 
 still the more economical, more humane, more wise, more 
 Christian system is daily commending itself to wide circles 
 of the good people of the land. All the virtues that truly 
 elevate a state are on its side. Economy, sick of the pigmy 
 efforts to staunch the smallest fountains and rills of exuberant 
 expenditure, pleads that here is an endless, boundless river, 
 an Amazon of waste, rolling its turbid, unhealthy waters 
 vainly to the sea. It chides us with an unnatural inconsis- 
 tency when we strain at a little twine and red tape, and 
 swallow the monstrous cables and armaments of war. Hu- 
 manity pleads for the poor from whom such mighty means 
 are withdrawn. Wisdom frowns on these preparations as 
 calculated to nurse sentiments inconsistent with Peace. 
 
 ture to correct a misapprehension which has extensively prevailed with regard to 
 the services of the militia on that occasion. I had been on the ground, and in 
 the very houses the scene of the riot, for an hour previous to the appearance of 
 the miliiia, and am able to state distinctly, that before tliis arm of the police was 
 discerned in the street moving along "by blore of trump, and thump of drum," 
 the riot had ceased. A small number of intelligent, fearless and unarmed men 
 could have quelled it at a much earlier moment. 
 
60 
 
 Christianity calmly rebukes the spirit in which they have 
 their origin, as being of little faith, and treacherous to her 
 high behests ; while History shows the sure progress of man, 
 like the lion in Paradise still " pawing to get free his hinder 
 parts," but certain, if he be true to his nature, to emancipate 
 himself from the restraints of earth. 
 
 The sentiment, that' in time of peace we must prepare for 
 war^ has been transmitted from distant ages when brute force 
 prevailed. It is the terrible inheritance, the damnosa hcere- 
 ditas, which painfully reminds the people of our day of their 
 relations with the Past. It belongs to the rejected dogmas 
 of barbarism. It is the companion of those harsh rules of 
 tyranny by which the happiness of the many has been offered 
 up to the propensities of the few. It is the child of suspi- 
 cion and the forerunner of violence. Having in its favor the 
 almost uninterrupted usage of the world, it possesses a hold 
 on the common mind, which is not easily unloosed. And 
 yet the conscientious soul cannot fail, on careful observation, 
 to detect its most mischievous fallacy — a fallacy the most 
 costly the world has witnessed, and which dooms nations to 
 annual tributes in comparison with which all that have been 
 extorted by conquests are as the widow's mite by the side of 
 Pharisaical contributions. So true is what Rousseau said, 
 and Guizot has since repeated, " that a bad principle is far 
 worse than a bad fact ; " for the operations of the one are 
 finite, while those of the other are infinite. 
 
 I speak of this jirinciple with earnestness ; for I believe it 
 to be erroneous and fiilse, founded in ignorance and barbarism, 
 unworthy of an age of light, and disgraceful to Christians. 
 I have called it a principle ; but it is a mere prejudice — sus- 
 tained by human example only, and not by lofty truth — in 
 obeying which we imitate the early mariners, who steered from 
 headland to headland and hugged the shore, unwilling to 
 venture upon the broad ocean, where their guide should be 
 the luminaries of Heaven. 
 /""' Dismissing from our minds, the actual usage of nations on 
 / the one side, and the considerations of economy on the 
 / other, and regarding preparations for war in time of peace 
 / in the clear light of reason, in a just appreciation of the 
 nature of man, and in the injunctions of the highest truth, and 
 they cannot fail to be branded as most pernicious. They 
 are pernicious on two grounds; first, because they inflame 
 the people, who make them, exciting them to deeds of vio- 
 
61 
 
 lence which otherwise would be most alien to their minds ; 
 and second, because having their origin in the low motive of 
 distrust and hate, they inevitably, by a sure law of the hu- 
 man mind, excite a corresponding feeling in other nations. 
 Thus they are in fact not the preservers of peace, but the 
 provoJcers of war. 
 
 In illustration of the frst of these grounds, it will occur to 
 every inquirer, that the possession of power is always in itself 
 dangerous, that it tempts the purest and highest natures to 
 self-indulgence, that it can rarely be enjoyed without abuse ; 
 nor is the power to employ force in war, or otherwise, an 
 exception to this law. History teaches that the nations 
 possessing the greatest military forces, have always been the 
 most belligerent ; while the feebler powers have enjoyed, for 
 a longer period, the blessings of Peace. The din of war 
 resounds throughout more than seven hundred years of 
 Roman history, with only two short lulls of repose ; while 
 smaller states, less potent in arms, and without the excite- 
 ment to quarrels on this account, have enjoyed long eras of 
 Peace. It is not in the history of nations only, that we tind 
 proofs of this law. Like every great moral principle, it applies 
 equally to individuals. The experience of private life, in 
 all ages, confirms it. The wearing of arms has always been 
 a provocative to combat. It has excited the spirit and fur- 
 nished the implements of strife. As we revert to the progress 
 of society in modern Europe, we find that the odious system 
 of private quarrels, of hostile meetings even in the street, 
 continued so long as men persevered in the habit of wearing 
 arms. Innumerable families were thinned by deaih received 
 in these hasty and often unpremeditated encounters ; and the 
 lives of scholars and poets were often exposed to their rude 
 chances. Marlowe, " with all his rare learning and wit," per- 
 ished ignominiously under the weapon of an unknown adver- 
 sary ; and Savage, whose genius and misfortune inspired the 
 friendship and the eulogies of Johnson, was tried for murder 
 committed in a sudden broil. " The expert swordsman," 
 says Mr. Jay,* " the practised marksman, is ever more ready 
 to engage in personal combats, than the man who is unaccus- 
 tomed to the use of deadly weapons. In those portions of 
 our country where it is supposed essential to personal safety 
 to go armed with pistols and bowie-knives, mortal affrays 
 are so frequent as to excite but little attention, and to secure, 
 
 * Address before the American Peace Society, pp. 23 24. 
 6 
 
62 
 
 with rare exceptions, impunity to the murderer ; whereas, at 
 the North and East, where we are unprovided with such 
 facihties for taking hfe, comparatively few murders of the 
 kind are perpetrated. We might, indeed, safely submit the 
 decision of the principle we are discussing to the calculations 
 of pecuniary interest. Let two men, equal in age and 
 health, apply for an insurance on their lives ; one known to 
 be ever armed to defend his honor and his life against every 
 assailant ; and the other a meek, unresisting Quaker. Can 
 we doubt for a moment which of these men would be 
 deemed by the Insurance Company most likely to reach a 
 good old age ? " 
 
 The second of these grounds is a part of the unalterable 
 nature of man, which was recognized in early ages, though 
 unhappily it has been rarely made the basis of intercourse 
 among nations. It is an expansion of the old Horatlan adage, 
 Si vis me jlere, dolendum est j)rimwn ij)si tihi ; if you wish 
 me to weep, you must yourself first weep. So are we all 
 knit together that the feelings in our own bosom awaken cor- 
 responding feelings in the bosoms of others ; as harp answers 
 to harp in its softest vibrations ; as deep responds to deep in 
 the might of its passions. What within us is good invites 
 the good in our brother ; generosity begets generosity ; love 
 wins love ; Peace secures Peace ; while all within us that is 
 bad challenges the bad in our brother ; distrust engenders 
 distrust ; hate provokes hate ; War arouses War. Life is 
 full of illustrations of this beautiful law. Even the miserable 
 maniac, in whose mind the common rules of conduct are 
 overthrown, confesses its overruling power, and the vacant 
 stare of madness may be illumined by a word of love. The 
 wild beasts confess it ; and what is the interesting story of Or- 
 pheus, whose music drew in listening rapture the lions and pan- 
 thers of the forest, but an expression of this prevailing law ? * 
 
 Literature abounds in illustrations of this principle. Look- 
 ing back to the early dawn of the world, one of the most 
 touching scenes which we behold, illumined by that Auroral 
 light, is the peaceful visit of the aged Priam to the tent of 
 
 * There is a striking illustration of this law in the incident recorded by Homer 
 in the Odyssey (XIV. 30, 31), where Ulysses, on reachinjj his loved Ithaca, is 
 beset by doj:s, who are described as wild beasts in ferocity, and who barking 
 rushed towards him 5 but he, with craft, (thu is the word of Homer) seats him- 
 self upon the earth, and lets his staff fall from 1m hands ; thus in unarmed repose 
 finding protection. A similar incident is noticci' bv Mr. Mure in his entertaining 
 travels in Greece ; and also by Mr. Borrow in hi^ liihU' in Spain. Pliny remarks 
 that all dogs may be appeased in the same way. 'lHi|)etus eorum, et SEvitia miti- 
 gantur ab homine considente humi, Nat. Hist. Lib. VIII. cap. 40. 
 
63 
 
 Achilles to entreat the body of his son. The fierce combat 
 has ended in the death of Hector, whose unhonored corse 
 the bloody Greek has already trailed behind his chariot. The 
 venerable father, after twelve days of grief, is moved to 
 efforts to regain the remains of the Hector he had so dearly 
 loved. He leaves his lofty cedarn chamber, and with a 
 single aged attendant, unarmed, repairs to the Grecian camp, 
 by the side of the distant sounding sea. Entering alone, he 
 finds Achilles within his tent ; in the company of two of his 
 chiefs. He grasps his knees, and kisses those terrible homi- 
 cidal hands, which had taken the life of his son. The heart 
 of "rfie inflexible, the angry, the inflamed Achilles is touched 
 by the sight which he beholds, and responds to the feelings 
 of Priam. He takes the suppliant by the hand, seats him 
 by his side, consoles his grief, refreshes his weary body, and 
 concedes to the prayers of a weak, unarmed old man, what 
 all Troy in arms could not win.* In this scene the poet, 
 with unconscious power, has presented a picture of the om- 
 nipotence of that law of our nature, making all mankind of 
 kin, in obedience to which no word of kindness, no act of 
 confidence, falls idly to the earth. 
 
 Among the legendary passages of Roman history, perhaps 
 none makes a deeper impression, than that scene, after the 
 Roman youth had been consumed at Allia, and the invading 
 Gauls under Brennus had entered the city, where we behold 
 the venerable Senators of the Republic, too old to flee, and 
 careless of surviving the Roman name, seated each on his 
 curule chair, in a temple, unarmed, looking, as Livy says, 
 more august than mortal, and with the majesty of the gods. 
 The Gauls gaze on them as upon sacred images, and the 
 hand of slaughter, which had raged through the streets of 
 Rome, is stayed by the sight of ah assembly of unarmed old 
 men. At length a Gaul approaches and gently strokes with 
 his hands the silver beard of a Senator, who, indignant at the 
 license, smites the barbarian with his ivory staff; which was 
 the signal for general vengeance. Think you, that a band of 
 savages could have slain these Senators, if the appeal to , 
 force had not first been made by one of their own number !;t^- 
 
 * This scene fills a large part of a book of the Iliad. (XXIV.) It is instructive 
 to all, who would know what commends itself most truly to the heart of 
 man, what is most truly grand, to observe that the passages of Homer which 
 receive the most unquestioned admiration are— not the bloody combats even of 
 the bravest chiefs, even of the gods themselves— but those two passages in which 
 he has painted the gentle, unwarlike affections of our nature ; the partmg of 
 Hector and Andromache, and the supplication of Priam^'' 
 
 t This story is recounted by Livy, Lib. V. Cap. 4,2; also by -Plutarch in his 
 life of Camillas. It is properly repudiated by Niebuhr as a legend ; but is none 
 
64 
 
 Following this sentiment in the literature of modern times 
 we find its pervading presence. I will not dwell on the 
 examples which arise to the mind.* I will allude only to 
 that scene in Swedish poetry, where Friihiof, in deadly com- 
 bat with Atle, when the falchion of the latter broke, said, 
 throwing away his own weapon ; — 
 
 Swordless foeman"s life 
 
 ]Ve'er dyed this gallant blade. 
 
 The two champions now closed in mutual clutch ; they hugged 
 like bears, says the Poet ; 
 
 'Tis O'er; for Frithiof's matchless strength 
 
 Has felled his ponderous size ; 
 And 'iieath that knee, at giant length, 
 
 Supine the Viking lies. 
 " But fails my sword, thou Berserk swart ! " 
 
 The voice rang far and wide, 
 " Its point should pierce thy inmost heart, 
 
 Its hilt should drink the tide." 
 " Be free to lift the weaponed hand," 
 
 Undaunted Atle spoke, 
 Hence, fearless, quest thy distant brand ! 
 
 Thus 1 abide the stroke." 
 
 Frithiof regains his sword, intent to close the dread debate, 
 while his adversary awaits the stroke ; but his heart responds 
 to the generous courage of his foe ; he cannot injure one 
 who has shown such confidence in him ; — 
 
 This quelled his ire, this checked his arm, 
 Outstretched the hand of peace. i 
 
 I cannot leave these illustrations without alluding particu- 
 larly to the history of the treatment of the insane, which is 
 full of deep instruction, showing how strong in nature must 
 be the principle, which leads us to respond to the conduct 
 and feelings of others. When Pinel first proposed to remove 
 the heavy chains from the raving maniacs of the hospitals of 
 Paris, he was regarded as one who saw visions, or dreamed 
 dreams. His wishes were gratified at last ; and the change 
 
 the less important, as an illustration of that law, which is considered in the text. 
 The heart of man confesses that the Roman Senator provoked death for himself 
 and associates. 
 
 *Guizot preserves an instance of the effect which was produced by an unarmed 
 man before a violent multitude, employing the word instead of the sword. (Gui- 
 zot, Histoire de la Civilization, Tom. II. p. oG.) Who can forget that finest scene 
 in that noble historical romance, the Promessi Sposi, where Fra Christofero, in 
 an age of violence, after slaying a comrade in a broil, in unarmed penitence, 
 seeks the presence of the family and retainers of his victim, and awakens by his 
 dignified gentleness, the admiration of those who were mad with the desire of 
 vengeance '! A popular romance, which has just left the press, and is now read 
 in both hemispheres, Le Juif Errant, by Eugene Sue, has an interesting picture, 
 at the close of the second volume, of the superiority of Christian courage over 
 the hired and trained violence of soldiers. See Appeudi.x, Note F. 
 
 tTegner's Frithiof's Sago, Canto XI. translated by Strong; Longfellow's Poets 
 and Poetry of Europe, p. IGI. 
 
65 
 
 in the conduct of his patients was immediate ; the wrinkled 
 front of evil passions was smoothed into the serene counte- 
 nance of Peace. The old treatment by force is now 
 universally abandoned ; the law of love has taken its place ; 
 and all these unfortunates mingle together, unvexed by those 
 restraints, which implied suspicion, and, therefore, aroused 
 opposition. The warring propensities, which once filled with 
 confusion and strife the hospitals for the insane while they 
 were controlled by force, are a dark but feeble type of the 
 present relations of nations, on whose hands are the heavy 
 chains of military preparations, assimilating the world to one 
 great mad-house ; while the peace and good-will which now 
 abound in these retreats, are the happy emblems of what 
 awaits the world when it shall have the wisdom to recognize 
 the supremacy of the higher sentiments of our nature ; of 
 gentleness, of confidence, of love ; 
 
 making their future might 
 
 Magnetic o'er the iixed uiitreuibling heart. 
 
 I might also dwell on the recent experience, so full of 
 delightful wisdom, in the treatment of the distant, degraded 
 convicts of New South Wales * showing the importance of 
 confidence and kindness on the part of their overseers, in 
 awakening a corresponding sentiment even in these outcasts, 
 from whose souls virtue seems, at first view, to be wholly 
 blotted out. Thus from all quarters, from the far-off past, 
 from the far-away Pacific, from the verse of the poet, from 
 the leo-end of history, from the cell of the mad-house, from 
 the assembly of transported criminals, from the experience of 
 daily life, from the universal heart of man, ascends the spon- 
 taneous tribute to the prevailing power of that law, according 
 to which the human heart responds to the feelings by which 
 it is addressed, whether of confidence or distrust, of love 
 or hate. 
 
 It will be urged that these instances are exceptions to the 
 general laws by which mankind are governed. It is not so. 
 They are the unanswerable evidence of the real nature of 
 man. They reveal the divinity of humanity, out of which 
 all goodness, all happiness, all true greatness can alone pro- 
 ceed. They disclose susceptibilities which are general, 
 which are confined to no particular race of men, to no period 
 
 * The reader is referred to the several publications of Captain Machonichie, 
 whose labors of beneficence entitle him to more than a vulgar military laurel. 
 6# 
 
66 
 
 of time, to no narrow circle of knowledge and refinement — 
 susceptibilities which are present wherever two or more 
 human beings come together. It is, then, on the impregnable 
 ground of the universal and unalterable nature of man, that 
 I place the fallacy of that prejudice, in obedience to which 
 in time of peace we prepare for war. 
 
 But this prejudice is not only founded on a misconception 
 of the nature of man ; it is abhorrent to Christianity, which 
 teaches that Love is more puissant than Force. To the 
 reflecting mind the Omnipotence of God himself is less dis- 
 cernible in the earthquake and the storm than in the gentle 
 but quickening rays of the sun, and the sweet descending 
 dews. And he is a careless observer who does not recognize 
 the superiority of gentleness and kindness, as a mode of 
 exercising influence, or securing rights among men. As the 
 winds of violence beat about them, they hug those mantles, 
 which they gladly throw to the earth under the genial warmth 
 of a kindly sun. Thus far, nations have drawn their weap- 
 ons from the earthly armories of Force, unmindful of those 
 others of celestial temper from the house of Love. 
 
 But Christianity not only teaches the superiority of Love 
 over Force ; it positively enjoins the practice of the one, and 
 the rejection of the other. It says ; " Love your neighbors ; " 
 but it does not say ; " In time of Peace rear the massive 
 fortification, build the man of war, enlist armies, train the 
 militia, and accumulate military stores to be employed in 
 future quarrels with your neighbors." Its precepts o-q still 
 further. They direct that we should do unto others as we 
 would have them da unto us — a golden rule for the conduct 
 of nations as well as individuals, called by Confucius the 
 virtue of the heart, and made by him the basis of the nine 
 maxims of Government which he presented to the sovereio'ns 
 of his country ; * but how inconsistent with that distrust of oth- 
 ers, in wrongful obedience to which nations, in time of Peace, 
 seem to sleep like soldiers on their arms. But its precepts go 
 still further. They enjoin patience, suffering, forgiveness of 
 evil, even the duty of benefiting a destroyer, " as the sandal 
 wood, in the instant of its overthrow, sheds perfume on the 
 axe which fells it." And can a people, in whom this faith 
 is more than an idle word, consent to such enormous sacri- 
 fices of money, in violation of its plainest precepts ? 
 The injunction, " Love one another," is applicable to nations 
 
 •Oeuvres de Bernardin de St. Pierre, Harmonies de la IVature,Tom. 10, p. 138. 
 
67 
 
 as well as individuals. It is one of the great laws of Heaven. 
 And any one may well measure his nearness to God by 
 the degree to which he regulates his conduct by this truth. 
 
 In response to these successive views, founded on consid- 
 erations of economy, of the true nature of man, and of 
 Christianity, I hear the skeptical note of some defender of 
 the transmitted order of things, some one who wishes " to 
 fight for Peace," saying, these views are beautiful but vis- 
 ionary ; they are in advance of the age ; the world is not 
 yet prepared for their reception. To such persons (if there 
 be such), I would say; nothing can be beautiful that is not 
 true ; but these views are true ; the time is now come for 
 their reception ; now is the day and now is the hour. Every 
 effort to impede their progress arrests the advancing hand on 
 the great dial-plate of human happiness. 
 
 The name of Washington is invoked as an authority for a 
 prejudice which Economy, Humanity and Christianity all 
 declare to be false. Mighty and reverend as is his name, 
 more mighty and more reverend is truth. The words of 
 counsel which he gave were in accordance with the spirit of 
 his age, — an age which was not shocked by the slave-trade. 
 But his lofty soul, which loved virtue, and inculcated justice 
 and benevolence, frowns upon the efforts of those who would 
 use his authority as an incentive to war. God forbid that 
 his sacred character should be profanely stretched, like the 
 skin of John Ziska, on a militia drum to arouse the martial 
 ardor of the American people ! * 
 
 * The following table of the Military and Naval Expenditures of the United 
 States, during the eight years of the administration of Washington, compared 
 with those for the last eight years, to wliicli I have had access, will show how 
 his practice accords with that of our day : 
 
 Years. 
 
 Military Establishment. 
 
 Naval Eslablishment. 
 
 $570 
 531 
 
 61,409 
 410.562 
 274,734 
 
 $847,378 
 
 3,864,939 
 5,800,763 
 6,852,060 
 5.175,771 
 6,225,003 
 6,124,445 
 6,246 503 
 7,963,678 
 
 Total during eight years, S114,2S.3,244 349,053,473 
 
 Thus it appears that the expenditures for the defences of the country, under 
 
 1789-91 
 
 $ 8.35,000 
 
 1792 
 
 1,223,594 
 
 1793 
 
 1,237,620 
 
 1794 
 
 2,7.33,540 
 
 1795 
 
 2.573,059 
 
 1796 
 
 1,474.661 
 
 Total durin? the eight years 
 
 
 of Washington, 
 
 $10,078,092 
 
 18a5 
 
 9.420,313 
 
 1836 
 
 18,466,110 
 
 1837 
 
 19,417,274 
 
 1833 
 
 19.936,412 
 
 1839 
 
 14.268,981 
 
 1840 
 
 11,621,438 
 
 1842 
 
 13 903,898 
 
 1843 
 
 8,248,918 
 
68 
 
 It is melancholy to consider the impediments which truth 
 encounters on its first appearance. A large portion of man- 
 kind, poising themselves on the flagitious fallacy, that 
 Whatever is, is right, avert their countenances from all that 
 is inconsistent with established usage. I have already, in 
 another part of this address, set forth the superiority of prin- 
 ciple to any human example ; I would here repeat that the 
 practice of nations can be no apology for a system which is 
 condemned by such principles as I have now considered. 
 Truth enters the world like a humble child, with few to 
 receive her ; it is only when she has grown in years and 
 stature, and the purple flush of youthful strength beams from 
 her face, that she is sought and wooed. It has been thus in 
 all ages. Nay, more ; there is often an irritation excited by 
 her presence ; and men who are kind and charitable forget 
 their kindness and lose their charity towards the unaccus- 
 tomed stranger. It was this feeling which awarded a dunjreon 
 to Galileo, when he declared that the earth moved round the 
 sun ; which neglected the great discovery of the circulation of 
 the blood by Harvey ; and which bitterly opposed the divine 
 philanthropy of Clarkson, when he first denounced the wick- 
 edness of the slave-trade. But the rejected truths of to-day 
 shall become the chief corner-stones to the next generation. 
 
 Auspicious omens in the history of the past and in the 
 present, cheer us for the future. The terrible wars of the 
 French Revolution were the violent rending of the body 
 which preceded the exorcism of the fiend. Since the morn- 
 ing stars first sang together, the world has not witnessed a 
 peace so harmonious and enduring as that which now blesses 
 the Christian nations. Great questions between them, 
 fraught with strife, and in another age, sure heralds of war, 
 are now determined by arbitration or mediation. Great 
 political movements, which only a few short years ago must 
 have led to forcible rebellion, are now conducted by peaceful 
 discussion. Literature, the press, and various societies, all 
 join in the holy work of inculcating good-will to man. The 
 spirit of humanity now pervades the best writings, whether 
 
 the sanction of Washington, amounted to about eleven million dollars, while those 
 during a recent similar period of eight years, stretch to upwards of one hundred 
 and sixty-four million dollam! To him who quotes the precept of Washington, 
 I commend the practice. All will agree that, in this age, when the whole world 
 is at peace, and when our power is assured, there is less need of these preparations 
 than in an age convulsed with war, when our power was little respected. The 
 only semblance of an argument in their favor is founded in the increased wealth 
 of the country; but the capacity of the country to endure taxation is no criterion 
 of its justice! 
 
69 
 
 the elevated philosophical inquiries of the Vestiges of Crea- 
 tion, the ingenious but melancholy moralizings of the Story 
 of a Feather, or the overflowing raillery o( Punch* Genius 
 can never be so Promethean as when it bears the heavenly 
 fire of love to the hearths of men. 
 
 It was Dr. Johnson, in the last age, who uttered the 
 detestable sentiment, that he liked " a good hater ; " the 
 man of this age shall say he likes " a good lover." A poet, 
 whose few verses will bear him on his immortal flight with 
 unflagging wing, has given expression to this sentiment in 
 words of uncommon pathos and power : f 
 
 He prayeth well who loveth well 
 All things, both great and small. 
 He prayeth best who loveth best 
 Both man, and bird, and beast, 
 i<"or the dear God who loveth us, 
 He made and loveth all. 
 
 Every where the ancient law of hate is yielding to the law 
 of love. It is seen in the change of dress ; the armor of 
 complete steel was the habiliment of the knight ; and the 
 sword was an indispensable companion of the gentleman of 
 the last century ; but he would be thought a madman or a 
 bully who should wear either now. It is seen in the change 
 in domestic architecture ; the places once chosen for castles 
 or houses, were in the most savage, inaccessible retreats, 
 where the massive structure was reared, destined solely to 
 repel attacks, and to enclose its inhabitants. The monaste- 
 ries and churches were fortified, and girdled by towers, 
 ramparts and ditches, and a child was often stationed as a 
 watchman ,-^not of the night, — but to observe what passed 
 at a distance, and announce the approach of the enemy ! J 
 The houses of the peaceful citizens in towns were castellated, 
 often without so much as an aperture for light near the 
 ground, and with loop-holes above, through which the shafts 
 
 * While this Oration was passing through the press, I read in one of the public 
 prints, a letter, dated Birmingham, July 3, 1845, from which I make the following 
 extract; " The Peace Question makes rapid progress in this country. I verily 
 believe that if the people were polled to-morrow, nine-tenths of them would 
 pronounce all war to be unchristian, and not a few would vote for the entire abro- 
 gation of our military and naval forces. The London Peace Society is doing 
 much to deepen and confirm this feeling, and nearly all our cheap periodicals are 
 peace-toned." The last fact is of peculiar importance; for it is in this way that 
 the hearts of the people are to be touched. The agitation in Ireland, and that 
 gigantic combination in England, the Anti Corn Law League, proceed on the 
 peace principle. " Remember," says Mr. O'Connell, in words that will be immor- 
 tal, '• that no political change is worth a single crime, or above all, a single drop 
 of human blood." 
 
 t Coleridge ; Ancient Mariner. 
 
 iCuizot, Histoire de la Civilization, Tom. III. 
 
70 
 
 of the cross-bow might be aimed,* In the system of fortifi- 
 cations and preparations for war, nations act towards each 
 other in the spirit of distrust and barbarism, which we have 
 traced in the individual, but which he has now renounced. 
 In so doing, they take counsel of the wild boar in the fable, 
 who whetted his tusks on a tree of the forest, when no enemy 
 was near, saying that in time of peace he must prepare for 
 war. But has not the time now come, when man whom 
 God created in his own image, and to whom He gave the 
 heaven-directed countenance, shall cease to look down to the 
 beasts for examples of conduct ? 
 
 We have already offered our homage to an early monarch 
 of France, for his efforts in abolishing the Trial by Battle and 
 in the cause of Peace. To another monarch of France, in 
 our own day, a descendant of St. Louis, worthy of the illus- 
 trious lineage, Louis Philippe, belongs the honest fame of 
 first publishing from the throne f the truth, that Peace was 
 endangered by preparations for War. " The sentiment, or 
 rather the principle," he says, " that in peace you must 
 prepare for war, is one of difficulty and danger ; for while 
 we keep armies on land to preserve peace, they are, at the 
 same time, incentives and instruments of war. He rejoiced 
 in all efforts to preserv^e peace, for that was what all need. 
 He thought the time was coming when we shall get rid 
 entirely of war in all civihzed countries." This time has 
 been hailed by a generous voice from the army itself, by a 
 Marshal of France, who gave as a toast at a public dinner in 
 Paris, I the following words of salutation to a new and 
 approaching era of happiness: "To the pacific union of the 
 great human family, by the association of individuals, nations 
 and races ! To the annihilation of war 1 To the transform- 
 ation of destructive armies into corps of industrious laborers, 
 who will consecrate their lives to the cultivation and embel- 
 
 *The two volumes of colored plates from the illuminations of Froissart, which 
 have been recently published, will give an accurate idea of the system of defences 
 within which private individuals sheltered themselves. For other illustrations, 
 see Appendix, Note G. 
 
 t In reply to an address by the deputation from the London Peace Convention, 
 in 1S43. 
 
 X Marshal Bugeaud, Governor of Algiers, gave this toast April 7, 1840, at one 
 of several public dinners at that time, to commemorate the character and services 
 of Fourier. How unlike this humane and noble sentiment of the Marshal of 
 France, are the braggart standing toasts at the celebrations of our National Anni- 
 versary, vaunting in swelling phrase, the glories of the army, the navy, and the 
 militia, while tiie great interests of civilization, the administration of justice, 
 education, humanity, are neglected, or only introduced, like sour olives and 
 mouldy cheese, at the end of the feast. 
 
71 
 
 lishment of the world ! " Be it our duty to speed this 
 consummation ! 
 
 To Wilham Penn belongs the distinction, destined to 
 brighten as men advance in virtue, of first, in human history, 
 establishing the Law of Love as a rule of conduct for the 
 intercourse of nations. While he recognized as a great end 
 of government, " to support power in reverence with the 
 people, and to secure the people from abuse of power,"* he 
 declined the superfluous protection of arms against foreign 
 force, and " aimed to reduce the savage nations by just and 
 gentle manners to the love of civil society and the Christian 
 religion." His serene countenance, as he stands with his 
 followers in what he called the sweet and clear air of Penn- 
 sylvania, all unarmed, beneath the spreading elm, forming 
 the great treaty of friendship with the untutored Indians, — 
 who fill with savage display the surrounding forest as far as 
 the eye can reach, — not to wrest their lands by violence, but 
 to obtain them by peaceful purchase, is, to my mind, the 
 proudest picture in the history of our country. " The great 
 God," said this illustrious Quaker, in his words of sincerity 
 and truth, addressed to the Sachems, "has written his law 
 in our hearts, by which we are taught and commanded to 
 love, and to help, and to do good to one another. It is not 
 our custom to use hostile weapons against our fellow-creatures, 
 for which reason we have come unarmed. Our object is not 
 to do injury, but to do good. We have met, then, in the 
 broad pathway of good faith and good will, so that no advan- 
 tage can be taken on either side, but all is to be openness, 
 brotherhood and love ; while all are to be treated as of the 
 same flesh and blood." f These are, indeed, words of true 
 greatness. " Without any carnal weapons," says one of his 
 companions, " we entered the land, and inhabited therein as 
 safe as if there had been thousands of garrisons." " This 
 little State," says Oldmixon, " subsisted in the midst of six 
 Indian nations, without so much as a militia for its defence." 
 A great man, worthy of the mantle of Penn, the venerable 
 philanthropist, Clarkson, in his life of the founder of Penn- 
 sylvania, says, " The Pennsylvanians became armed, though 
 without arms ; they became strong, though without strength ; 
 they became safe, without the ordinary means of safety. The 
 constable's staff was the only instrument of authority amongst 
 
 ^Preface to Penn's Constitution. t Clarkson's Life of Penn, I. cap. 18. 
 
72 
 
 them for the greater part of a century, and never, during the 
 administration of Penn, or that of his proper successors, was 
 there a quarrel or a war." * 
 
 Greater than the divinity that doth hedge a king, is the 
 divinity that encompasses the righteous man, and the right- 
 eous people. The flowers of prosperity smiled in the blessed 
 footprints of William Penn. His people were unmolested 
 and happy, while (sad, but true contrast !) those of other 
 colonies, acting upon the policy of the world, building forts, 
 and showing themselves in arms, not after receiving provoca- 
 tion, but merely in the anticipation, or from the fear, of 
 insults or danger, were harassed by perpetual alarms, and 
 pierced by the sharp arrows of savage war.f 
 
 This pattern of a Christian Commonwealth never fails to 
 arrest the admiration of all who contemplate its beauties. It 
 drew an epigram of eulogy from the caustic pen of Voltaire, 
 and has been fondly painted by many virtuous historians. 
 Every ingenuous soul in our day offers his willing tribute to 
 those celestial graces of justice and humanity, by the side of 
 which the flinty hardness of the Pilgrims of Plymouth Rock 
 seems earthly and coarse. 
 
 But let us not confine ourselves to barren words in recog- 
 nition of virtue. While we see the right, and approve it, too, 
 let us dare to pursue it. Let us now, in this age of civiliza- 
 tion, surrounded by Christian nations, be willing to follow 
 the successful example of William Penn, surrounded by 
 savages. Let us, while we recognize those transcendent 
 ordinances of God, the Laiv of Bight and the Lmv of Love, 
 — the double suns which illumine the moral universe, — 
 aspire to the true glory, and what is higher than glory, the 
 great good, of taking the lead in the disarming of the nations. 
 Let us abandon the system of preparation for war in time of 
 peace, as irrational, unchristian, vainly prodigal of expense, 
 and having a direct tendency to excite the very evil against 
 which it professes to guard. Let the enormous means thus 
 released from iron hands, be devoted to labors of beneficence. 
 Our battlements shall be schools, hospitals, colleges and 
 churches ; our arsenals shall be libraries ; our navy shall be 
 peaceful ships, on errands of perpetual commerce ; our army 
 shall be the teachers of youth, and the ministers of religion. 
 
 * Life of I'enn, II. cap. 23. 
 
 t Ample illustrations of this striking difference between the fate of the colony 
 of Pennsylvania, and its sister colonies, may be found in Clarkson, II. cap. 22. 
 
73 
 
 This is indeed, the cheap defence of nations. In such en- 
 trenchments what Christian soul can be touched with fear. 
 Angels of the Lord shall throw over the land an invisible, 
 but impenetrable panoply ; 
 
 Or if virtue feeble were 
 
 Heaven itself would stoop to her.* 
 
 At the thought of such a change in policy, the imagina- 
 tion loses itself in the vain effort to follow the various streams 
 of happiness, which gush forth as from a thousand hills. 
 Then shall the naked be clothed and the hungry fed. Insti- 
 tutions of science and learning shall crown every hill-top ; 
 hospitals for the sick, and other retreats for the unfortunate 
 children of the world, for all who suffer in any way, in 
 mind, body or estate, shall nestle in every valley ; while 
 the spires of new churches shall leap exulting to the skies. 
 The whole land shall bear witness to the change ; art shall 
 confess it in the new inspiration of the canvass and the mar- 
 ble ; the harp of the poet shall proclaim it in a loftier rhyme. 
 Above all, the heart of man shall bear witness to it, in the 
 elevation of his sentiments, in the expansion of his affections, 
 in his devotion to the highest truth, in his appreciation of 
 true greatness. The eagle of our country, without the terror 
 of his beak, and dropping the forceful thunderbolt from his 
 pounces, shall soar with the olive of Peace, into untried 
 realms of ether, nearer to the sun. 
 
 And here let us review the field over which we have 
 passed. We have beheld war, a mode of determining jus- 
 tice between nations, having its origin in an appeal, not to 
 the moral and intellectual part of man's nature, distinguishing 
 him from the beasts, but to that low part of his nature, which 
 
 * These are the concluding words of that most exquisite creation of early 
 genius the Comus. 1 have seen them in Milton's own hand-writing, inscribed 
 by himself, during his travels in Italy, as a motto, in an Album; thus showing 
 that they were regarded by him as expressing an important moral truth. The 
 truth, which is thus embalmed by the grandest poet of modern times, is also 
 illustrated, in familiar words, by the most graceful poet of antiquity. 
 
 Integer vilje sceleripque purus, 
 
 Nnn egel Maun jaculis, neque arcu, 
 
 Nee veiienalls gravida sacrlitis. 
 
 Fusee, pharetra. 
 Dryden pictures the same idea in some of his most magical lines ; 
 
 A milk-while hind, immortal and unchanged, 
 Fed on the lawns, and in the forest ranged, 
 Without unspoiled, innocent within, 
 She /eared no danger, /or she knew no sin. 
 7 
 
74 
 
 he has in common with the beasts ; we have contemplated 
 its infinite miseries to the human race ; we have weighed its 
 sufficiency as a mode of determining justice between nations, 
 and found that it is a rude appeal to force or a gigantic game 
 of chance, in which God's children are profanely dealt with 
 as a pack of cards, while in its unnatural and irrational wick- 
 edness, it is justly to be likened to the monstrous and impious 
 usage of Trial by Battle which disgraced the dark ages, thus 
 showing that, in this age of boasted civilization, justice be- 
 tween nations is determined by the same rules of barbarous 
 brutal force which once controlled the relations, between indi- 
 viduals. We have next considered the various prejudices by 
 which War is sustained ; founded on a false behef in its 
 necessity ; on the practice of nations past and present ; on 
 the infidelity of the Christian Church ; on a false idea of 
 honor ; on an exaggerated idea of the duties of patriotism ; 
 and lastly that monster prejudice, which draws its vampire 
 life from the vast preparations in time of peace for war ; 
 dwelling at the last s^age upon the thriftless, irrational and 
 unchristian character of these preparations, and catching a 
 vision of the exalted good that will be achieved when our 
 country, learning wisdom, shall aim at the true grandeur 
 of Peace. 
 
 And now, if it be asked why, on this National Anniversary, 
 in the consideration of the true grandeur of nations, I 
 have thus dwelt singly and exclusively on war, it is, because 
 war is utterly and irreconcilably inconsistent with true great- 
 ness. Thus far mankind has worshipped, in military glory, 
 an idol, compared with which the colossal images of ancient 
 Babylon or modern Hindostan are but toys ; and we, in 
 this blessed day of light, in this blessed land of freedom, are 
 among the idolaters. The Heaven-descended injunction, 
 know thyself, still speaks to an ignorant world from the dis- 
 tant letters of gold at Delphi ; hnoiv thyself; know that the 
 moral nature is the most noble part of man ; transcending 
 far that part which is the seat of passion, strife and war ; 
 nobler than the intellect itself. Su[)pose war to be decided 
 by force, where is the glory ? Suppose it to be decided by 
 chance, where is the glory ? No ; true greatness consists in 
 imitating as near as is possible for finite man, the perfections 
 of an Infinite Creator; above all, in cultivating those highest 
 perfections. Justice and Love ; Justice, which like that of St. 
 Louis, shall not swerve to the right hand or to the left ; 
 
75 
 
 Love, which hke that of William Penn, shall regard all man- 
 kind of kin. " God is angry," says Plato, "when any one 
 censures a man like himself, or praises a man of an opposite 
 character. And the God-like man is the good man." * 
 And again, in another of those lovely dialogues, vocal with 
 immortal truth, " Nothing resembles God more than that 
 man among us who has arrived at the highest degree of 
 justice." f The true greatness of nations is in those qualities 
 which constitute the greatness of the individual. It is not 
 to be found in extent of territory, nor in vastness of popula- 
 tion, nor in wealth ; not in fortifications, or armies, or navies ; 
 not in the phosphorescent glare of fields of battle ; not in 
 Golgothas, though covered by monuments that kiss the 
 clouds ; for all these are the creatures and representatives of 
 those qualities of our nature, which are unlike any thing in 
 God's nature. 
 
 Nor is the greatness of nations to be found in triumphs of 
 the intellect alone, in literature, learning, science or art. 
 The polished Greeks, the world's masters in the delights of 
 language, and in range of thought, and the commanding 
 Romans, overawing the earth with their power, were little 
 more than splendid savages ; and the age of Louis XIV of 
 France, spanning so long a period of ordinary worldly mag- 
 nificence, thronged by marshals bending under military laurels, 
 enlivened by the unsurpassed comedy of Moliere, dignified 
 by the tragic genius of Corneille, illumined by the splendors of 
 Bossuet, is degraded by immoralities that cannot be men- 
 tioned without a blush, by a heartlessness in comparison with 
 which the ice of Nova Zembla is warm, and by a succession 
 of deeds of injustice not to be washed out by the tears of 
 all the recording angels of Heaven. J 
 
 The true greatness of a nation cannot be in triumphs of 
 the intellect alone. Literature and art may widen the sphere 
 of its influence ; they may adorn it ; but they are in their 
 nature but accessaries. The true grandeur of humanity is 
 
 * Minos § 12. t Thestetas, § 87. 
 
 I The false glory of Louis XIV, which procured for him, from Haltering cour- 
 tiers and a barbarous world, ihe title of Great, was questioned by one of his 
 own subjects, the good Abbe de Saint Pierre. To this early Apostle of Humanity 
 and Peace, the author of the Projel de puix perpetuelle, the advocate of good 
 will to man, the world, as it wakes from its martial trance, shall offer large trib- 
 utes of admiration and gratitude. His voice was that of one crying in the wilder- 
 ness ; but it was the herald of the reign of Peace He enriched the French 
 language with the word bienfaisance ; and D'Alembert said that it was right that 
 he should have invented the word, who practised so largely the virtue which it 
 expressed. The good Abbe is not to be confounded with the eccentric and elo- 
 quent Bernardin de Saint Pierre, the author of Paul and Virginia. 
 
 y 
 
76 
 
 in moral elevation, sustained, enlightened and decorated by the 
 intellect of man. The truest tokens of this grandeur in a State 
 are the diftusion of the greatest happiness among the greatest 
 number, and that passionless God -Hi^e Justice, which controls 
 the relations of the State to other States, and to all the people, 
 P^ho are committed to its charge. 
 
 I But war crushes with bloody heel all justice, all happiness, 
 (_all that is God-like in man. " It is," says the eloquent Rob- 
 ert Hall, "the temporary repeal of all the principles of virtue." 
 True, it cannot be disguised, that there are passages in its dreary 
 annals cheered by deeds of generosity and sacrifice. But the 
 virtues which shed their charm over its horrors are all bor- 
 rowed of Peace ; they are emanations of the spirit of love, 
 which is so strong in the heart of man, that it survives the 
 rudest assaults. The flowers of gentleness, of kindliness, of 
 fidelity, of humanity, which flourish in unregarded luxuriance 
 in the rich meadows of Peace, receive unwonted admiration 
 when we discern them in war, like violets shedding their per- 
 fume on the perilous edges of the precipice, beyond the 
 smiling borders of civilization. God be praised for all the 
 examples of magnanimous virtue which he has vouchsafed to 
 mankind ! God be praised that the Roman Emperor, about 
 to start on a distant expedition of war, encompassed by 
 squadrons of cavalry and by golden eagles which moved in 
 the winds, stooped from his saddle to listen to the prayer of 
 the humble widow, demanding justice for the death of her 
 son !^^ God be praised that Sydney, on the field of battle, 
 gave with dying liand the cup of cold water to the dying 
 soldier! That single act of self- forgetful sacrifice has conse- 
 crated the fenny field of Zutphen, far, oh ! far beyond its 
 battle ; it has consecrated thy name, gallant Sydney, beyond 
 any feat of thy sword, beyond any triumph of thy pen. 
 But there are hands outstretched elsewhere than on fields of 
 blood, for so little as a cup of cold water; the world is full 
 of oi)portunities for deeds of kindness. Let me not be told, 
 then, of the virtues of War. Let not the acts of generosity 
 and sacrifice, which have triumphed on its fields, be invoked 
 in its defence. In the words of Oriental imagery, the pois- 
 onous tree, though watered by nectar, can produce only the 
 fruit of death ! 
 
 *This most admired instance of justice, according to the legends of the 
 Catholic Church, opened to Trapn. although a heithen. the f^ates of salvation. 
 Dante found ttic sr-ene and the virtible parlare of the widow and Kmperor storied 
 on the walls of Pnrsjntory, and he has transmitted them in a passage which 
 commends itself hardly less than any in the Divine Poem. Purgatorio, Canto X. 
 
77 
 
 As we cast our eyes over the history of nations we discern 
 with horror the succession of murderous slaughters by which 
 their progress has been marked. As the hunter traces the 
 wild beast, when pursued to his lair by the drops of blood on 
 the earth, so we follow Man, faint, weary, staggering with 
 wounds, through the Black Forest of the Past, which he has 
 reddened with his gore. Oh ! let it not be in the future ages 
 as in those which we now contemplate. L^et the grandeur 
 of man be discerned in the blessings which he has secured ; 
 in the good he has accomplished ; in the triumphs of benevo- 
 lence and justice ; in the establishment of perpetual peace."* 
 
 As the ocean washes every shore, and clasps, with all-em- 
 bracing arms, every land, while it bears on its heaving bosom 
 the products of various climes ; so Peace surrounds, protects 
 and upholds all other blessings. Without it commerce is 
 vain, the ardor of industry is restrained, happiness is blasted, 
 virtue sickens and dies. 
 
 And Peace has its own peculiar victories, in comparison 
 with which Marathon and Bannockburn and Bunker Hill, 
 fields held sacred in the history of human freedom, shall lose 
 their lustre. Our own Washington rises to a truly Heavenly 
 stature, — not when we follow him over the ice of the Dela- 
 ware to ,the capture of Trenton, — not when we behold him 
 victorious over Cornwallis at Yorktown ; but when we regard 
 him, in noble deference to justice, refusing the kingly crown 
 which a faithless soldiery proffered, and at a later day, up- 
 holding the peaceful neutrality of the country, while he 
 received unmoved the clamor of the people wickedly crying 
 for war. What glory of battle in England's annals will not 
 fade by the side of that great act* of Justice, by which her 
 Legislature, at a cost of one hundred million dollars, gave 
 freedom to eight hundred thousand slaves ! And when the 
 day shall come, (may these eyes be gladdened by its beams !) 
 that shall witness an act of greater justice still, the peaceful 
 emancipation of three millions of our fellow-men, " guilty of 
 
 * Man alone of the animal creation preys upon his own species ! The kingly 
 lion does not prey upon his brother lion ; the ferocious tiger does not prey upon 
 kindred tigers. 
 
 Sed jam serpentum major concordia; parcit 
 
 Cognatis maculis similis fera. Quando leoni 
 
 Fortior eripuit vitam leo ? quo nemore unquam 
 
 Exspiravit aper majoris dentibus apri ? 
 
 Indica tigris agit rabida cum tigride pacem 
 
 Ferpetuam. 
 
 Juvenal, Sat. XV. 159. 
 
 7* 
 
78 
 
 a skin not colored as our own," now held in gloomy bond- 
 age, under the constitution of our country, then shall there 
 be a victory, in comparison with which that of Bunker Hill 
 shall be as a farthing-candle held up to the sun. That vic- 
 tory shall need no monument of stone. It shall be written 
 on the grateful hearts of uncounted multitudes, that shall 
 proclaim it to the latest generation. It shall be one of the 
 great land-marks of civilization ; nay more, it shall be one of 
 the links in the golden chain by which Humanity shall con- 
 nect itself with the throne of God. 
 
 As the cedars of Lebanon are higher than the grass of the 
 valley ; as the heavens are higher than the earth ; as man is 
 higher than the beasts of the field ; as the angels are higher 
 than man ; as he that ruleth his spirit is higher than he that 
 taketh a city ; so are the virtues and victories of Peace higher 
 than the virtues and victories of War. 
 
 Far be from us, fellow-citizens, on this Anniversary, the 
 illusions of National freedom in which we are too prone to 
 indulge. We have but half done, when we have made our- 
 selves free. Let not the scornful taunt be directed at us ; 
 " They wish to be free ; but know not how to be just."*~ 
 Freedom is not an end in itself; but a means only ; a means 
 of securing Justice and Happiness, the real end and aim of 
 States, as of every human heart. It becomes us to inquire 
 earnestly if there is not much to be done by which these can 
 be promoted. If I have succeeded in impressing on your 
 minds the truths, which I have upheld to-day, you will be 
 ready to join in efforts for the Abolition of War, and of all 
 preparation for War, as indispensable to the true grandeur of 
 our country. 
 
 To this great work let me summon you. That Future 
 which filled the lofty visions of the sages and bards of Greece 
 and Rome, which was foretold by the prophets and heralded 
 by the evangelists, when man in Happy Isles, or in a new 
 Paradise, shall confess the loveliness of Peace, may be 
 secured by your care, if not for yourselves, at least for your 
 children. Believe that you can do it, and you can do it. 
 The true golden age is before you, not behind you. If man 
 has been driven once from^Paradise, while an angel with a 
 flaming sword forbade his return, there is another Paradise, 
 even on earth, which he may form for himself, by the culti- 
 vation of the kindly virtues of life, where the confusion of 
 
 *lls veulent etre libres et ne savent pas ctre justes. — Aby Sieyes, 
 
79 
 
 tongues shall be dissolved in the union of hearts, where there 
 shall be a perpetual jocund spring, and sweet strains borne 
 on " the odoriferous wings of gentle gales," more pleasant 
 than the Vale of Teinpe, richer than the garden of the Hes- 
 perides, with no dragon to guard its golden fruit. 
 
 Let it not be said that the age does not demand this work. 
 The mighty conquerors of the Past, from their fiery sepul- 
 chres, demand it ; the blood of millions unjustly shed in war 
 crying from the ground demands it ; the voices of all good 
 men demand it ; the conscience even of the soldier whispers 
 " Peace." There are considerations, springing from our 
 situation and condition, which fervently invite us to take the 
 lead in this great work. To this should bend the patriotic 
 ardor of the land ; the ambition of the statesman ; the efforts 
 of the scholar; the pervasive influence of the press; the 
 mild persuasion of the sanctuary ; the early teachings of the 
 school. Here, in ampler ether and diviner air, are untried 
 fields for exalted triumphs, more truly worthy the American 
 name, than any snatched from rivers of blood. War is 
 known as the Last Reason of Kings. Let it be no reason 
 of our Republic. Let us renounce and throw off for ever the 
 yoke of a tyranny more oppressive than any in the annals 
 of the world. As those standing on the mountain-tops first 
 discern the coming beams of morning, let us, from the van- 
 tage-ground of liberal institutions, first recognize the ascend- 
 
 111 
 
 ing sun of a new era ! Lift high the gates, and let the 
 King of Glory in — the King of true Glory — of Peace. I 
 catch the last words of music from the lips of Innocence and 
 beauty ; * 
 
 And let the whole earth be filled with his glory ! 
 
 It is a beautiful picture in Grecian story, that there was at 
 least one spot, the small Island of Delos, dedicated to the 
 Gods, and kept at all times sacred from war, where the citi- 
 zens of hostile countries met and united in a common wor- 
 ship. So let us dedicate our broad country ! The Temple 
 of Honor shall be surrounded by the Temple of Concord, so 
 that the former can be entered only through the portals of 
 the latter ; the horn of Abundance shall overflow at its gates ; 
 the angel of Religion shall be the guide over its steps of 
 flashing adamant ; while within Jusxic^ returned to the earth 
 
 *The services of the choir at the Church, where the Oration was delivered, 
 were performed by the youthful daughters of the public schools of Boston. 
 
80 
 
 from her long exile in the skies, shall rear her serene and 
 majestic front. And the future chiefs of the Republic, des- 
 tined to uphold the glories of a new era, unspotted by human 
 blood, shall be " the first in Peace, and the first in the 
 hearts of their countrymen." 
 
 But while we seek these blissful glories for ourselves, let 
 us strive to extend them to other lands. Let the bugles 
 sound the Truce of God to the whole world for ever. Let 
 the selfish boast of the Spartan women become the grand 
 chorus of mankind, that they have never seen the smoke of 
 an enemy's camp. Let the iron belt of martial music which 
 now encompasses the earth, be exchanged for the golden 
 cestus of Peace, clothing all with celestial beauty. History 
 dwells with fondness on the reverent homage, that was be- 
 stowed, by massacring soldiers, on the spot occupied by the 
 Sepulchre of the Lord. Vain man ! to restrain his regard 
 to a few feet of sacred mould ! The whole earth is the 
 Sepulchre of the Lord ; nor can any righteous man profane 
 any part thereof. Let us recognize this truth ; and now, on 
 this Sabbath of our country, lay a new stone in the grand 
 Temple of Universal Peace, whose dome shall be as lofty 
 as the firmament of Heaven, as broad and comprehensive as 
 the earth itself. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 NOTE A. 
 
 [Referred to on page 8.] 
 
 The following letter has been published at the suggestion of several friends, as 
 illustrating a topic considered in the text. 
 
 July 6th, 1845. 
 
 My dear , 
 
 It has occurred to me that you might have thought me wanting in frankness, 
 when 1 avoided expressing a positive opinion with regard to the righteousness of 
 the resistance of our Fathers to taxation by the British Parliament. 1 am very 
 desirous, on many accounts, of not disturbing that question ; " Let the Dead 
 ■ Past bury its Dead." I wish to confine myself to the Present and the Future. 
 
 There is one conclusion, following, with irresistible force, from the assumption 
 that our Fathers were justifiable in their course, which neither of us would wish 
 to have promulgated. It relates to the present condition of our slaves. At the 
 time of the Stamp Act and Tea Tax, the population of the Colonies amounted to 
 about tiLio millions (according to Mr. Burke, though our writers have called it 
 three) ; their grievance, their slavery, was the necessity of paying a few pence, 
 more or less on certain things, under the direction of a Parliament in which they 
 were not represented Wo just or humane person can fail to perceive that all 
 this was as a feather compared with the rod of oppression, now held by our 
 country over more than three millions of fdlow-mm. If two millions were 
 justified in resisting by force the assumptioii.s of the British Parliament, as con- 
 trary to the law of nature, the principles of the common law, and the rights of 
 Freedom ; then a fortiori, the three millions of blacks, into whose souls we 
 thrust the iron of the deadliest slavery the world has yet witnessed, would be 
 justified in resisting by /orce the power that holds them in bondage. Can we 
 proclaim such a truth ? 
 
 To me, the more humane, the more Christian, the more expedient rourse, 
 seems lobe to leave that great question undisturbed in the coffins of our I athers. 
 There are minor rules of propriety, not to say of politeness and good breeding, 
 that seem to indicate the same conclusion. The customary tone of reference to 
 the war of the Revolution is in a spirit which would be considered iiulelicate 
 with regard to any private or personal experience ; and it seems to me well 
 worthy of consideration, whether the time has not come for nations to put aside 
 their habits of boasting, as indecorous, if not unchristian. The propriety of this 
 course must commend itself, not only to those, who may regard the comluct of 
 the Fathers of the Revolution as questionable, but even to those who think it 
 entirely justifiable. Even if the great trial by batik be regarded as a rational 
 
82 
 
 mode of determining justice between nations ; should not the place of encounter 
 be held rather as a field of execution, than of triumph ? We do not erect monu- 
 ments to commemorate the scenes of public executions. • • * •» 
 Very faithfully yours, 
 
 Charles Sumner. 
 
 NOTE B. 
 
 [Referred to on page 23 ] 
 
 In this note I propose to present a sketch of the history of Private Wars and 
 of the Trial by Battle. Let it be borne in mind, that the same sentiments which 
 lead us to condemn these as impious and monstrous, equally condemn wars 
 between nations. 1 cannot dwell too much upon the importance of this parallel ; 
 and I would here repeat whnt is set fortli in the text, though not with sufficient 
 prominence, that all loar between civilized Christian nations is a mere Trial of 
 Right, or a mode of determining justice between them, in this respect resem- 
 bling precisely the Trial by Battle, it is a mode of litigation, or of determining 
 a Lis Pendens between nations. This, of course, excludes the idea of self-de- 
 fence. The supposed right of self-defence might arise, if a pirate should enter 
 our harbors, for the mere purpose of murder or plunder; but it is irrational and 
 vain to suppose that t'iere is any element of self-defence in a war to determine 
 a dispute or litigation between nations. 1 hope to brand the phrase defensive 
 wars as absurd, and expressing in our age, and among Christian nations, an impos- 
 sible idea. It is apart of the "flash language" of war and diplomacy, which 
 should be now exploded. I repeat, again, that all war is a mere Trial by Battle 
 between nations ; and as such, no one can fail to pronounce it, in the language 
 of Montesquieu, monstrous, and in the language of the old Lombard monarch, 
 impious. 
 
 Private Wars. The system of private wars may be traced to the dark 
 woods of Ancient Germany, where the risht of avenging injuries was treated as 
 a private and personal right, exercised by force of arms, without reference to an 
 umpire, or appeal to a magistrate for decision. Emerging from thence, it pre- 
 vailed in the early centuries of modern times, in all the countries of Europe, though 
 few traces of it are to be found in England after the Conquest, except in times of 
 civil trouble and commotion. Though the avenging of injuries was the only mo- 
 tive that could legally authorize private wars, yet they often arose from disputes 
 concerning civil property. They were carried on with all the destructive rage 
 which is to be dreaded from violent resentment when armed with force, and 
 authorized by law. The invasion of the most barbarous enemy was not more 
 desolating to a country or more grievous to its inhabitants. Various ineffectual 
 efforts were made for their suppression. A Bishop of Aquitaine, A. D. 1032, pre- 
 tended that an angel had appeared to him. and brought him a writing from Heaven, 
 enjoining: men to cease from their hostilities, and be reconciled to each other. 
 It was during a season of public calamity that he publisheil this revelation ; the 
 minds of men were disposed to receive supernatural impress. ons, and consented 
 to a general peace and cessation of hostilities, which continued for seven years. 
 A resolution was formed that no man should in time to come, attack or molest 
 his adversaries during the seasons set apart for celebrating the great festivities of 
 the church, or from the evening of Thursday in each week to the morning of 
 Monrlay in the week ensuing, the intervening days being considered as particu- 
 larly holy, the Lord's Passion having happened on one of these days, and his 
 Resurrection on another. A change in the disposition of men so sudden, and 
 producing a resolution so unexpected, was considered as miraculous, and the 
 respite of hostilities, which followed upon it, was called Tlie Truce of God. 
 This from being a regulation or concert in one kingdom, became a general law 
 in Christendom, and was confirmed by the authority of the Pope, and the violators 
 of it were suhject to the penalty of excommunication. The custom of private 
 war still continued ; but was discountenanced by St. Louis, until finally Charles 
 VI in 14 1. "5, issued an ordinance expressly prohibiting it on any pretext whatso- 
 ever, with power to the magistrates to compel all persons to comply with this 
 injunction, and to punish such as should prove refractory or disobedient. Later 
 
83 
 
 than this there is an instance of a pitched battle in the reign of Edward IV of 
 England, at JNibiey Green, in Gloucestershire, on the 10th of August, 1470, be- 
 tween two powerful nobles, William, Lord Berkley, and Thomas, Viscount Lisle. 
 Both brought a large number of men into the field; an hundred and fifty men 
 were killed in the action. After the battle. Lord Berkley repaired to the Castle 
 of Lord Lisle, at Wotton, and it was ransomed as a place taken in regular war. 
 The cause of this feud was the right of succession to the lands of Berkley. 
 The law-suit which gave occasion to this battle, lasted a hundred and ninety-two 
 years, and during its progress the Castle of Berkley was once taken by surprise, 
 and its inhabitants thrown into prison ; it was, besides, frequently attacked and 
 defended, with much effusion of blood. (Foreign Quarterly Review, No, 69, for 
 April, 1845.) 
 
 Let us close this sketch in the words of Robertson ; in allusion to the regula- 
 tions for the abolition of private war; *' How slow is the progress of reason and 
 civil order ! Regulations which to us appear so equitable, obvious and simple, 
 required the efforts of civil and ecclesiastical authority, during several centuries, 
 to introduce and establish them." * 
 
 Trial by Battle. The trial by battle, or the judicial combat, was a formal 
 and legitimate mode of determining disputes. This, likewise, may be traced 
 to the ancient Germans; for it appears by a passage in Velleius Paterculus 
 (L. II. c. 118), that all questions which were decided among the Romans by 
 trial, were terminated among them by the sword ; the Roman laws and method 
 of trial, which Quintilius Varus attempted to introduce among them, were regard- 
 ed as novilas incognita discipline, ut solita armis deccrni jure ierminarenlur. It 
 afterwards extended to the other countries of Europe, though it does not seem 
 to have established itself completely in France, till after the time of Charle- 
 magne. It seems to have been popular in Lombardy, though Luitprand, 
 King of the Lombards, in one of his laws in 713, expressly admits its impiety ; 
 Incerti sumus de judicio Dei et quosdam andivimus per pugnam sine justa. 
 causii suam causam perdere. Sed propter consuetudinem gentis nostra Longo- 
 bardOrum legem impiam vetare nonpossumris. (Muratori, Rerum Italic. Script, t. 
 2. p. G5. Like the other ordeals, by the burning ploughshares, by the holding 
 hot iron, by dipping the hand in hot water, or hot oil, it was a presumptuous 
 appeal to Providence, under an apprehension and hope that Heaven would 
 give the victory to him who had the right. It was the child of superstition and 
 brute force. 
 
 It seems probable that the trial by battle was originally permitted, in order to 
 determine points respecting the personal character, or reputation of individuals, 
 and was afterward extended, not only to criminal cases, but to questions con- 
 cerning property. In the year 9GI, a controversy concerning the church of St. 
 Medard, whether it belonged to the Abbey of Beaulieu, was terminated by judi- 
 cial combat. The Abbot Wittikindus considered it as the best and most Aojior- 
 able mode of determining a grave point of law. " It was a matter of doubt and 
 dispute," says the Abbot, " whether the sons of a son ought to be reckoned 
 among the children of the family, and succeed equally with their uncles if their 
 father happened to die while their grandfather was alive. An assembly was 
 called to deliberate on this point, and it was the general opinion that it ought to 
 be remitted to the examination and decision of judges. But the Emperor, 
 [Otho II] following a better course, and desirous of dealing honorably with 
 his people and nobles, appointed the matter to be decided between two champions. 
 He who appeared in behalf of the right of children to represent their deceased 
 father was victorious ; and it was established by a perpetual decree, that they 
 should hereafter share in the inheritance together with their uncles." This was 
 under the German Emperor, Otho II in the tenth century. But the folly of man 
 did not end here. A question of religion, as well as of law, was submitted to 
 the same arbitrament. In the eleventh century the question was agitated in 
 Spain, whether the Musarabic Liturgy which had been used in the Churches of 
 Spain, or the Liturgy approved by the See of Rome, differing in many particulars 
 from the other, contained the form of worship most acceptable to the Deity. 
 The Spaniards contended zealously for the liturgy of their ancestors. The 
 
 *The subject of private war is treated with an exactness, perspicuity and comprehen- 
 siveness by Dr Robertson (Hist, of Charles V. Vol. I. note 21), which have inspired the 
 warm commendation of Mr. Hallani. (History of Middle Ages, Vol. JL— 155, cap. 2. pt. 
 2.) It also occupies the attention of our countryman (Mr Wheaton), in his History of 
 the Northmen ; and of the humane and accomplished historian of France, Sismondi. 
 (Hiatoire des Franqais, Tome VIII. 72-77.) 
 
84 
 
 Popes urged the reception of that which hid their infallible sanction. The 
 question was referred to the trial by battle. Two knights in complete armor 
 entered llie lists. John Rujs de Alatanca, the champion of the Musarabic Lit- 
 urgy, was victorious. 
 
 While the trial by battle subsisted, proofs by charter, contracts or persons, be- 
 came iiiefrectiial. When a charter or other instrument was introduced by one of 
 the parties, his opponent might challenge it, affirm that it was false and forged, 
 and offer to prove this by combat. So he might accuse a witness, whom he 
 suspected of being about to give testimony against him, of being suborned, give 
 him the lie, and challenge him to combat; and if the witness was vanquished, 
 no other evidence w.as admitted, and the party by whom he was summoned 
 lost his cause. The reason given for obliging a witness to accept ol defiance, 
 and to defend himself by combat, contains the idea of what is called the 
 poijit of honor ; '■ for it is just, that if any one affirms that he perfectly knows 
 he truth of any thing, and offers to give oath upon it, that he should not 
 hesitate to maintain the veracity of his affirmation in combat." Leg. Bur- 
 gund. tit 45. 
 
 'J'he trial by battle extended itself so generally in France, if not in other parts 
 of Europe, as at one time to supersede all the other ordeals, which were regarded 
 also as judgments of God, and even the mode by proofs. In Orleans it was 
 restrained to civil matters, involving upwards of six sous in amount. [Montes- 
 quieu, Esp. des Lois. Liv. !28, caji. SJO.J hegulations of great minuteness were 
 establit-bed with regard to the ceremonies; and this monslrons wsagp, as it is 
 called by Montesquieu, was reduced to a system, and illustrated by an extensive 
 jurisprudence. Men, says this ingenious Frenchman, subject to rules even their 
 prejudices. Nothing was more contrary to good sense, than the judicial combat, 
 but being once recognized, it was conducted with a certain prudence. In this 
 respect, as in many others, it bears a resemiilance to the great trial by battle 
 which still prevails between nations ; and which has its artificial and complex 
 regulations, the so called laws of war. 
 
 The field lor the combat was selected with care ; and in many places there was 
 an open space for this purpose in tiie neighborhood of the Church. We learn 
 by an accidental notice in t'roissart, that there was a tribune attached to the 
 walls of the Abbey of St. German des Pres, in Paris, which was destined for the 
 judges of the combat, and which overlooked the meadow anx CUrcs. which 
 served for a field. (Froissart, c. 383, p. 290; Sismondi, Histoire, X. 514.) The 
 ground being selected, a large fire was kindled, and a gallows erected for the 
 vanquished. Two seats covered with black were also prepared for the combat- 
 ants, on which they received certain admonitions, and were made to swear on the 
 Holy Evangelists that they had not had recourse to sorcery, witchcraft, or incan- 
 tation. They had previously attended the celebration of mass, the forms of 
 which for such occasions are still to be found in certain old missals, where it is 
 called minsa pro duello. In certain cases of physical inability, and where 
 women and the clergy were concerned, a battle by proxy was allowed and regu- 
 lar bravoes, called champions, were hired for this purpose ; dreadful trade, it 
 would seem, since the right hand of the champion was lopped off' in the event 
 of his being worsted. Meanwhile the princii)als were kept out of the lists 
 with ropes about their necks, and he who was beaten by proxy was forthwith 
 hanged in person, although in certain cases he was allowed to be decapitated. 
 (Millinsien, Hist, of Duelling, Vol. I. 31,32; Montesquieu, Esprit des Lois, Liv. 
 28, cap.^iy.) 
 
 In England, trial by battle was conducted with peculiar form, in the presence 
 of the judges in their scarlet robes, who presided over the field which was duly 
 set out of sixty feet square, and enclosed by lists. It appears that trials of this 
 kind were so frequent, that fines, paid on these occasions, made no inconsiderable 
 branch of the King's Revenue. (Madox, Hist Excheq. Vol 1.319.) For some- 
 time after the conquest the only mode of trying a writ of right, for the determin- 
 ation of the title to real property was this barbarous proceeding; but Henry II, 
 by consent of parliament, introduced the grand assise, a peculiar species of trial 
 by jury, in concurrence therewith ; giving the party against vvhom the action is 
 brought his choice of either the one or the other. The establishment of this 
 alternative is pronounced by Glanville, his Chief Justice, and probably his adviser 
 therein, a certain benefit. He says ; duelli casum declinare poi<sint homines am- 
 biguum. Jus euim, quod post midlas et longas ddutiones vix evincilur per duel- 
 ii/m, per beneficium istius constitutionis commodius et acceleratius expeditur. 
 (1.2 c. 7.) A trial by combat was appointed in England in 1571, under the in- 
 spection of the judges of the Court of Common Pleas; but Queen Elizabeth 
 
85 
 
 interposed her authority, and enjoined the parties to compound the matter ; yet 
 in order to preserve what was called their honor, the lists were marked out, and 
 all the forms previous to the combat were ohserved with much ceremony. 
 (Spelm. Gloss, veb. campus, p. 103.) The last time that this trial was actually 
 awarded in England, was in 1631, between Lord Rae and Mr. Ramsay. King 
 Charles I appointed, by commission, a constable of England to preside over it, 
 who proclaimed a day, on which the combatants were to appear with a spear, a 
 long sword, a short sword, and a dagger; but this was accommodated without 
 bloodshed. (Hargrave, State Trials, XI. 124.) The form of proceeding fell into 
 desuetude, overruled by the advancing spirit of civilization ; but, to the disgrace 
 of the English law, it was not legislatively abolished till in 1817 the right to it 
 had been distinctly claimed in the Court of Kmg's Bench. Abraham Thornton, 
 in an appeal against him for murder, when brought into Court, pleaded as follows ; 
 " Not Guilty, and I am ready to defend the same by my body ; " and thereupon 
 taking off his glove, he threw it upon the floor of the Court. The appellant did 
 not choose to submit to this trial, and abandoned his proceedings. In the next 
 session of parliament, trial by battle was abolished in England. (Blackstone, 
 Com. Vol. III. 337, Chitty's note ) The Attorney General, in introducing the bill 
 for this purpose, remarked, that " if the party had persevered, he had no doubt the 
 legislature would have felt it their imperious duty to interfere and pass an ex post 
 facto law, to prevent so degrading; a spectacle from taking place." Annual Regis- 
 ter, Vol. LXI. p. 32. (1819). Is not war between nations an equally degrading 
 spectacle ? 
 
 [0= The principal modern authorities for the history of the judicial combat are 
 the admirable note by Robertson (History of Charles V. Vol. 1. note 22) ; Mon- 
 tesquieu (Esprit des Lois. Liv. 28, cap. 17-29), whose luminous mind has cast 
 upon it a brilliant flood of light ; Blackstone (Commentaries, Vol. III. 337-351 ; 
 Vol. IV. 346-3-18, 419) ; Hallam (Middle Ages, Vol. I. 187, cap. 2, pt. 2) ; the hu- 
 mane and accomplished Sismondi (Histoire des Frane-ais Vlll. 77-78); Guizot, 
 in a work of remarkable beauty of historical inquiry and depth of philosophy, 
 more grave than the Esprit des Lois, and enlightened by loftier ideas of human 
 progress and virtue (Histoire de la Civilization en France depuis la chute de 
 I'Empire Remain, Tome IV. 89, 149-166) ; our learned countryman, Mr. Wheaton 
 (History of the Northmen, Cap III and XII); and Millingen (History of Duelling, 
 2 vols.), a Writer, liardly deserving the character of an authority, and Utterly un- 
 worthy a place in this fellowship of authors. 
 
 NOTE C. 
 
 [Referred to on page 29. J 
 
 A Congress of Nations and Arbitration. It is intended to offer in 
 this Note, a sketch of the efiibrts of private men, and the examples of Nations 
 tending to a Congress of Nations, or an established system of Arbitration without 
 appeal to War. 
 
 The duty and importance of Universal Peace was recommended by the early 
 Fathers of the Christian Church. The character of the good Man of Peace was 
 described in the loth century, in that work of unexampled circulation, which has 
 been translated into all modern languages, and republished more than a tliousand 
 times. (De Imitatione Christi, by Thomas a Kempis, Lib. 2. cap. 3). The wri- 
 tings of Erasmus at the close of the same century, abound in the spirit of Peace. 
 In the 17th century, Nicole, a friend of Pascal, one of the fellowship of Port 
 Royal, and one of the highest names in the Church of France, in his Essais de 
 Morale, in six volumes, gave to the world Traite des Moijens de conservcr la Paix 
 avec les Hommes, a treatise which Voltaire terms " a master-piece to which 
 nothing equal has been left to us by Antiquity." (Siecle de Louis XIV. See 
 Hallam's History of Literature, Vol. HI, 383, part IV. cap. 4). It is to be found 
 in a recent edition of the Pensi^es de Pascal. The reader of our day cannot per- 
 ceive in it the exalted merit which drew forth the eulogy of Voltaire. At 
 the beginning of the 18th century appeared the Projet de Paix Perpet.wlle, in 
 three volumes, by the Abbe .Saint Pierre, which the benevolent author, by a 
 species of pious fraud, attributed to Henry IV. and his Minister Sully, with the 
 view of recommending it to the adoption of the Sovereigns and Ministers, to 
 whom the authority of these great names would be more imposing than the 
 intrinsic merit of the scheme itself. His ideas were characterized by the profli- 
 8 
 
86 
 
 gate minister and cardinal Dubois as les i-eves dhm homme de bicn. Afterwards 
 in 1761, tlmt great genius, Rousseau published a little work to which he modestly 
 gave the title, Extrait du Projet de Paut pervetuelle de M'l'Abbe de Saint Pierre. 
 Without appealing to those higher motives, for addressing which to sovereigns 
 Saint I'ierre had most unjustly incurred the ridicule of practical statesmen, 
 such as the love of true glory, of humanity, and a regard to the dictates of con- 
 science and the precepts of religion, Rousseau merely supposes princes to be 
 endowed with common sense, and capable of estimating how much their inter- 
 ests would be promoted by submitting their respective pretensions to the arbitra- 
 tion of an impartial tribunal, rather than resorting to the uncertain issue of 
 arms, which even to the victor cannot bring adequate compensation for the blood 
 and treasure expended in the contest. (See Wheaton's History of the Law of 
 Nations, part 2. ^ 17.) 
 
 There are fragments of a Project of Perpeiucd Peace, by the late Jeremy 
 Bentham, recently published from MSS. bearing date from 1786 to 1789, under 
 the superintendence of his Executor, Dr. Bouring (Part 8. pp. 537-554, Lon- 
 don, 1839), which are marked by the penetrating sense and humanity of their 
 author. 
 
 Of late years, several writers of the different schools of German philosophy, 
 have proposed the establishment of an Amphictyonic council of Nations, by 
 which their mutual differences might be judiciously settled, and the guilt and 
 misery of war for ever abolished among civilized nations. One of the most re- 
 markable of these projects of Perpetual Peace was that published by Kant in 
 1795. He says; " VV^hat we mean to propose is a general Congress of Nations, 
 of which both the meeting and the duration are to depend entirely on the sove- 
 reign wills of the Leagye, and not an indissoluble Union like that which exists 
 between the several States of North America founded on a Municipal constitu- 
 tion. Such a CongresS; and such a League, are the only means of realizing tiie 
 idea of a true public law, according to which the difference between nations 
 would be determined by civil proceedings as those between individuals are de- 
 termined by civil judicature, instead of resorting to war, a means of redress 
 worthy only of barbarians." Kant, Rechtslehre, Zweiten Theil, ^ 61. The 
 principles of Kant on this subject have been contested by another celebrated 
 German Philosopher, Hegel, in the spirit of one whose mind was so imbued with 
 the history of the Past, as to be ineeneihlc to the chnrins of Peace. A state of 
 perpetual peace, he says, if it could be realized, would produce a moral stagna- 
 tion among nations. Hegel, Philosophic des Rechts, herausgegeberi von Gans 
 ^ 321-339. See also Wheaton's History of the Law of Nations, part 4, ij" 36, 37. 
 
 Most important information on this subject is collected in the volume of Prize 
 Essays published by the American Peace Society, and in a little tract, entitled, a 
 Congress of Nations, by the same Society. Tiie useful life of the late William 
 Ladd was devoted to the diffusion of information on this subject. 
 
 A (icneral Peace Convention was held in London, in June, 1843, composed of 
 delegates from various countries, which was organized by the choice of Charles 
 Hinciley, Esq., M. P., as President, and the Marquis de la Rochefoucault Lian- 
 court, a member of the French Chamber of Deputies, as Vice President. The 
 Conventi(m was graced by the presence of many persons, well known for their 
 labors of philanthropy. Among those prominent in political life who took a part 
 in its proceedings, were Lord Robert Grosvenor, William Sherman Crawford, 
 M. P., Richard Cobden, M. P., Joseph Hume, M. P., W. Ewart, M. P., Dr. 
 Bowring, M. P. 
 
 The Convention was called together on the principle, " that war is inconsistent 
 with tlie spirit of Christianity and with the true interests of mankind.'"' The fol- 
 lowing are among the Resolutions which it adopted : 
 
 On Arbitration ijistead of ^Var. " That this Convention earnestly recom- 
 mends to Governments, Members ol Legislative bodies, and public function- 
 aries, the adoption of the principle of arbitration for the adjustment of all 
 international differences ; and that stipulations be introduced into all international 
 treaties to provide for this mode of adjustment; whereby recourse to war 
 may be entirely avoided between such nations as shall agree to abide by such 
 stipulation." 
 
 On a Congress of Nations. "That while recommending the plan of Judge 
 Jay, which proposes that Nations should enter into treaty stipulations to 
 refer their differences to the arbitration of a friendly power, as a measure 
 the most immediately available for the prevention of war, we still regard, as 
 peace societies have from their origin regarded, especially as set forth by the 
 late William Ladd, Esq., a Congress of Aations to settle and perfect the code 
 
87 
 
 of international law, and a High Court of Nations to interpret and apply that 
 for the settlement of all National disputes, as that wliich should be further kept 
 in view by the friends of peace, and urged upon the Governments as one of 
 the best practical modes of settling peacefully and satisfactorily such interna- 
 tional disputes." 
 
 On Preparation for War. " That in the opinion of this Convention, prepara- 
 tions for war are so many incentives to war, and ought to be discouraged by ail 
 friends of peace." 
 
 There are now Peace Societies at London, at Paris, at Brussels, at Geneva, 
 all cooperating in this holy cause. The American Peace Society is the oldest, 
 and has already been the means of great good. It has adopted as a fundamental 
 article in its constitution the declaration i/iai all war is forbidden by Christianity. 
 Its officers and principal members include some of the most prominent divines 
 and public characters of our country ; among whom are the President, S. E. 
 Coues, Rev. Andrew P. Peabody, of Portsmouth, N. H.; Rev. Charles Lowell, 
 of Boston; Rev. Ezra S. Gannett, of Boston ; Rev. Francis Wayland, of Provi- 
 dence, R.I. ; Rev. C. E. Stowe, of Cincinnati; Rev. Howard Malcom, of 
 Georgetown, Ky. ; Theodore Frelinghuysen. of J\ew York; William W. Ells- 
 worth, of Hartford, Conn. ; Gerrit Smith, of Peterborough, N. Y. ; William Jay, 
 of Bedford, j\'. Y. ; Professor Grcenleaf of Cambridge ; Samuel A. Elliot, of 
 Boston; Sidney Willard, of Cambridge; Thomas W. Ward, of Boston; Rev. 
 William Jenks ; Rev. Orville Dewey, of JNew York ; Jonathan Chapman ; Martin 
 Brimmer, of Boston ; Amasa Walker. 
 
 Of a society, composed of such names, subscribiijg to such a principle, — it 
 would be difficult for Southey to repeat the gibe, which he allowed himself to 
 utter in his Colloquies on the Progress and Prospects of Society, I. 224.; " I say 
 nothing of the Society I'or the Abolition of War {Heaven bless the mark !) ; it has 
 not obtained sufficient notice even to be in disrepute." 
 
 History furnishes various illustrations of the principle of aCongress of Nations, 
 under the name of Councils, Leagues, Diets or Congresses. 1. The Amphicty- 
 onic Council, embracing at first twelve and finally thirty-one states or cities was 
 established in the year 497 B. C. Each city sent two deputies, and had two votes 
 in the Council, wliich had full power to discuss all difj'erences which might arise 
 between the Amphictyonic cities. 2. The Achaan League, founded at a very 
 early period, and renewed in SS-i B. C. Although each member of the League 
 was independent of the others, yet they formed one body, and so great was their 
 reputation for justice and probity, that the Greek cities of Italy reterred disputes 
 to their arbitration. 3. Passing over other confederacies of antiquity, we come 
 down to the Hanseatic League, begun in the twelfth century and completed near 
 the middle of the thirteenth. It comprised at one time nearly eighty cities. A 
 system of international law was adopted in their general assemblies. While pur- 
 suing a pacihc policy, they flourished beyond all precedent. 4. In the twelfth 
 and thirteenth centuries in Germany, various other cities and nobles entered 
 into alliances and associations for mutual protection, under various names, as the 
 League of the Rhine, and of Suabia. (Robertson, Hist, of Charles V. JNote 21.) 
 5. 2'he Helvetic Union began so long ago as 1308, and has preserved peace among 
 its members during the greater part of five centuries. It is covenanted by this 
 Union that all public dissensions shall be settled between the parties in an amica- 
 ble manner ; and, with this view, particular judges and arbitrators are appointed 
 with power to compose any strife that may arise. C. Tlie Grand Scheme of 
 Henry IV, of France, for the blending of the Christian States of Europe in one 
 Confederacy, had its rise more in selfish ambition, than in true humanity ; but it 
 has served to keep before Christendom the idea of the same common tribune 
 for the great brotherhood of nations. 7. The United States of America furnish an 
 instance of the union of twenty-six different States, all having peculiar interests, 
 in bonds of peace, with a tribunal which has jurisdiction over the controversies 
 of the States. 
 
 William Penn once said of the schemes of Henry IV^, " his example tells us 
 tha.t it is Jit to be done ; Sir William Temple's History of the United Provinces 
 shows, by a surpassing instance, that it may be done ; and Europe, by her incom- 
 parable miseries, that it ought to be done." 
 
 It seems, in the order of Providence, that the families, tribes and nations of 
 the earth should tend, by means of association, to a final Unity. The seven 
 kingdoms of England became o»ie under the Saxon Edgar; Wales was forcibly 
 absorbed into England under Edward I ; Ireland, after a protracted resistance, 
 was finally absorbed under Edward III ; Scotland became connected with England 
 by the accession of James I, to the throne of the Tudors, and the two countries 
 
88 
 
 afterwards, under Queen Anne, were united by an act of peaceful legislation. 
 The great nations of France and Austria have passed through similar stages; 
 disjointed fragments and scattered limbs have been brought together ; provinces, 
 which once possessed an equivocal independence, now feel new power and hap- 
 piness in their common union. This is the great process of crystallization, 
 which is constantly going on among nations. The next stage will be ihe associa- 
 tion of Christian States. 
 
 Our country possesses peculiar advantages for taking the initiative in the 
 diplomatic measures, by which this great event is to be hastened. A Committee 
 of Congress, in a Report, ascribed to the late Mr Legare, recommended in 1838, 
 " a reference to a third power of all such controversies as can be safely confided 
 to any tribunal unknown to the Constitution of our country. Such a practice, 
 (say the Committee) will be followed by other powers, and will soon grow up 
 into the customary law of civilized nations." The Legislature of Massachusetts, 
 by a series of Resolutions, passed with great unanimity in 1314, declare it their 
 " earnest desire that the government of the United States would, at the 
 earliest opportunity, take measures for obtaining the consent of the powers of 
 Christendom to the establishment of a General Convention or Congress of Na- 
 tions, for the purpose of settling the principles of international law, and of 
 organizing a high court of nations, to adjudge all cases of difficulty which may 
 be brought before them by the mutual consent of two or more nations." Mr. 
 Jay, in his work on Peace mid War, while he foresees the ultimate establishment 
 of a Congress of JN'ations, recommends as a preliminary step the formation of 
 Treaties with the diflerent powers of Christendom, providing for the adjustment 
 of difficulties by arbitration. 
 
 There is no work to which an American statesman may devote himself, in the 
 hope of fame, or in the desire to be of service to the world, that can compare in 
 grandeur with the cause which is now most earnestly recommended to all who 
 have any influence over the public mind. Let the President of the United States 
 empower our ministers at all the Courts to which they are accredited to open 
 negotiations at once for this holy purpose. 
 
 NOTE D. 
 
 [Referred to on page 32.] 
 
 Dr. Vinton's Sermon. The sermon of ithe Rev. Dr. Vinton, pronounced 
 before the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, is a most disheartening 
 production. It is the subtle effort of an excellent mind to reconcile what he 
 calls defensive war (he does not show that such a war is possible, in this age, 
 among Christian nations) with the injunctions of Christianity, severing and 
 dividing, as with profane metaphysical scissors, a most intelligible verse of the 
 Gospel, wholly neglecting others of great and controlling significance, and seek- 
 ing to overturn one of the most blessed truths. The sermon was delivered on a 
 public occasion of ceremony, before a military body ; it was voted by the martial 
 critics " able, eloquent, and interesting," and at their request was printed. It has 
 been praised in newspapers ; though, to the credit of a wakeful press, which now 
 exercises a restraining influence over the clergy, as well as the laity, its perni- 
 cious doctrines and its unfair reasoning have already been rebuked by two 
 able writers in different journals. It has thus become public property, and as 
 such, 1 venture to dwell on its character. 
 
 This sermon is particularly sinister at this moment, when the country stands 
 on the verge of two wars, which will be proclaimed to be defensive in their 
 character, though having in them no element of self-defence, and being mere trials 
 of title to distant territories. It is also unfair in its peculiar mode of treating the 
 question. There is an honest hardihood in the military ardor with which Grotius 
 (De jure Belli ac Pacis) and, since him, Mr. Lieber, (Political Ethics), march 
 against the direct injunctions of the Saviour, the ipgissima verba of the Gospel, 
 treating them as of little or no account, as extravagances or exaggerations. But 
 Dr. Vinton founds his defence of war on a single verse of the Gospel, leaving all 
 others untouched, and even concealing them from the view. In this way he may 
 avoid seeming directly to stultify Him whom he calls Master, by declaring that 
 his words do not mean what they seem to mean 3 that He did not know what he 
 
89 
 
 meant when he said, " Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy 
 neighbor and hate thine enemy; but I say unto you, Love your enemies;" and 
 that Paul indulged in an inipracticul)le extravafraiice wlien he said, '■ Overcome 
 evil with good." But placing his whole argument upon a single verse, the whole 
 superstructure rushes to tiie earth when the interpretation by which it is supported 
 is shown to be inconsistent with the general cliaracter and teachings of Christ; 
 inconsistent with the fair and natural sense of the words in the English version; 
 utterly and flagrantly inconsistent with the phiin and grammatical constructitm of 
 the original Greek ; so much so as to lead to the conclusion that Dr. Vinton did 
 not reter to the original Greek, or did not understand it. 1 am indebted to a 
 friend, whose name it would be superHuous in me to mention, fur the following 
 masterly criticism of Dr. Vinton's treatment of this verse. After reading this, no 
 person can regard it otherwise than monstrous to found a scriptural defence of so 
 great a crime as war on an unfair, ignorant and ungrammatical perversion of a 
 few short words in the gospel of peace. 
 
 To those who are desirous of reading a natural and unanswerable expression 
 of the true doctrine of Christianity on the subject of war, where the different 
 injunctions of the Saviour seem to come together and arrange themselves, not 
 by subtle force, but spontaneously and by divine harmony, I would refer to the 
 elaborate work, of Dymond on War; to the essay by Gurney. entitled, ■' War 
 unlawful under the Christian dispensation;" the Address of the Rev. Andrew P. 
 Peabody, before the American Peace Society; and the truly Christian sermon of 
 Rev. Mr. Bogue, of England. 
 
 Jf the habit of delivering sermons before a military company should be contin- 
 ued, and another Christian minister be found consenting another year to degrade 
 the " blessedness " of the gospel to the " blasphemy " of war, 1 hope he will be 
 willing to attend to the following points : First, the numerous direct te.xts in the 
 gospel, all of them embracing war in their general condemnation, or enjoining 
 peace; second, the character of Christ and his immediate disciples, and the 
 question, whether it is possible to suppose Christ, or the youthful John, or even 
 ttie fiery Peter, doing duty as soldiers, either in the militia, or the regular army, 
 or preaching sermons in praise of the profession of arms, or riding as chaplains 
 of a military parade; third, the history of the Christian church during the first 
 four centuries, showing conclusively that it was then regarded as wrong in a 
 Cliristian to bear arms \ fourth, if any kind of war is consistent with Christianity, 
 let him e.'?|dain precisely what, to the end that its sacred sanctions may not be 
 thrown over all wars, — a piratical contest for Texas, or a mere quarrel about the 
 title to Oregon ; fifth, if he should assert that what are called defensive wars are 
 consistent with Christianity, let him explain precisely what is meant by a defen- 
 sive war, and show the possibility, — the most distant possibility, — of the occur- 
 rence of such a war in this age, among Christian nations ; sixth, if he should 
 conclude that Christianity forbids all wars, or all wars but defensive wars, while 
 it is impossible and monstrous to suppose the case of such a war in our age, let 
 him then consider whether all preparations for war are not improper, and whether 
 a Christian minister is not justly reprehensible who lends them the sanction of 
 his presence. 
 
 'J'he following criticism, which I hasten to present, will render it necessary for 
 any successor of Dr. Vinton in the church militant, to occupy a position on some 
 other verse of the gospel than that on which he chose to throw up his entrench- 
 ments. As the majestic elms on the Boulevards of Paris, afibrding a generous 
 shade to the people, were hewn down to become barricades in the Revolution of 
 July, so the blessed texts of the gospel, under whose broad and sacred shelter all 
 mankind might repose in peace, from generation to generation, are felled to the 
 earth, and converted into defences of war. 
 
 The first four pages of Dr. Vinton's Artillery Election Sermon contain a good 
 and Christian-like exposition of the text, " If my kingdom were of this world, 
 then would my servants fight." But as this plain and pious course of remark is 
 not adapted to the military exigencies of the occasion, it is necessary for the 
 sermon to change front, and turn its battery, as it were, upon the position it 
 began by defending. This manoeuvre, more martial than clerical, is executed by 
 substituting for the words of the Saviour a paraphrase which contradicts them. 
 They have "an indirect meaning," says Dr. Vinton, and so acting upon the 
 principles of Polonius' advice to Laertes, he proceeds by "indirections" to "find 
 directions out." " Their paraphrase," he continues, would be thus : " If my 
 8* 
 
90 
 
 kingdom were of the sort which my enemies supposed, if the object of my 
 government were specially to establish personal security, to promote social 
 comfort, or to maintain national independence, or any other objects for which 
 human governments are formed, then it would be lioth necessary and right to 
 resist the injustice which has delivered me to this tribunal." 
 
 The formal division of the Scriptures into minute portions, called verses, gives 
 great license to ingenious misinterpretation, and is the occasion of much ecclesi- 
 astical sophistry. The preacher takes a sentence, clause, or even a single phrase 
 out of its connection, and mstead of interpreting it in the broad light of the 
 general truths of Christianity, wrests it from the combination in which it stands, 
 and makes it the theme of a sermon. Like the ancient Sophists he can thus 
 sustain any side of any question. " Hang all the law and prophets " is a familiar 
 and ludicrous instance of textual perversion ; but it is not more untenable and 
 distorted than the graver paraphrase on which Dr. Vinton has founded the main 
 part of his discourse. \Vhere did he learn that the language of Christ contains 
 such double and contradictory meanings as his paraphrase superinduces upon the 
 text? that besides the idea which the Saviour's words obviously expressed, there 
 was an arrit-re pensee, a sort of mental reservation, to be drawn out ages after 
 they were spoken, but sealed against the understanding of the man to whom they 
 were addressed by the living tongue ? 
 
 The first thing that strikes the mind on reading the paraphrase is, that this 
 interpretation puts into the mouth of the Lord a platitude and a paralogism. For 
 on such an occasion it would have been a very inept proceeding to enter even by 
 implication upon a general political thesis. Next it would have been an extraor- 
 dinary piece of logic to affirm that force might rightly be used in establishing 
 organizations so imperfect as human governments always have been, and so 
 irreligious in their practices, and yet that it would not be right to use force to 
 protect the perfect innocence and godlike sanctity of Christ, in his labors to 
 reform and save the world. Jf force could be rightly used in the former case, it 
 might a foitiori be rightly used in the latter. If wars may rightly be waged in 
 defence or support of the itnperfect and the sinful, they may for still stronger 
 reasons be rightly waged for the perfect and the sinless. 
 
 The circumstances under which Cljrist addressed to Pontius PiJate the 
 remarkable words, " My kingdom is not of this world; if my kingdom were of 
 this world, then would my servants fight that 1 should not be delivered to the 
 Jews," place their meaning beyond a doubt. 
 
 The Saviour, well knowing that his ministry on earth was nearly finished, had 
 met his disciples and delivered to them his last and most affecting instructitms. 
 In the mean time the Jewish authorities, the Priests, and Pharisees, and Scribes, 
 whose hardened hearts had been pierced, and whose hypocritical lives had been 
 rebuked by the divine teachings of the Son of Man, c,orru|)ted the fidelity of one 
 of his proliessed followers, who agreed for a sum of money to betray his master 
 into their hands. Wrought up to fury by Christ's searching denunciations, which 
 their consciences had been utterly helpless to gainsay, they were resolved to 
 shed his blood, be the means and the consequences what they might. To make 
 sure of their victim they called in the aid of a military band, the ready instruments 
 of every deed of wickedness and blood; and appointing the traitor, Judas Iscariot, 
 their guide, despatched them in martial array to steal upon the holiest of the 
 messengers of God in the silence and retirement of the night, and to arrest him, 
 with every circumstance of insult, like a vulgar malefactor. But when the 
 myrmidons of guilt and hate were led by the betrayer into the presence of that 
 mysterious man, unable to stand before the terrors of liis countenance, " they 
 went backward and fell to the ground." Overcoming at length the awe which 
 had struck them powerless, the rude soldiery laid their hands on Jesus and bound 
 him. They conducted him first to the house of Annas, and then arraigned him 
 before Caiaphas, the high priest of that year. At the palace of this priest, the 
 Sanhedrim, or Supreme Council of the Jewish nation, consisting of the bitterest 
 foes of Jesus, who were bent with unpitying rage upon his murder, was hurriedly 
 assembled ; and the brief and passionate debate ended with the predetermined 
 judgment of death. But the Jews were under a foreign yoke. Judea was but a 
 province added by conquest to the vast empire of Rome. A procurator, repre- 
 senting the imperial power, was stationed as governor at Jerusalem. Knowing 
 the obstinate and rebellious character of the people, it was his duty to watch 
 with sleepless eye every sign of insubordination in the conquered province. 
 Without his sanction, no capital sentence could be carried into execution. And 
 so the procession formed anew, priests, and rabbis, and the martial array, to 
 conduct the serene and unresisting victim to the judgment hall of Pilate. This 
 
91 
 
 company, stranger than was ever assembled before or since in the history of the 
 world, approached the Roman tribunal just as the morning was breaking over the 
 dread scene. The tragedy of the Saviour's life, crowded wiih eternal consequen- 
 ces to the happiness of man, was swiftly drawing towards its catastrophe. His 
 enemies, maddened by unreasoning hatred, shrank not from the foulest means to 
 bring about their fell intent; and incident alter incident in the awful drama, 
 pregnant with inappreciable significance for the destiny of the human soul, 
 pressed the great action forward with startling rapidity. 
 
 The Jews resolved to employ the easily excited jealousy of the Roman governor 
 to strike their victim down. To accomplish their fiendish purpose the more 
 readily, they charged him with a political design against the sovereign power ; a 
 design, which in their gross conceptions of the predicted Messiah, they imagined 
 and hoped he would appear on earth to execute ; an imagination and a hope 
 which the language and actions of Christ had pointedly contradicted again and 
 again, and thus added to the exasperation which they felt, on other grounds, 
 against his person. They charged him, in effect, with a conspiracy against the 
 Imperial power; with intending to make himself a king and to shake off the 
 Roman yoke; and to substantiate this treasonous charge, they dishonestly 
 perverted the figurative language which they had heard him use on several occa- 
 sions. They could not enter the pretorium with their destined victim, because 
 the feast of the passover was near at hand, and they desired to eat of it, which 
 they could not religiously do, if they went in, — good, pious men that they were, 
 — but they could knowingly forge a lie, and for the sake of shedding innocent 
 blood, swear falsely to a crime which, by the Roman law, was punishable with an 
 ignominious death upon the cross. Pilate having listened outside of the hall to 
 the accusation so insidiously shaped and adapted to rouse all his Roman fears, 
 suspicions and prejudices against the prisoner, re-entered the pretorium and 
 questioned him upon this very point. What was Christ's answer? A positive, 
 intelligible asseveration, as plain as words could express any thought of the 
 mind, and as exclusive of the possibility of any supposed indirect or hidden 
 meaning, as the most transparent singleness of heart could make it : " My king- 
 dom is not of this world; if my kingdom were of this world, then would my 
 servants fight for me that 1 might not be delivered to the Jews." All these words 
 of the Saviour are limited by the last clause, " That 1 might not be delivered to 
 the Jews," to his own case; nor, whatever their meaning may be, can they be 
 tortured by any ingenious sophistry into a general thesis, express or implied, 
 upon tiie rightfulness of sustaining government by force, still less into an author- 
 itative sanction of any kind of war. What Christ said, he meant; no more, and 
 no less. Pilate understood his words, and was satisfied of his innocence. But 
 if Christ had said what the preacher's paraphrase re|)re.sents him to have indirectly 
 implied, Pilate could not possibly have gone out and declared to the Jews that 
 he found no fault in him; for Pilate must have understood him to mean, that 
 though as a matter of tact, he entertained no such design as was charged upon 
 him by the Jews, still had he been a temporal leader, he might rightfully have 
 maintained his cause by an appeal to arms ; that is, under the peculiar circum- 
 stances of the case, Pilate must have understood Christ to maintain and declare a 
 set of political or patriotic principles wholly at variance with submission to the 
 Roman Supremacy. Looking at the case, then, from the Roman point of view, 
 and under a sense of weighty responsibility to the central power whose delegate 
 he was, he would have said to the Jews, with perfect truth, " I cannot, indeed, 
 find that this man has been guilty of any overt act of rebellion ; but he is a dan- 
 gerous person and disloyal to Rome ; he declares, that were he a temporal prince 
 he might rightfully draw the sword. When he says that his kingdom is not of 
 this world, he is doubtless making a cunning fetch to extricate himself from the 
 present danger. It is a distinction without a difference. I am not to be cheated 
 with these fraudulent subtleties. The principles he professes to my face, would 
 justify him in rebelling whenever he might think he possessed the ability to 
 command success. It is my duty to Rome to put him out of the way. Do with 
 him what you will." But Pilate drew no such meaning from the Saviour's 
 words; he saw with perfect clearness into the true state of the case, and told the 
 Jews, not that he could discover no act ioyov, but that he perceived no fault, or 
 ground of charge, airittj', against the prisoner, and with importunate eagerness 
 urged them to let him go. The Jews could not help perceiving that their attempt 
 to fasten upon Christ a political crime had so far failed, nor did they until some 
 time afterwards repeat the charge, but in the senseless, brutal rabidness of disap- 
 pointed malice, shrieked out, "Crucify him, crucify him. We have a law, and 
 by our law he ought to die, because he has made himself a Son of God." 
 
92 
 
 If Christ meant what the paraphrase makes him to imply, he was guilty of a 
 dishonest trick; a Jesuitical playing with the ambiguities of human speech. This 
 conclusion any reader, of common sense, must arrive at, upon a careful consider- 
 ation and comparison of the incidents in the marvellous history, But an exami- 
 nation of the Greek original of the passage in which these transactions are related 
 makes assurance doubly sure. 'J'he interpretation of Dr. Vinton will be defended 
 by no tolerable Greek scholar on philological or hermeneutic grounds. The 
 words are, " '7/ j'^wCTtAf^a i^^ ^//rj ovy. eaxiv ix loi) xoa/nov jdvjov. El 
 ix Tov y.dofiov loviov f^j' ij ^uaiKeiu ■>) c//i], ol inrjQijui (xv oi ifiol 
 riyuvlCovjo, iva /x^ nuQudodd) 70ig luvduloig' vvv 8s ■>] ^acriXela -^ 
 ijiiri oin eaiiv^ei'Tevder." It should be remarked, ^rs<, that the preposition i;«, 
 translated in our English version o/, means from, and denotes origin from a place 
 or source ; second, that the two expressions on. which the sense of the passage 
 depends, each being qualified, one by the particle ti^ the other by the particle Cii', 
 stand to each other in the relation of conditioning and condilioned clauses ; third, 
 that the verbs rip and r^'/on'i'ZovTO are in the indicative mode; fourth, that they 
 are in the imperfect tense; and fifth, that the word xoaiiov^ world, is used by 
 the sacred writers in a bad sense, as contrasted with goodness, piety or God. 
 Literally translated, then, the passage would run, " My kingdom is not from this 
 world; if my kingdom were from this world, then my servants would tight that I 
 might not be delivered to the Jews. But now my kingdom is not from hence." 
 Expanding the language, not for the sake of paraphrasing, but of illustrating it, 
 the sense may be thus expressed: "iVly authority does not, like that of temporal 
 rulers, originate in this eyil world; if my authority did originate in this world, like 
 that of temporal rulers, then (as a matter of fact, not of right, (i>' ijyuji'1'C.oi'io, 
 indicative mode) would my servants be fighting now (imperfect tense) to defend 
 me from my enemies. But my kingdom is from a higher source ; my kingdom is 
 a spiritual authority, bestowed on me by the Heavenly Fatlier. I am the Prince 
 of Peace. I have notliing to do with violence, rebellion and war; but my mission 
 is to teach those doctrines which will for ever put an end to violence, rebellion 
 and war. Were it otherwise, 1 should not be standing before thy tribunal, in this 
 lowly guise and apparently helpless condition; but sword in hand, like other 
 temporal chieftains, 1 should be leading armed cohorts, and drenching the earth 
 in blood. But I say again, my authority comes not from hence; and deeds like 
 these have no sanction from me or from my doctrines." 
 
 The laws of the language imperatively require this construction. The princi- 
 ples of interpretation, which Pilate instinctively applied, require it. Had the verbs 
 in the two selected clauses been in the optative mode, fhr and uyuiiiZoifin^ 
 then a correct translation would have been, " If my kingdom were of this world, 
 then might my servants fight," though even in this case, the rightj'idncss of fight- 
 ing would not necessarily be inferred. To justify such an interpretation, even 
 with the optative mode, the verb (i-'onicoi.yio, might fight, -^wouUi need to he 
 qualified by the adverb 0()6Li)g or Siy.uiwc, rightly or justly. 
 
 The thoughtless paraphrase in the Artillery Election Sermon is an example of 
 that ecclesiastical sophistry which in all ages of the Christian church, except the 
 earliest, has struggled, sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously, to abase 
 the lofty principles of the gospel to the low standard of the existing contemporary 
 world. 
 
93 
 
 NOTE E. 
 
 [Referred to on page 40.] 
 
 Dr. Wavland's Views on War. — When the foregoing Oration was delivered, 
 1 was not aware that its principles were sustained so entirely by an autiiority like 
 Dr. Wayland, in a work, Elements of Moral Science, which, it is grateful to know, 
 enjoys an immense circulation, and cannot fail, therefore, to exercise an important 
 influence over the youth of the country. It is with great pleasure that i make 
 the following extract, to which 1 invite the particular attention of the reader: — 
 
 "Let us suppose a nation to abandon all means, both of offence and of defence, 
 to lay aside all power of inflicting injury, and to rely for self-preservation solely 
 upon the justice of its own conduct, and the moral effect which such a course of 
 conduct would produce upon the consciences of men. How would such a nation 
 procure redress of grievances ? and how would it be protected frorn foreign aggres- 
 sion ? 
 
 " I. Of redress of grievances. Under this head would be comprehended vio- 
 lation of treaties, spoliation of property, and ill-treatment of its citizens. I reply, 
 
 " 1. The very fact that a nation relied solely upon the justice of its measures, 
 and the benevolence of its conduct, would do more than any thing else to prevent 
 the occurrence of injury. The moral sentiment of every human community 
 would rise in opposition to injury inflicted upon the just, the kind, and the 
 merciful. Thus, by this course, the probabilities of aggression are rendered as 
 few as the nature of man will permit. 
 
 "2. But suppose injury to be done. I reply, the proper appeal for moral beings 
 upon moral questions, is not to physical force, but to the consciences of men. 
 Let the wrong be set forth, but be set forth in the spirit of love; and in this 
 manner, if in any, will the consciences of men be aroused to justice. 
 
 "3. But suppose this method to fail. Why, then, let us sufl'er the injury. This 
 is the preferable evil of the two. Because they have injured us a lillle, it does 
 not follow that we should injure ourselves much. But it will be said, what is 
 then to become of our national honor ? I answer, first, if we have acted justly, 
 we surely are not dishonored. The dishonor rests upon those who have done 
 wickedly. I answer again, national honor is displayed in forbearance, in forgive- 
 ness, in requiting faithlessness with hdelity, and grievances with kindness and 
 good-will. These virtues are surely as delightful and as honorable in nations as 
 in individuals. 
 
 " But itmay be asked, what is to prevent repeated and continued aggression ? 
 1 answer, first, not instruments of destruction, but the moral principle which God 
 has placed in the bosom of every man. I think that obedience to the law of God, 
 on the part of the injured, is the surest preventive against the repetition of injury. 
 I answer, secondly, suppose that acting in obedience to the law of benevolence 
 will not prevent the repetition of injury, will acting upon the principle of retalia- 
 tion prevent it ? This is really the trufr question. The evil tempers of the 
 human heart are allowed to exist, and we are inquiring in what manner shall we 
 suffer the least injury from them; whether by obeying the law of benevolence, or 
 that of retaliation ? It is not necessary, therefore, to show, that by adopting the 
 law of benevolence, we shall not suffer at all, but that, by adopting it, we shall 
 suffer Zfss than by the opposite course; and that a nation would actually thus 
 suffer less upon the whole, than by any other course, cannot, 1 think, be doubted 
 by any one who will calmly reflect upon the subject. 
 
 " IL How would such a nation be protected from external attack and entire 
 subjugation ? 1 answer, by adopting the law of benevolence, a nation would 
 render such an event in the highest degree improbable. The causes of national 
 war are most commonly, the love of plunder, and the love of glory. The first of 
 these is rarely, if ever, sufficient to stimulate men to the ferocity necessary to 
 war, unless when assisted by the second. And by adopting as the rule of our 
 conduct the law of benevolence, all motive arising from the second cause is taken 
 away. There is not a nation in Europe that could be led on to war against a 
 harmless, just, forgiving and defenceless people. 
 
 " But suppose such a case really should occur, what are we then to do ? I 
 answer, sutler injury with forgiveness and love, looking up to God, who, in his 
 holy habitation, is the Judge of the whole earth. And if it be said, we shall 
 then all be subjected and enslaved, I answer again, have wars prevented men 
 
94 
 
 from being subjected and enslaved ? Is there a nation on the continent of Europe 
 that has not been overrun by foreign troops several times, even within the present 
 century ? And still more, is it not most commonly the case, that the very means 
 by which we repel a despotism from abroad, only establishes over us a military 
 despotism at home ? Since, then, the prmciple of retaliation will not, with any 
 certainty, save a country from conquest, the real question, as before, is, By 
 obedience to which law will a nation be most likely to escape it, by the law of 
 retaliation, or by that of benevolence ? It seems to me that a man who will 
 calmly reflect, can have but little doubt on this matter. 
 
 " But I go still farther. The Scriptures teach us that God has created men, 
 both as individuals and as societies, under the law of benevolence; and that he 
 intends this law to be obeyed. Societies have never yet thought of obeying it in 
 their dealings with each other; and statesmen would generally consider the 
 allusion to it as puerile. But this alters not the law of God, nor the punishment 
 which he inflicts upon nations for the violation of it. This punishment I suppose 
 to be war. I believe aggression from a foreign nation to be the intimation from 
 God that we are disobeying the law of benevolence, and that this is his mode of 
 teaching nations their duly, in this respect, to each other. So that aggression 
 seems to me to be in no manner a call to retaliation and injury, but rather a call 
 to special kindness and good-will. And still farther, the requiting evil with good 
 tends just as strongly to the cessation of all injury, in nations as in individuals. 
 Let any man reflect upon the amount of jjecumary expenditure, and the awful 
 waste of human life, which the wars of the last hundred years have occasioned, 
 and then I will ask liim whether it be not self-evident, that the one-hundredth 
 part of this expense and sufiiering, if employed in the honest effort to render 
 mankind wiser and better, would, long before this time, have banished wars from 
 the earth, and rendered the civilized world like the garden of Eden. 
 
 " If this be true, it willfollow that the cultivation of a military spirit is the 
 cultivation of a greet curse to a community; and that all means, both of oU'ence 
 and defence, are worse than useless, inasmuch as they aggravate the very source 
 of the evil, the corrupt passions of the human heart, by tlie manner in which they 
 ineffectually attempt to check the evil itself. 
 
 "I am aware that all this may be called visionary, romantic and chimerical. 
 This, however, neither makes it so, nor shows it to be so. The time to apply 
 these epithets will be, when the justness of their application has been proved. 
 And if It be said, these principles may all be very true, but you can never induce 
 nations to act upon them; 1 answer, this concession admits that such is the law 
 of God. If this be the case, that nation will be the happiest and the wisest which 
 is the first to obey it. And if it be said, it would be wisest and best to obey the 
 law of benevolence, but men will never obey it, I answer, here is manifestly the 
 end of the argument. If we show men what is wisest and best, and according to 
 the will of their Creator, we can do no more. If they disobey it, this is a matter 
 to be settled between them and their God. It remains, however, to be seen, 
 whether God will or will not cause his laws to be obeyed ; and whether Omnis- 
 cience and Omnipotence have not the means of teaching his creatures submission 
 to his will.'' — pp. 31)7-401. 
 
 NOTE F. 
 
 (Referred to on page 64.] 
 
 The following beautiful anecdote from the second series of 31rs. Child's 
 Letters from Aeiv York, — the production of a brave and beautiful soul, — furnishes 
 an instructive illustration of the text: 
 
 " I have somewhere read of a regiment ordered to march into a small town and 
 take it. I think it was in the Tyrol ; but wherever it was, it chanced that the 
 place was settled by a colony who believed the gospel of Christ, and proved their 
 faith by works. A courier from a neighboring village intbrmed them that troops 
 were advancing to take the town. Tliey quietly answered, ' If they toill take it, 
 they must ' Soldiers soon came riding in, with colors flying, and fifes piping 
 their shrill defiance. They looked round lor an enemy, and saw the farmer at 
 his plough, the blacksmith at his anvil, and the women at their churns and spin- 
 ning-wheels. Babies crowded to hear the music, and the boys ran out to see the 
 
95 
 
 pretty trainers, with feathers and bright buttons, ' the harlequins of the nineteenth 
 century.' Of course none of these were in a proper position to be shot at. 
 ' Wliere are your soldiers ? ' they asked. ' We have none,' was the brief reply. 
 ' But we have come to take the town.' ' Well, friends, it lies before you.' ' But 
 is there nobody here to tight ? ' ' JNo ; we are all Christians.' 
 
 " Here was an emergency altogether unprovided for ; a sort of resistance which 
 no bullet could hit; a fortress perfectly bomb-proof The commander was per- 
 plexed. ' If there is nobody to fight with, of course we caimot fight,' said he. 
 ' It is impossible to take such a town as this.' So he ordered the horses' heads 
 to be turned about, and they carried the human animals out of the village, as 
 guiltless as they entered, and perchance somewhat wiser. 
 
 "This experiment on a small scale indicates how easy it would be to dispense 
 with armies and navies, if men only had faith in the religion they profess to 
 believe. When France lately reduced her army, England immediately did the 
 same ; for the existence of one army creates the necessity for another, unless 
 men are safely esconced in the bomb-proof fortress above mentioned." 
 
 NOTE G. 
 
 [Referred to on page 70 ] 
 
 The following extracts from two different sources, will show that private per- 
 sons once lived in relations of distrust towards each other, similar to those of 
 nations of the present day. The first extract is from the Paston Letters, written 
 in the time of Henry VII of England, and is, perhaps, the most curious and 
 authentic illustration of the armed life of that period which can be found. The 
 other is from .Sir Walter Scott's picturesque Lay of the Last Minstrel. Who 
 does not rejoice that such days have passed? Who will not join in labors to 
 establish among nations the same harmonious, unarmed intercour.se which now 
 prevails among individuals ? 
 
 " Right worshipful husband, I recommend me to you, and pray you to get me 
 some cross-bows and wyndnacs* (windlasses), to bind them with and quarrels,t 
 for your houses here be so low that there may none man shoot out with no long 
 bow, though we had never so much need. 
 
 I suppose ye should have such things of Sir John Fastolf if ye would send to 
 him ; and also I would ye should get two or three short pole axes to keep with 
 \in\ doors, and as many jackets and [i/"] ye may. 
 
 Partrich and his fellowship are sore afraid that ye would enter again upon them, 
 and they have made great ordnance within the house, and it is told me that they 
 have made bars to bar the doors crosswise, and they have made wickets on every 
 quarter of the house to shoot out at, both with bows and with hand-guns ; and 
 the holes that be made from hand-guns they be scarce knee high from the 
 plancher \^Jioor\, and of such holes be made five, there can none man shoot out 
 at them with no hand-bows." Paston Letters, CXIH, (LXXVII. vol. 3, p. 31.) 
 Margaret Paston to her husband. 
 
 Nine-and-twenty knights of fame 
 
 Hung their shields in the Branksome hall ; 
 
 Nine-and-twenty squires of name 
 
 Brought them their steeds from bower to stall ; 
 
 ]Nine-and-twenty yeomen tall 
 
 Waited, duteous, on them all : 
 
 They were all knights of metal true, 
 
 Kinsmen to the bold Buccleuch. 
 
 Ten of them were sheathed in steel, 
 With belted sword, and spur on heel : 
 They quitted not the harness bright, 
 Neither by day, nor yet by night ; 
 
 * Wynilnac^ are what are called grappHns ir(in3, with which the bow-string ia 
 drawn home, 
 t Arrows with a square head. 
 
96 
 
 They lay down to rest, 
 
 With corslet laced, 
 Pillowed on buckler cold and hard; 
 
 They carved at the meal 
 
 With gloves of steel, 
 And they drank the red tvine through the helmet barred. 
 
 Ten squires, ten yeomen, mail-clad men, 
 Waited the beck of the warders ten 5 
 Tliirty steeds, both fleet and wight. 
 Stood saddled in stable day and night, 
 Barbed with frontlet of steel 1 trow, 
 And with Jedwood axe at saddle bow. 
 A hundred more fed free in stall ; 
 Such was the custom at Branksome hall. 
 
 Lay of the Last Minstrel, Canto I. 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^^ 
 
 W. S. DAMRELL, PRINTER, 11 CORNHILL. 
 
* 
 
 
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