and the rhetorical soldier, to say nothing of the giddy general and
the French priest of Mars, find too much support for a theory which
degrades human nature and insults the goodness of God. It is true
that in us are impulses unhappily tending to strife. Propensities
possessed in common with the beast, if not subordinated to what in
man is human, almost divine, will break forth in outrage. This is
the predominance of the animal. Hence wars and fightings, with the
false glory which crowns such barbarism. But the true civilization of
nations, as of individuals, is determined by the extent to which these
evil dispositions are restrained. Nor does the teacher ever more truly
perform his high office than when, recognizing the supremacy of the
moral and intellectual, he calls upon nations, as upon individuals,
to declare independence of the bestial, to abandon practices founded
on this part of our nature, and in every way to beat down that brutal
spirit which is the Genius of War. In making this appeal, he will be
startled as he learns, that, while the municipal law of each Christian
nation, discarding the Arbitrament of Force, provides a judicial
tribunal for the determination of controversies between individuals,
International Law expressly _establishes_ the Arbitrament of War for
the determination of controversies between nations.
Here, then, in unfolding the True Grandeur of Nations, we encounter
a practice, or _custom_, sanctioned by the Law of Nations, and
constituting a part of that law, which exists in defiance of principles
such as no individuals can disown. If it is wrong and inglorious when
individuals _consent and agree_ to determine their petty controversies
by combat, it must be equally wrong and inglorious when nations
_consent and agree_ to determine their vaster controversies by
combat. Here is a positive, precise, and specific evil, of gigantic
proportions, inconsistent with what is truly honorable, making within
the sphere of its influence all true grandeur impossible, which,
instead of proceeding from some uncontrollable impulse of our nature,
is _expressly established and organized by law_.
* * * * *
As all citizens are parties to Municipal Law, and responsible for its
institutions, so are all the Christian nations parties to International
Law, and responsible for its provisions. By recognizing these
provisions, nations _consent and agree_ beforehand to the Arbitrament
of War, precisely as citizens, by recognizing Trial by Jury, _consent
and agree_ beforehand to the latter tribunal. As, to comprehend the
true nature of Trial by Jury, we first repair to the Municipal Law
by which it is established, so, to comprehend the true nature of the
Arbitrament of War, we must first repair to the Law of Nations.
Writers of genius and learning have defined this arbitrament, and laid
down the rules by which it is governed, constituting a complex code,
with innumerable subtile provisions regulating the resort to it and
the manner in which it must be conducted, called the _Laws of War_. In
these quarters we catch our first authentic glimpses of its folly and
wickedness. According to Lord Bacon, whose authority is always great,
"Wars are no massacres and confusions, but they are the highest _Trials
of Right_, when princes and states, that acknowledge no superior upon
earth, shall put themselves upon the justice of God _for the deciding
of their_ _controversies_ by such success as it shall please him to
give on either side."[8] This definition of the English philosopher is
adopted by the American jurist, Chancellor Kent, in his Commentaries on
American Law.[9] The Swiss publicist, Vattel, whose work is accepted
as an important repository of the Law of Nations, defines War as "that
state in which a nation _prosecutes its right by force_."[10] In this
he very nearly follows the eminent Dutch authority, Bynkershoek,
who says, "Bellum est eorum, qui suæ potestatis sunt, _juris sui
persequendi ergo_, concertatio per vim vel dolum."[11] Mr. Whewell, who
has done so much to illustrate philosophy in all its departments, says,
in his recent work on the Elements of Morality and Polity, "Though war
is appealed to, because there is no other ULTIMATE TRIBUNAL to which
states can have recourse, _it is appealed to for justice_."[12] And
in our country, Dr. Lieber says, in a work of learning and sagacious
thought, that war is undertaken "in order to obtain right,"[13]--a
definition which hardly differs in form from those of Vattel and
Bynkershoek.
[8] Observations upon a Libel, etc., Works, Vol. III. p. 40.
[9] Lecture III., Vol. I. p. 45.
[10] Book III. ch. 1, sec. 1.
[11] Quæst. Jur. Pub., Lib. I. cap. 1.
[12] Book VI. ch. 2. art. 1146.
[13] Political Ethics, Book VII. sec. 19, Vol. II. p. 643.
In accordance with these texts, I would now define the evil which I
arraign. _War is a public armed contest between nations, under the
sanction of International Law, to establish_ JUSTICE _between them_:
as, for instance, to determine a disputed boundary, the title to
territory, or a claim for damages.
This definition is confined to contests between nations. It is
restricted to International War, carefully excluding the question,
often agitated, concerning the right of revolution, and that other
question, on which friends of peace sometimes differ, the right
of personal self-defence. It does not in any way throw doubt on
the employment of force in the administration of justice or the
conservation of domestic quiet.
It is true that the term _defensive_ is always applied to wars in
our day. And it is creditable to the moral sense that nations are
constrained to allege this seeming excuse, although its absurdity
is apparent in the equal pretensions of the two belligerents, each
claiming to act on the defensive. It is unreasonable to suppose that
war can arise in the present age, under the sanctions of International
Law, except to determine an _asserted right_. Whatever its character
in periods of barbarism, or when invoked to repel an incursion of
robbers or pirates, "enemies of the human race," war becomes in our
day, _among all the nations parties to existing International Law_,
simply a mode of litigation, or of deciding a _lis pendens_. It is
a mere TRIAL OF RIGHT, an appeal for justice to force. The wars now
lowering from Mexico and England are of this character. On the one
side, we assert a _title_ to Texas, _which is disputed_; on the other,
we assert a _title_ to Oregon, _which is disputed_. Only according to
"martial logic," or the "flash language" of a dishonest patriotism,
can the Ordeal by Battle be regarded in these causes, on either side,
as _Defensive War_. Nor did the threatened war with France in 1834
promise to assume any different character. Its professed object was
to obtain the payment of five million dollars,--in other words, to
determine by this _Ultimate_ _Tribunal_ a simple question of justice.
And going back still farther in our history, the avowed purpose of the
war against Great Britain in 1812 was to obtain from the latter power
an abandonment of the claim to search American vessels. Unrighteous as
was this claim, it is plain that war here was invoked only as a _Trial
of Right_.
* * * * *
It forms no part of my purpose to consider individual wars in the past,
except so far as necessary by way of example. My aim is higher. I wish
to expose an irrational, cruel, and impious _custom_, sanctioned by the
Law of Nations. On this account I resort to that supreme law for the
definition on which I plant myself in the effort I now make.
After considering, in succession, _first_, the character of war,
_secondly_, the miseries it produces, and, _thirdly_, its utter and
pitiful insufficiency, as a mode of determining justice, we shall
be able to decide, strictly and logically, whether it must not be
ranked as crime, from which no true honor can spring to individuals or
nations. To appreciate this evil, and the necessity for its overthrow,
it will be our duty, _fourthly_, to consider in succession the various
prejudices by which it is sustained, ending with that prejudice, so
gigantic and all-embracing, at whose command uncounted sums are madly
diverted from purposes of peace to preparations for war. The whole
subject is infinitely practical, while the concluding division shows
how the public treasury may be relieved, and new means secured for
human advancement.
I.
First, as to the essential character and root of war, or that part of
our nature whence it proceeds. Listen to the voice from the ancient
poet of Boeotian Ascra:--
"This is the law for mortals, ordained by the Ruler of Heaven:
Fishes and beasts and birds of the air devour each other;
JUSTICE _dwells not among them: only to_ MAN _has he given_
JUSTICE _the Highest and Best_."[14]
[14] Hesiod, Works and Days, vv. 276-279. Cicero also says, "Neque ulla
re longius absumus a natura ferarum, in quibus inesse fortitudinem sæpe
dicimus, ut in equis, in leonibus; justitiam, æquitatem, bonitatem non
dicimus."--De Offic., Lib. I. cap. 16.
These words of old Hesiod exhibit the distinction between man and
beast; but this very distinction belongs to the present discussion.
The idea rises to the mind at once, that war is a resort to brute
force, where nations strive to overpower each other. Reason, and the
divine part of our nature, where alone we differ from the beast, where
alone we approach the Divinity, where alone are the elements of that
_justice_ which is the professed object of war, are rudely dethroned.
For the time men adopt the nature of beasts, emulating their ferocity,
like them rejoicing in blood, and with lion's paw clutching an asserted
right. Though in more recent days this character is somewhat disguised
by the skill and knowledge employed, war is still the same, only
more destructive from the genius and intellect which have become its
servants. The primitive poets, in the unconscious simplicity of the
world's childhood, make this boldly apparent. The heroes of Homer
are likened to animals in ungovernable fury, or to things devoid of
reason or affection. Menelaus presses his way through the crowd "like
a wild beast." Sarpedon is aroused against the Argives, "as a lion
against the crooked-horned oxen," and afterwards rushes forward "like
a lion nurtured on the mountains, for a long time famished for want of
flesh, but whose courage impels him to attack even the well-guarded
sheep-fold." In one and the same passage, the great Telamonian Ajax is
"wild beast," "tawny lion," and "dull ass"; and all the Greek chiefs,
the flower of the camp, are ranged about Diomed, "like raw-eating
lions, or wild-boars, whose strength is irresistible." Even Hector,
the model hero, with all the virtues of war, is praised as "tamer of
horses"; and one of his renowned feats in battle, indicating brute
strength only, is where he takes up and hurls a stone which two of
our strongest men could not easily lift into a wagon; and he drives
over dead bodies and shields, while the axle is defiled by gore, and
the guard about the seat is sprinkled from the horses' hoofs and the
tires of the wheels;[15] and in that most admired passage of ancient
literature, before returning his child, the young Astyanax, to the arms
of the wife he is about to leave, this hero of war invokes the gods for
a single blessing on the boy's head,--"that he may excel his father,
and bring home _bloody spoils_, his enemy being slain, and _so make
glad the heart of his mother_!"
[15] Little better than Trojan Hector was the "great" Condé ranging
over the field and exulting in the blood of the enemy, which defiled
his sword-arm to the elbow.--Mahon, Essai sur la Vie du Grand Condé, p.
60.
From early fields of modern literature, as from those of antiquity,
might be gathered similar illustrations, showing the unconscious
degradation of the soldier, in vain pursuit of _justice_, renouncing
the human character, to assume that of brute. Bayard, the exemplar of
chivalry, with a name always on the lips of its votaries, was described
by the qualities of beasts, being, according to his admirers, _ram in
attack, wild-boar in defence, and wolf in flight_. Henry the Fifth, as
represented by our own Shakespeare, in the spirit-stirring appeal to
his troops exclaims,--
"When the blast of war blows in our ears,
_Then imitate the action of the tiger_."
This is plain and frank, revealing the true character of war.
I need not dwell on the moral debasement that must ensue. Passions,
like so many bloodhounds, are unleashed and suffered to rage. Crimes
filling our prisons stalk abroad in the soldier's garb, unwhipped of
justice. Murder, robbery, rape, arson, are the sports of this fiendish
Saturnalia, when
"The gates of mercy shall be all shut up,
And the fleshed soldier, rough and hard of heart,
In liberty of bloody hand shall range
_With conscience wide as hell_."
By a bold, but truthful touch, Shakespeare thus pictures the foul
disfigurement which war produces in man, whose native capacities he
describes in those beautiful words: "How noble in reason! how infinite
in faculties! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action
how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god!" And yet this
nobility of reason, this infinitude of faculties, this marvel of form
and motion, this nature so angelic, so godlike, are all, under the
transforming power of War, lost in the action of the beast, or the
license of the fleshed soldier with bloody hand and conscience wide as
hell.
II.
The immediate effect of war is to sever all relations of friendship and
commerce between the belligerent nations, and every individual thereof,
impressing upon each citizen or subject the character of enemy.
Imagine this instant change between England and the United States. The
innumerable ships of the two countries, the white doves of commerce,
bearing the olive of peace, are driven from the sea, or turned from
peaceful purposes to be ministers of destruction; the threads of social
and business intercourse, so carefully woven into a thick web, are
suddenly snapped asunder; friend can no longer communicate with friend;
the twenty thousand letters speeded each fortnight from this port alone
are arrested, and the human affections, of which they are the precious
expression, seek in vain for utterance. Tell me, you with friends
and kindred abroad, or you bound to other lands only by relations of
commerce, are you ready for this rude separation?
This is little compared with what must follow. It is but the first
portentous shadow of disastrous eclipse, twilight usher of thick
darkness, covering the whole heavens with a pall, broken only by the
lightnings of battle and siege.
Such horrors redden the historic page, while, to the scandal of
humanity, they never want historians with feelings kindred to those by
which they are inspired. The demon that draws the sword also guides the
pen. The favorite chronicler of modern Europe, Froissart, discovers
his sympathies in his Prologue, where, with something of apostleship,
he announces his purpose, "that the honorable enterprises and noble
adventures and feats of arms which happened in the wars of France and
England be notably registered and put in perpetual memory," and then
proceeds to bestow his equal admiration upon bravery and cunning, upon
the courtesy which pardoned as upon the rage which caused the flow
of blood in torrents, dwelling with especial delight on "beautiful
incursions, beautiful rescues, beautiful feats of arms, and beautiful
prowesses"; and wantoning in pictures of cities assaulted, "which,
being soon gained by force, were robbed, and men and women and children
put to the sword without mercy, while the churches were burnt and
violated."[16] This was in a barbarous age. But popular writers in
our own day, dazzled by false ideas of greatness, at which reason and
humanity blush, do not hesitate to dwell on similar scenes even with
rapture and eulogy. The humane soul of Wilberforce, which sighed that
England's "bloody laws sent many unprepared into another world," could
hail the slaughter of Waterloo, by which thousands were hurried into
eternity on the Sabbath he held so holy, as a "splendid victory."[17]
[16] Froissart, Les Chroniques, Ch. 177, 179, Collection de Buchon,
Tom. II. pp. 87, 92.
[17] Life of William Wilberforce, by his Sons, Ch. 30, Vol. IV. pp.
256, 261.
My present purpose is less to judge the historian than to expose the
horrors on horrors which he applauds. At Tarragona, above six thousand
human beings, almost all defenceless, men and women, gray hairs and
infant innocence, attractive youth and wrinkled age, were butchered
by the infuriate troops in one night, and the morning sun rose upon a
city whose streets and houses were inundated with blood: and yet this
is called a "glorious exploit."[18] Here was a conquest by the French.
At a later day, Ciudad Rodrigo was stormed by the British, when, in
the license of victory, there ensued a savage scene of plunder and
violence, while shouts and screams on all sides mingled fearfully with
the groans of the wounded. Churches were desecrated, cellars of wine
and spirits were pillaged, fire was wantonly applied to the city, and
brutal intoxication spread in every direction. Only when the drunken
dropped from excess, or fell asleep, was any degree of order restored:
and yet the storming of Ciudad Rodrigo is pronounced "one of the most
brilliant exploits of the British army."[19] This "beautiful feat of
arms" was followed by the storming of Badajoz, where the same scenes
were enacted again, with accumulated atrocities. The story shall
be told in the words of a partial historian, who himself saw what
he eloquently describes. "Shameless rapacity, brutal intemperance,
savage lust, cruelty, and murder, shrieks and piteous lamentations,
groans, shouts, imprecations, the hissing of fires bursting from the
houses, the crashing of doors and windows, and the reports of muskets
used in violence, resounded for two days and nights in the streets of
Badajoz. On the third, when the city was sacked, when the soldiers
were exhausted by their own excesses, the tumult rather subsided than
was quelled. The wounded men were then looked to, the dead disposed
of."[20] All this is in the nature of confession, for the historian is
a partisan of battle.
[18] Alison, Hist. of Europe, Ch. 61, Vol. VIII. p. 237.
[19] Ibid., Ch. 64, Vol. VIII. p. 482.
[20] Napier, Hist. Peninsular War, Book XVI. ch. 5, Vol. IV. p. 431.
The same terrible war affords another instance of atrocities at a siege
crying to Heaven. For weeks before the surrender of Saragossa, the
deaths daily were from four to five hundred; and as the living could
not bury the increasing mass, thousands of carcasses, scattered in
streets and court-yards, or piled in heaps at the doors of churches,
were left to dissolve in their own corruption, or be licked up by
the flames of burning houses. The city was shaken to its foundations
by sixteen thousand shells, and the explosion of forty-five thousand
pounds of powder in the mines,--while the bones of forty thousand
victims, of every age and both sexes, bore dreadful testimony to the
unutterable cruelty of War.[21]
[21] Napier, Book V. ch. 3, Vol. II. p. 46.
These might seem pictures from the life of Alaric, who led the Goths
to Rome, or of Attila, general of the Huns, called the Scourge of God,
and who boasted 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 forth the foremost
representative of worldly grandeur. The heart aches, as we follow him
and his marshals from field to field of Satanic glory,[22] finding
everywhere, from Spain to Russia, the same carnival of woe. The picture
is various, yet the same. Suffering, wounds, and death, in every form,
fill the terrible canvas. What scene more dismal than that of Albuera,
with its horrid piles of corpses, while all night the rain pours down,
and river, hill, and forest, on each side, resound with the cries
and groans of the dying?[23] What scene more awfully monumental than
Salamanca, where, long after the great battle, the ground, strewn with
fragments of casques and cuirasses, was still white with the skeletons
of those who fell?[24] What catalogue of horrors more complete than the
Russian campaign? At every step is war, and this is enough: soldiers
black with powder; bayonets bent with the violence of the encounter;
the earth ploughed with cannon-shot; trees torn and mutilated; the dead
and dying; wounds and agony; fields covered with broken carriages,
outstretched horses, and mangled bodies; while disease, sad attendant
on military suffering, sweeps thousands from the great hospitals, and
the multitude of amputated limbs, which there is no time to destroy,
accumulate in bloody heaps, filling the air with corruption. What
tongue, what pen, can describe the bloody havoc at Borodino, where,
between rise and set of a single sun, one hundred thousand of our
fellow-men, equalling in number the whole population of this city, sank
to earth, dead or wounded?[25] Fifty days after the battle, no less
than thirty thousand are found stretched where their last convulsions
ended, 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.[26] Who can follow the French army in
dismal retreat, avoiding the spear of the pursuing Cossack only to
sink beneath the sharper frost and ice, in a temperature below zero,
on foot, without shelter for the body, famishing on horse-flesh and
a miserable compound of rye and snow-water? With a fresh array, the
war is upheld against new forces under the walls of Dresden; and as
the Emperor rides over the field of battle--after indulging the night
before in royal supper with the Saxon king--he sees ghastly new-made
graves, with hands and arms projecting, stark and stiff, above the
ground; and shortly afterwards, when shelter is needed for the troops,
the order to occupy the Hospitals for the Insane is given, with the
words, "Turn out the mad."[27]
[22] A living poet of Italy, who will be placed by his prose among the
great names of his country's literature, in a remarkable ode which he
has thrown on the urn of Napoleon invites posterity to judge whether
his career of battle was True Glory.
"Fu vera gloria? Ai posteri L'ardua sentenza."--MANZONI, _Il Cinque
Maggio_.
When men learn to appreciate moral grandeur, the easy sentence will be
rendered.
[23] Napier, Book XII. ch. 7, Vol. III. p. 543.
[24] Alison, Ch. 64, Vol. VIII. p. 589.
[25] Ibid., Ch. 67, Vol. VIII. p. 871.
[26] Ibid., Ch. 68, Vol. VIII. p. 930. Ségur, Hist. de Napoléon, Liv.
IX. ch. 7, Tom. II. p. 153. Labaume, Rel. de la Campagne de Russie,
Liv. VII.
[27] Alison, Ch. 72, Vol. IX. pp. 469, 553.
* * * * *