"War," exclaims the author of the "Social Contract," "is not exactly a
relation of man to man, but a relation of state to state, in which the
individuals are enemies only by accident, and not as men, neither even as
citizens, but as soldiers,--not exactly as members of the country, but as
its defenders. In fine, every state can have as enemies only other states,
and not men, on account of the interference of things of diverse natures,
which cannot fix any true relation.
"This principle is even conformed to maxims established in all times, and
to the constant practice of all civilized people. The declarations of war
are more as warnings to the powers than to their subjects. The
stranger--either king, or individual, or people--who seizes, kills, or
detains the subjects, without declaring the war to the ruler, is not an
enemy, he is a brigand.
"Even in open war, a just ruler seizes property in an enemy's country,
all that which belongs to the public; but he respects the person and the
property of the individual; he respects the rights upon which his own are
founded.
"The intent of the war being the destruction of the hostile state, we have
the right to kill the defenders so often as they have arms in their hands;
but as soon as they lay them down, and surrender, ceasing to be enemies,
or instruments of the enemy, they become again simply men, and we have no
longer a right to their lives. Sometimes we may destroy a state without
killing a single one of its members; but war does not confer any right
which is not necessary to its end.
"These principles are not those of Grotius: they are not founded upon the
authorities of poets: but they are derived from the nature of things, and
are founded upon reason. With regard to the right of conquest, it has no
other foundation than the law of the most force. If war does not give to
the conqueror the right to massacre the vanquished people, that right,
which he has not, does not establish that to enslave. We have no more
right to kill an enemy than to make him a slave. The right to enslave does
not then come from the right to kill. This is then an unjust exchange, to
compel him to purchase life at the price of liberty, upon which we have no
right.
"In establishing the right of life and death upon the right of slavery,
and the right to enslave upon the right of life and death, is it not clear
that we fall into a wicked circle?"