temperance, excites the brave man's patriotism, and is a chastening correction of the rich man's pride."* I now ask, what is war? Let me give a short but strictly scientific answer. War is a public, armed, contest, between nations, in order to establish JUSTICE between 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."+ 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 * Napier Penins. War. VI. 688. "Why, man," said a British General," do you know that a grenadier is the greatest character in this world,” and after a moment's pause, 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 Society, 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, Commentaries on American Law, Vol. I. p. 46. Vattel defines war as "that state in which we prosecute our rights by force."-Law of Nations, Book 3, ch. 1, § 1; in which he very nearly follows Bynkershoek, who says; Bellum est eorum, qui suæ potestatis sunt, juris sui persequendi ergo, concertatio per vim vel dolum. Quæst. Jur. Pub. Lib. I. c. 7. Mr. Whewell, in his recent work, 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. § 1146. Mr. Lieber says, in a work abounding in learning and sagacious thought, Political Ethics, II. 643, 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 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 between nations The come evil by evil. The wars that now lower from Mexico and England are of this character. 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? 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-defence; but such was precisely the conduct proposed to be 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 mockery to miscall such a contest a defensive war. I repeat, therefore, that war is a public armed contest, between nations, in order to establish justice between them. When we have considered the character of war; the miseries it produces; and its utter and shameful insufficiency, as a means of establishing justice, we may then be able to determine, strictly and logically, whether it must not be ranked with crimes from which no true honor can spring, to individuals 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 Baotian Ascra: This is the law for mortals ordained by the Ruler of Heaven; JUSTICE dwells not among them; only to MAN has he given The first idea that rises to the mind, in regarding war, is, * 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. Hesiod, Works and Days, v. 276-279. Cicero also says; Neque ulla re longius absumus a naturâ ferarum, in quibus inesse fortitudinem sæpe dicimus, ut in equis, in leonibus; justitiam, æquitatem, bonitatem non dicimus.-De Offic. Lib. 1 cap. 16. 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 elements 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 affection. Menelaus presses his way through the crowd, "like a beast."* Sarpedon was aroused against the Argives, "as a lion against the crooked-horned oxen ;" 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 ;" 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."|| 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 * Θηρὶ ἐοικώς. II. III. 449. † Λέονθ' ὡς βουσιν ἕλιξιν. I. ΧΙΙ. 293. II. XII. 300-306. § II. XI. 546-558. || II. V. 782. ¶ II. XII. 445–449. See a similar act, Æneid XII. 826. the axle is defiled by gore, and the guard about the seat, sprinkled from the horse's hoofs and from the tires of the wheels; and, in that most admired passage of ancient literature, 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."+ 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 soldier, 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.‡ 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, 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 * II. XI. 534. See a similar scene, Æneid XII. 337. In modern warfare, we find a similar sketch of the great Condé. The soul is startled by the picture of a distinguished person, in whom the human character has been blotted out; "Le Duc était couvert de sueur, de poussière, et de fumée; le feu jaillissait de ses yeux, et le bras dont it tenait son épée était ensanglanté jusqu'au coude. Vous êtes blessé, Monseigneur?' Lui demanda Bussaq. Non, non,' répondit Enghien [Condé]; 'c'est le sang de ces coquins!' Il voulait parler des ennemis.” Mahon, Essai sur la vie du Grand Condé, p. 60. t II. VI. 476–481. Hen. V. Act 3, Scene 1. admirable in action, how like an angel! in apprehension how like a God!" II. 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 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 countries, 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 thousand 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 expression, 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 Française, by Thiers, and, so far as I 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 Revolution, Tom. 8, p. 430. War in every age has been the same; and to the shame of human nature has never wanted historians, |