now swings idly at her moorings in this harbor a ship of the line,
the Ohio, carrying ninety guns, finished as late as 1836 at an
expense of $547,888,--repaired only two years afterwards, in 1838,
for $233,012,--with an armament which has cost $53,945,--making an
aggregate of $834,845, as the actual outlay at this moment for that
single ship,[83]--more than $100,000 beyond all the available wealth of
the richest and most ancient seat of learning in the land! Choose ye,
my fellow-citizens of a Christian state, between the two caskets,--that
wherein is the loveliness of truth, or that which contains the carrion
death.
[83] Executive Document No. 132, Twenty-Seventh Congress, Third
Session.
I refer to the Ohio because this ship happens to be in our waters; but
I do not take the strongest case afforded by our Navy. Other ships have
absorbed larger sums. The expense of the Delaware, in 1842, had reached
$1,051,000.
Pursue the comparison still further. The expenditures of the University
during the last year, for the general purposes of the College, the
instruction of the Undergraduates, and for the Schools of Law and
Divinity, amounted to $47,935. The cost of the Ohio for one year of
service, in salaries, wages, and provisions, is $220,000,--being
$172,000 above the annual expenditures of the University, and more than
_four times_ as much as those expenditures. In other words, for the
annual sum lavished on a single ship of the line, _four_ institutions
like Harvard University might be supported.
Furthermore, the pay of the Captain of a ship like the Ohio is $4,500,
when in service,--$3,500, when on leave of absence, or off duty. The
salary of the President of Harvard University is $2,235, without leave
of absence, and never off duty.
If the large endowments of Harvard University are dwarfed by comparison
with a single ship of the line, how must it be with other institutions
of learning and beneficence, less favored by the bounty of many
generations? The average cost of a sloop of war is $315,000,--more,
probably, than all the endowments of those twin stars of learning
in the Western part of Massachusetts, the Colleges at Williamstown
and Amherst, and of that single star in the East, the guide to many
ingenuous youth, the Seminary at Andover. The yearly expense of a sloop
of war in service is about $50,000,--more than the annual expenditures
of these three institutions combined.
I might press the comparison with other institutions of
beneficence,--with our annual appropriations for the Blind, that noble
and successful charity which sheds true lustre upon the Commonwealth,
amounting to $12,000, and for the Insane, another charity dear to
humanity, amounting to $27,844.
Take all the institutions of Learning and Beneficence, the crown jewels
of the Commonwealth, schools, colleges, hospitals, asylums, and the
sums by which they have been purchased and preserved are trivial and
beggarly, compared with the treasures squandered within the borders
of Massachusetts in vain Preparations for War,--upon the Navy Yard
at Charlestown, with its stores on hand, costing $4,741,000,--the
fortifications in the harbors of Massachusetts, where untold sums are
already sunk, and it is now proposed to sink $3,875,000 more,[84]--and
the Arsenal at Springfield, containing, in 1842, 175,118 muskets,
valued at $2,099,998,[85] and maintained by an annual appropriation
of $200,000, whose highest value will ever be, in the judgment of
all lovers of truth, that it inspired a poem which in influence
will be mightier than a battle, and will endure when arsenals and
fortifications have crumbled to earth. Some of the verses of this Psalm
of Peace may relieve the detail of statistics, while they happily blend
with my argument.
"Were half the power that fills the world with terror,
Were half the wealth bestowed on camps and courts,
Given to redeem the human mind from error,
There were no need of arsenals or forts:
"The warrior's name would be a name abhorred,
And every nation that should lift again
Its hand against a brother on its forehead
Would wear forevermore the curse of Cain."[86]
[84] Report of Secretary of War, Senate Document No. 2, Twenty-Seventh
Congress, Second Session,--where we are asked to invest in a general
system of land defences $51,677,929.
[85] Executive Document No. 3, Twenty-Seventh Congress, Third Session.
[86] Longfellow, The Arsenal at Springfield.
Turn now to a high and peculiar interest of the nation, the
administration of justice. Perhaps no part of our system is regarded
with more pride and confidence, especially by the enlightened sense of
the country. To this, indeed, all other concerns of Government, with
all its complications of machinery, are in a manner subordinate, since
it is for the sake of justice that men come together in communities
and establish laws. What part of the Government can compare in
importance with the National Judiciary, that great balance-wheel of the
Constitution, controlling the relations of the several States to each
other, the legislation of Congress and of the States, besides private
interests to an incalculable amount? Nor can the citizen who discerns
the true glory of his country fail to recognize in the immortal
judgments of MARSHALL, now departed, and of STORY, who is still spared
to us--_serus in coelum redeat!_--a higher claim to admiration and
gratitude than can be found in any triumph of battle. The expenses of
this great department under the National Government, in 1842, embracing
the cost of court-houses, the salaries of judges, the pay of juries,
and of all the law officers throughout the United States, in short,
all the outlay by which justice, according to the requirement of Magna
Charta, is carried to every man's door, amounted to $560,990,--a
larger sum than is usually appropriated for this purpose, but how
insignificant, compared with the cormorant demands of Army and Navy!
Let me allude to one more curiosity of waste. By a calculation founded
on the expenses of the Navy it appears that the average cost of each
gun carried over the ocean for one year amounts to about fifteen
thousand dollars,--a sum sufficient to maintain ten or even twenty
professors of Colleges, and equal to the salaries of all the Judges of
the Supreme Court of Massachusetts and the Governor combined!
* * * * *
Such are illustrations of that tax which nations constituting the great
Federation of Civilization, including our own country, impose on the
people, in time of profound peace, for no permanent productive work,
for no institution of learning, for no gentle charity, for no purpose
of good. Wearily climbing from expenditure to expenditure, from waste
to waste, we seem to pass beyond the region of ordinary measurement;
Alps on Alps arise, on whose crowning heights of everlasting cold, far
above the habitations of man, where no green thing lives, where no
creature draws breath, we behold the sharp, icy, flashing glacier of
War.
In the contemplation of this spectacle the soul swells with alternate
despair and hope: with despair, at the thought of such wealth, capable
of such service to Humanity, not merely wasted, but bestowed to
perpetuate Hate; with hope, as the blessed vision arises of all these
incalculable means secured to purposes of Peace. The whole world labors
with poverty and distress; and the painful question occurs in Europe
more than here, What shall become of the poor,--the increasing Standing
Army of the poor? Could the voice that now addresses you penetrate
those distant councils, or councils nearer home, it would say, Disband
your Standing Armies of soldiers, employ your Navies in peaceful and
enriching commerce, abandon Fortifications and Arsenals, or dedicate
them to works of Beneficence, as the statue of Jupiter Capitolinus was
changed to the image of a Christian saint; in fine, utterly renounce
the present incongruous system of _Armed Peace_.
* * * * *
That I may not seem to accept this conclusion too hastily, at least as
regards our own country, I shall consider the asserted usefulness of
the national armaments,--and then expose the fallacy, at least in the
present age and among Christian nations, of the maxim, that in time of
Peace we must prepare for War.
_For what use is the Standing Army of the United States?_ For many
generations it has been a principle of freedom to avoid a standing
army; and one of the complaints in the Declaration of Independence
was, that George the Third had quartered large bodies of troops in
the Colonies. For the first years after the adoption of the National
Constitution, during our period of weakness, before our power was
assured, before our name had become respected in the family of nations,
under the administration of Washington, a small sum was ample for the
military establishment of the United States. It was at a later day that
the country, touched by martial insanity, abandoned the true economy of
a Republic, and, in imitation of monarchical powers, lavished means,
grudged to Peace, in vain preparation for War. It may now be said
of our Army, as Dunning said of the influence of the Crown, it has
increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished. At this moment
there are in the country more than sixty military posts. For any of
these it would be difficult to present a reasonable apology,--unless,
perhaps, on some distant Indian frontier. Of what use is the
detachment of the Second Artillery at the quiet town of New London, in
Connecticut? Of what use is the detachment of the First Artillery in
that pleasant resort of fashion, Newport? By exhilarating music and
showy parade they may amuse an idle hour; but is it not equally true
that emotions of a different character will be aroused in thoughtful
bosoms? He must have lost something of sensibility to the dignity of
human nature who can observe, without at least a passing regret, all
the details of discipline--drill, marching, countermarching--which
fill the life of the soldier, and prepare him to become the rude,
inanimate part of that _machine_ to which an army is likened by the
great living master of the Art of War.[87] And this sensibility may be
more disturbed by the spectacle of ingenuous youth, in chosen numbers,
under the auspices of the Government, amidst the bewitching scenery of
West Point, painfully trained to these same exercises,--at a cost to
the country, since the establishment of this Academy, of above four
millions of dollars.
[87] The Duke of Wellington.
In Europe, Standing Armies are supposed to be needed in support of
Government; but this excuse cannot prevail here. The monarchs of the
Old World, like the chiefs of the ancient German tribes, are upborne
on the shields of the soldiery. Happily, with us, Government needs no
janizaries. The hearts of the people are a sufficient support.
I hear a voice from some defender of this abuse, some upholder of this
"rotten borough," crying, The Army is needed for defence! As well might
you say that the shadow is needed for defence. For what is the Army of
the United States, but the feeble shadow of the American people? _In
placing the Army on its present footing, so small in numbers, compared
with the forces of great_ _European States, our Government tacitly
admits its superfluousness for defence._ It only remains to declare
that the country will repose in the consciousness of right, without the
extravagance of soldiers, unproductive consumers of the fruits of the
earth, who might do the country good service in the various departments
of useful industry.
_For what use is the Navy of the United States?_ The annual expense
of our Navy, during recent years, has been upwards of six millions of
dollars. For what purpose? Not for the apprehension of pirates, since
frigates and ships of the line are of too great bulk for this service.
Not for the suppression of the Slave Trade; for, under the stipulations
with Great Britain, we employ only eighty guns in this holy alliance.
Not to protect our coasts; for all agree that our few ships would
form an unavailing defence against any serious attack. Not for these
purposes, you admit; _but for the protection of our Navigation_. This
is not the occasion for minute estimates. Suffice it to say, that
an intelligent merchant, extensively engaged in commerce for the
last twenty years, and who speaks, therefore, with the authority of
knowledge, has demonstrated, in a tract of perfect clearness,[88] that
the annual profits of the whole mercantile marine of the country do
not equal the annual expenditure of our Navy. Admitting the profit of
a merchant ship to be four thousand dollars a year, which is a large
allowance, it will take the earnings of one hundred ships to build and
employ for one year a single sloop of war, of one hundred and fifty
ships to build and employ a frigate, and of nearly three hundred ships
to build and employ a ship of the line. Thus more than five hundred
ships must do a profitable business to earn a sufficient sum for the
support of this little fleet. Still further, taking a received estimate
putting the mercantile marine of the United States at forty millions
of dollars, we find that it is only a little more than six times the
annual cost of the Navy; so that this interest is protected at a charge
of more than _fifteen per cent_ of its whole value! Protection at such
price is not less ruinous than one of Pyrrhus's victories.
[88] I refer to the pamphlet of S.E. Coues, "United States Navy: What
is its Use?"
It is to the Navy as an unnecessary arm of national defence, and part
of the War establishment, that I confine my objection. So far as it is
required for science, or for the _police_ of the seas,--to scour them
of pirates, and, above all, to defeat the hateful traffic in human
flesh,--it is a fit engine of Government, and cannot be obnoxious as
a portion of the machinery of War. But, surely, a most costly navy to
protect navigation in time of Peace against assaults from civilized
nations is absurdly superfluous. The free cities of Hamburg and Bremen,
survivors of the powerful Hanseatic League, with a commerce whitening
the most distant seas, are without a single ship of war. Following
this prudent example, the United States might be willing to abandon an
institution already become a vain and expensive toy.
_For what use are the Fortifications of the United States?_ We have
already seen the enormous sums locked in the odious mortmain of
their everlasting masonry. Like the Pyramids, they seem by mass and
solidity to defy Time. Nor can I doubt that hereafter, like these
same monuments, they will be looked upon with wonder, as the types
of an extinct superstition, not less degrading than that of Ancient
Egypt. Under the pretence of saving the country from conquest and
bloodshed they are reared. But whence the danger? On what side?
What people to fear? No civilized nation threatens our borders
with rapine or trespass. None will. Nor, in the existing state of
civilization, and under existing International Law, is it possible to
suppose any war with such a nation, unless, renouncing the peaceful
Tribunal of Arbitration, we voluntarily appeal to Trial by Battle.
The fortifications might be of service then. But perhaps they would
invite the attack they might be inadequate to defeat. According to
a modern rule, illustrated with admirable ability in the diplomatic
correspondence of Mr. Webster, non-combatants and their property on
land are not molested. So firmly did the Duke of Wellington act upon
this rule, that, throughout the revengeful campaigns of Spain, and
afterwards entering France, flushed with the victory of Waterloo,
he directed his army to pay for all provisions, even the forage of
their horses. War is carried on against _public_ property,--against
_fortifications, navy-yards, and arsenals_. If these do not exist,
where is its aliment, where the fuel for the flame? Paradoxical as it
seems, and disparaging to the whole trade of War, it may be proper to
inquire, whether, according to acknowledged laws, now governing this
bloody arbitrament, every new fortification and every additional gun
in our harbor is not less a safeguard than a danger. Do they not draw
the lightning of battle upon our homes, without, alas! any conductor to
hurry its terrors innocently beneath the concealing bosom of the earth?
_For what use is the Militia of the United States?_ This immense
system spreads, with innumerable suckers, over the whole country,
draining its best life-blood, the unbought energies of our youth. The
same painful discipline which we observe in the soldier absorbs their
time, though to a less degree than in the Regular Army. Theirs also is
the savage pomp of War. We read with astonishment of the painted flesh
and uncouth vestments of our progenitors, the ancient Britons. But the
generation will come, that must 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 galley-slaves are compelled to wear dresses stamped
with the name of the crime for which they are suffering punishment,--as
theft, robbery, murder. Is it 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 belonging to Preparations for War illustrate
the inanity of the Militia for purposes of _national defence_. I do
not know, indeed, that it is now strongly urged on this ground. It
is oftener approved as an important part of the _police_. I would
not undervalue the advantage of an active, efficient, ever-wakeful
police; and I believe that such a police has been long required. But
the Militia, where youth and character are without the strength of
experience, is inadequate for this purpose. No person who has seen this
arm of the police in an actual riot can hesitate in this judgment. A
very small portion of the means absorbed by the Militia would provide
a substantial police, competent to all the domestic emergencies
of disorder and violence. The city of Boston has discarded a Fire
Department composed of _accidental volunteers_. Why not do the same
with the police, and set another example to the country?
I am well aware that efforts to reduce the Militia are encountered
by some of the dearest prejudices of the common mind,--not only by
the War Spirit, but by that other, which first animates childhood,
and, at a later day, "children of a larger growth," inviting to
finery of dress and parade,--the same which fantastically bedecks
the dusky feather-cinctured chief of the soft regions warmed by the
tropical sun,--which inserts a ring in the nose of the North American
Indian,--which slits the ears of the Australian savage, and tattoos the
New Zealand cannibal.
* * * * *
Such are the national armaments, in their true character and value.
Thus far I have regarded them in the plainest light of ordinary worldly
economy, without reference to those higher considerations, drawn from
the nature and history of man and the truths of Christianity, which
pronounce them vain. It is grateful to know, that, though having yet
the support of what Jeremy Taylor calls "popular noises," the other
more economical, more humane, more wise, more Christian system is daily
commending itself to good people. On its side are all the virtues
that truly elevate a state. Economy, sick of pygmy efforts to stanch
the smallest fountain and rill of exuberant expenditure, pleads that
here is a measureless, fathomless, endless river, an Amazon of waste,
rolling its prodigal waters turbidly, ruinously, hatefully, to the
sea. It chides us with unnatural inconsistency, when we strain at a
little twine and paper, and swallow the monstrous cables and armaments
of War. Humanity pleads for the surpassing interests of Knowledge
and Benevolence, from which such mighty means are withdrawn. Wisdom
frowns on these Preparations, as nursing sentiments inconsistent with
Peace; Christianity calmly rebukes the spirit in which they have their
origin, as of little faith, and treacherous to her high behests; while
History, exhibiting the sure, though gradual, Progress of Man, points
with unerring finger to that destiny of True Grandeur, when nations,
like individuals, disowning War as a proper Arbiter of Justice, shall
abandon the oppressive apparatus of Armies, Navies, and Fortifications,
by which it is waged.
* * * * *
Before considering the familiar injunction, _In time of Peace prepare
for War_, I hope I shall not seem to descend from the proper sphere
of this discussion, if I refer to the parade of _barbarous mottoes_,
and of _emblems from beasts_, as another impediment to the proper
appreciation of these Preparations. These mottoes and emblems,
prompting to War, are obtruded on the very ensigns of power and
honor, and, careless of their discreditable import, men learn to
regard them with patriotic pride. In the armorial bearings of nations
and individuals, beasts and birds of prey are the exemplars of True
Grandeur. The lion appears on the flag of England; the leopard on
the flag of Scotland; a double-headed eagle spreads its wings on the
imperial standard of Austria, and again on that of Russia; while a
single-headed eagle was adopted on the Napoleonic seal, and thus
far the same single-headed bird is enough for Prussia. The pennons
of knights, after exhausting the known kingdom of Nature, were
disfigured by imaginary and impossible monsters, griffins, hippogriffs,
unicorns, all intended to represent the exaggeration of brute force.
The people of Massachusetts unconsciously adopt this early standard.
The escutcheon used as the seal of the State has an unfortunate
combination, to which I refer briefly by way of example. On that part
in the language of heraldry termed the _shield_ stands an Indian with
a bow in his hand,--certainly no agreeable memento, except to those
who find honor in the disgraceful wars where our fathers robbed and
murdered King Philip of Pokanoket, and his tribe, rightful possessors
of the soil. The _crest_ is a raised arm _holding a drawn sabre in a
threatening attitude_,--being precisely the emblem once borne on the
flag of Algiers. The _scroll_, or legend, is the latter of two favorite
verses, in modern Latin, which are not traced to any origin more remote
than Algernon Sidney, by whom they were inscribed in an album at
Copenhagen:-
"Manus hæc inimica tyrannnis
_Ense petit placidam sub libertate quietem_."[89]
[89] The Earl of Leicester, father of Sidney, in an anxious letter,
August 30, 1660, writes his son: "It is said that the University
of Copenhagen brought their Album unto you, desiring you to write
something therein, and that your did _scribere in Albo_ these words
[setting forth the verses], and put your name to it"; and then he
adds, "This cannot but be publicly known, if it be true.... Either you
must live in exile or very privately here, and perhaps not safely."
The restoration of Charles the Second had just taken place. (Meadley,
Memoirs of Algernon Sidney, pp. 84, 323-325.) Lord Molesworth, in a
work which first appeared in 1694, mentions the verses as written by
Sidney in "the Book of Mottoes in the King's Library," and then tells
the story, that the French Ambassador, who did not know a word of
Latin, on learning their meaning, tore them from the book, as a libel
on the French government, and its influence in Denmark. (Molesworth,
Account of Denmark, Preface.) The inference from this narrative would
seem to be that the verses were by Sidney himself.