|
The True Grandeur of Nations
Go here for more about
Charles Sumner.
Go here for more about
Charles Sumner's Grandeur of Nations
speech.
It follows the full text transcript of
Charles Sumner's The True Grandeur of Nations
speech, delivered before the authorities of the city of
Boston on July 4, 1845.
This is page 1 of
2 of Sumner's speech.
Go to page 2.
 |
In obedience to an
uninterrupted usage of our community, we have
all, on this Sabbath of the Nation, 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 ! |
THE NATIONAL ANNIVERSARY, AND ITS DUTIES
All hearts turn first to the Fathers of the Republic. Their venerable forms rise before us, 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 William 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 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. Never aim at aught which is not BIGHT,
persuaded that without this, every possession and
all knowledge will become an evil and a shame ;
and may these words of ours be always in your
minds. Strive to increase the inheritance which
we have bequeathed ; bearing in mind always, that,
if we excel you in virtue, such a victory will be to
us a mortification, while defeat will bring happiness. In this way, you may
conquer us. Nothing is more shameful for a man,
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 transmission to the next generation, and without any addition, this is the height of
imbecility. Following these counsels, when your
days are 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." *
* This is borrowed
almost literally from the words attributed by
Plato to the Fathers of Athens, in the beautiful
funeral discourse of the Menezenus.
Honor to the
memory of our Fathers ! May the turf lie gently
on their sacred graves ! Not in words only, but
in deeds also, let us 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 respite 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 our appointed part ? What can we do, to
make our coming welcome to our Fathers in the skies, and draw
to our memory hereafter the homage of a grateful
posterity? How may we add to the inheritance
received ? The answer cannot fail to interest all,
particularly on this festival, when we celebrate
the Nativity of the Republic. In truth, it well
becomes the patriot citizen, on this anniversary,
to consider the national character, and how it may
be advanced as the good man dedicates his
birthday to meditation on his life, and to aspiration for its improvement. Avoiding, then, all
customary exultation in the abounding prosperity
of the land, and in that Freedom, whose influence
is widening to the uttermost circles of the earth,
let us turn our thoughts on the character of our
country, and humbly endeavor to learn what we must
do, to the end that the Republic may best secure the
rights and happiness of the people committed to
its care ; that it may perform its part in the
World's History ; that it may fulfill the aspirations of generous hearts ; and, practising that
righteousness which exalteth a Nation, thus attain to the heights of True Grandeur.
TRUE GRANDEUR OF NATIONS NOT IN WAR
With this aim, and believing that I can in no
other way so fitly fulfill the trust reposed in me when I was selected as the
voice of Boston, on this welcome Anniversary, I
propose to consider what, in our age, are the
true objects of National Ambition what is truly
National Honor National Glory WHAT is THE TRUE GRANDEUR OP
NATIONS. I would not depart from the modesty
that becomes me, but I am not without hope that
I may contribute something to rescue these
terms, now so powerful over the minds of men,
from the mistaken objects to which they are applied, from deeds of War, and
the extension of empire, that they may be
reserved for works of JUSTICE and BENEFICENCE.
The subject may be
novel, on an occasion like the present; but it
is comprehensive and transcendant in importance.
It raises us to the contemplation of things that are not temporary or
local in character ; but which belong to all ages
and countries ; which are as lofty as Truth, as
universal as Humanity. Nay, more ; it practically
concerns the general welfare, not only of our own
cherished Republic, i>ut of the whole Federation
of Nations. At this moment, it derives a peculiar
and urgent interest from transactions in which
we are unhappily 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 the petulant
assertion of a disputed claim to a remote 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
our Government now calmly contemplates the
dread Arbitrament of War, provided it cannot
obtain what is called an honorable Peace.*
* 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 honor" able
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 a war
with England? What just man would sacrifice a
single human life, to bring under our rule both
Texas and Oregon? An ancient Roman, a stranger
to Christian truth, touched only by the relations of
fellow-countryman, and not of. fellow-man said, as
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
Mithridates.
A war with Mexico
would be mean and cowardly ; with England it
would be bold at least, 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 children 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 bellandum erat, lingua, mori
bus, annorum genere, institutis ante omnia militaribus, congruentes; milites militibus, centurionibus
centuriones, tribuni tribunis compares, collegceque,
iisdem pracesidiis, scepe iisdem manipulis permixti
fuerant.*
* Liv. VIII. c. 6.
IN OUR AGE THERE CAN BE NO PEACE THAT IS NOT
HONORABLE ; THERE CAN BE NO WAR THAT IS NOT
DISHONORABLE. The True Honor of a Nation is to
be found in deeds of Justice and Beneficence,
securing and advancing the happiness of its
people, inconsistent with War. In the clear eye
of Christian judgment, vain are its victories ;
infamous are its spoils. He is the benefactor,
and 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 does H V. justice ; who
enlightens the ignorant ; who unlooses the
fetter of the slave ; who, by virtuous genius,
in art, in literature, in science, enlivens and
exalts the hours of life ; who, by word, or
action, 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 deserving of Honor, whatever his worldly
renown, whose life is passed in feats of brute
force ; who renounces the great law of Christian
brotherhood ; whose vocation is blood. Well may
old Sir Thomas Browne exclaim, " The world does
not know its 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, guiltless of
their country's blood, whose steps on earth have
been noiseless as an angel's wing.
It must not be disguised that this standard differs
from that of the world down to this day. The voice
of man is yet given to praise of military chieftains ;
and the honors of victory are chanted even by the
lips of woman. The mother, while rocking her
infant on the knee, stamps upon his tender mind, at
that age more impressible than wax, the images of
War ; she nurses his slumbers with its melodies ;
pleases his waking hours with its stories ; and
selects for his playthings the plume and the sword.
From the child is formed the man ; and who can
weigh the influence of a mother's spirit on the
opinions of later life ? The mind which trains the
child is like the hand that 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 on honey and milk only, 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 those stories of courage and sacrifice which
emblazon the annals of Greece and Rome ; to the
fulminations 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 ballad of Spain,
and the delicate music of the Italian lyre. But
from all these has breathed the breath of War, that
has swept the heart-strings of thronging generations
of men !
And when the youth becomes a man, his country
invites his service in War, and holds before his
bewildered imagination the prizes of worldly Honor.
For him is the pen of the historian, and the verse
of the poet. His soul is taught to swell at the
thought that he also is a soldier ; that his name
shall be entered on the list of those who have borne
arms for their country'; and perhaps he dreams that
he too, may sleep, like the Great Captain of Spain,
with a hundred trophies over his grave. The law
of the land throws its sanction over this madness.
The contagion spreads beyond those on whom is
imposed any positive obligation. Peaceful citizens
volunteer to appear as soldiers, and to affect in dress,
arms, and deportment, what is called " the pride,
pomp, and circumstance of glorious war." The ear-piercing fife has today filled our streets, and we
have come to this Church on this National Sabbath,
by the thump of drum, and with the parade of
bristling bayonets.
It is not strange, then, that the Spirit of War
still finds a home among us ; nor that its Honors
continue to be regarded. All this may seem to give
point to the bitter philosophy of Hobbes, who
declared that the natural state of mankind was war,
and to sustain the exulting language 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
chastening correction of the rich man's pride." *
This is broad and bold. In different mood, another
British general is reported as saying, " Why, man,
do you know that a grenadier is the greatest character in this world ; " and, after a moment's pause, with
the added emphasis of an oath, " and I believe, in
the next too." f All these spoke in harmony. If
one is true, then all are true.
* Napier, Penins. War, VI. 688.
Southey's Colloquies on the Progress of Society, vol. i. p. 211.
Alas ! in the existing relations of nations, the infidel
philosopher, and the rhetorical soldier, to say
nothing of the giddy general, find too much
support for a theory which slanders human
nature, and insults the goodness of God. It is true that there
are impulses in us which unhappily tend to strife.
There are propensities, that we have in common
with the beast, which, if not kept in subordination
to what in man is human, or, perhaps, divine, will
break forth in outrage. This is the predominance
of the animal qualities. Hence come wars and
fightings, and the false glory which crowns such
barbarism. But the Christian elevation of nations,
as of individuals, may well be determined by the
extent to which these evil dispositions are restrained. Nor does the Christian teacher ever
perform his high office more truly than when, recognizing the supremacy of the moral and intellectual faculties, he calls upon nations, as upon
individuals, to declare independence of the bestial
propensities, to abandon practices founded on these
propensities, and in every way to beat down that
profane spirit which is the genius of war. In making this appeal, he will be startled by the fact, as
discreditable as important, 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 in individuals to consent
and agree to determine their petty controversies
by combat, it must be equally wrong and inglorious
for nations to consent and agree to determine their
vaster controversies by combat. Here is a positive,
precise, and specific evil, of gigantic proportions
inconsistent with all that is truly honorable making within the sphere of its influence all True
Grandeur impossible and it does not proceed
from any uncontrollable impulses of our nature,
but is expressly established and organized by law.
DEFINITION OF WAR
As all citizens are parties to municipal law, and
are 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
understand the true nature of Trial by Jury, we
first repair to the municipal law by which it is
established : so, to understand the true nature of
the Arbitrament of War, we must first repair to the
Law of Nations.
Writers, of transcendent genius and learning, have
defined this Arbitrament, and laid down the rules
by which it is governed, constituting a complex
code, with innumerable subtle provisions, regulating
the resort to it, and the manner in which it shall
be conducted, called the Laws of War. In these
quarters, we catch our first authentic glimpse
of its folly and wickedness. War is 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." (Works, vol.
iii. p. 40.) This definition of the English
philosopher has been adopted by the American
jurist, Chancellor Kent, in his authoritative Commentaries on American Law (vol. i.
p. 46). The Swiss Professor, Vattel, whose work
is regarded as an important depository of the Law
of Nations, defines War as " that state in which we
prosecute our rights by Force" (Book III. ch. i.
1.) In this, he very nearly follows the eminent
Dutch authority, Bynkershoek, who says : "Bellum est eorum, qui suae potestatis sunt ; juris
sui persequendi ergo, concertatio per vim vel dolum."
(Qucest. Jur. Pub. Lib. I. ch. vi.) 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" (Vol. ii.
1146.) And in our country, Dr. Lieber says,
in a work abounding in learning and sagacious
thought (Political Ethics, vol. ii. 643), that War
is a mode of obtaining rights, a definition which
hardly differs in form from that of Vattel and
Bynkershoek.
In harmony with these definitions, let me define
the Evil which I now 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 line, or the title to territory.
This definition,
it will be perceived, is confined to contests
between nations. It is restrained to International War. It carefully excludes the
question, so often agitated, of the right of
revolution, and that other question, on which
the friends of Peace sometimes differ, the right
of personal self-defense. It does not in any way
involve the question, of the right to employ
force in the administration of justice, or in 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 of nations, that they feel constrained to allege this seeming excuse, although
its absurdity is attested by the fact, that it is
advanced equally by each belligerent party. 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 may have been its character in periods
of barbarism, or when invoked to repel an incursion
of robbers or pirates the enemies of the human
race War becomes in our day, among all the
nations who are parties to existing International
Law, simply a mode of litigation, or of deciding a
Lis Pendens, between these nations. It is a mere
TRIAL OF RIGHT. It is an appeal for justice to
Force. The Wars that now lower from Mexico
2*
and from England are of this character. On the
one side, we assert a title to Texas, which is disputed; and on the other, we
assert a title to Oregon, which is disputed. It
is only according to " martial logic," or the
"flash language" of a dishonest patriotism, that the Ordeal by Battle in these causes
can be regarded, 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 secure the payment of five
million dollars in other words, to determine by
this Ultimate Tribunal a simple question of justice.
And, going back still further in our history, 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 claim
to search American vessels. Unrighteous as was
this claim, it is plain that War was here invoked
only as a Trial of Right.
But 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 above this. I wish to expose the
irrational, cruel, and impious custom of War, as
sanctioned by the Law of Nations. On this account, I resort to that supreme
law, for my definition. And here, let me be understood as planting myself on this definition. This is
the foundation of the argument which I venture to
submit.
ORDER OF TREATMENT
When we have
considered, in succession, first, the character
of War; secondly, the miseries it produces ; and, thirdly, its utter and shameful insufficiency, as a mode of determining justice,
we may be able to decide, 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.
It will then be important, in order to appreciate
this Evil, and the necessity for its overthrow, to
pass in review the various prejudices by which War
is sustained, and especially that most pernicious
prejudice, in obedience to which, uncounted sums
are diverted from purposes of Peace to PREPARATIONS FOR WAR.
THE ANIMAL CHARACTER OF WAR
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 :
This is the law for mortals, ordained by the Ruler of Keayen ;
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.*
* Hesiod, Works
and Days, v. 276-279 . Cicero also says : Neque ulla re longius absumus a natura ferarum, in quibus in
esse fortitudinern ssepe dicimus, ut in equis, in leonibus ; justitiarn, equitatem, bonitatem non dicimus. De Offic. Lib. L cap. 16.
These words of the early Hesiod exhibit the distinction
between man and the beast ; but this very
distinction belongs to the present discussion.
The first idea that rises to the mind, is, that
War is a resort to brute Force, whereby
each nation strives to overpower the other.
Reason, and the divine part of our nature, in
which alone we differ from the beast, 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 beasts, emulating their ferocity, rejoicing
like them in blood, and seeking, as with a lion's
paw, to hold an asserted right. In more recent
days, this character of War is somewhat disguised,
by the skill and knowledge which it employs ; it
is, however, still the same, made more destructive
by 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 in
rage to the ungovernable fury of animals, or to
things devoid of reason or affection. Menelaus
presses his way through the crowd, " like a beast."
Sarpedon is 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 sheepfold." 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." Even 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 brute strength only, 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 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 the wife he is
about to leave, he 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!"
From the early fields of modern literature, as
from those of antiquity, similar illustrations might
be gathered, all showing the unconscious degradation of the soldier, who, in the
pursuit of justice, renounces the human character, to assume that of the
beast. Henry V., as represented by our own Shakespeare, 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 that
must ensue. The passions 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, of whom it has been so beautifully
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 like a god ! "
CONSEQUENCES OP WAR, AND ITS HORRORS
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 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 their proper purpose 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, which are speeded each fortnight from this
port alone, can no longer be sent ; and the human
affections, of which they are the precious expression,
seek in vain for utterance. Tell me, you who have
friends and kindred abroad, or who are bound to
foreigners by more worldly relations of commerce,
are you prepared for this rude separation ?
This is little, compared with what must follow.
It is but the first portentous shadow of the disastrous eclipse, the twilight usher of thick darkness,
covering the whole heavens as with a pall, broken
only by the blazing lightnings of battle and siege.
These horrors redden every page of history ;
while, to the scandal of humanity, they have never
wanted historians to describe them, with feelings
kindred to those by which they were inspired. The
demon that has drawn the sword, has also guided
the pen. The favorite chronicler of modern
Europe, Froissart while bestowing his equal
admiration upon braver}'" and cunning, upon the
courtesy which pardoned, as upon the rage which
caused the flow of blood in torrents dwells with
especial delight on "beautiful captures," " beautiful
rescues," " beautiful prowesses," and " beautiful
feats of arms ; " and he wantons in picturing the
assaults of cities, " which, being soon gained by
force, were robbed, and put to the sword without
mercy, men, and women, and children, while the
churches were burnt." *
* Froissart, c.
178, p. 68.
This was in a barbarous
age. But popular writers, in our own day, dazzled
by false ideas of greatness, at which reason and
Christianity blush, do not hesitate to dwell on similar scenes with terms of
rapture and eulogy. 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 " a splendid
victory." *
* Life of
Wilberforce, IV. 256, 261.
My present purpose is, less to judge the writer,
than to expose the horrors on horrors which he
applauds. At Tarragona, above six thousand human beings, almost all defenseless,
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."
*
* Alison, Hist, of
French Rev. VIII. 114.
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. The churches
were desecrated, the 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 men 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." *
* Alison,
Hist. VIII. 189.
This " beautiful feat of
arms " was followed by the storming 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, who saw what he so eloquently
describes. " Shameless rapacity, brutal
intemperance, 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." *
* Napier, History
of Penins. War, IV. 431.
The same terrible War affords another instance
of the atrocities 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 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 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 of forty thousand persons, of every
age and both sexes, bore dreadful testimony to
the unutterable cruelty of War.
These might seem
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 forth as the foremost representative of worldly Grandeur. The
heart aches, as we follow him and his marshals
from field to field of Satanic Glory,* finding everywhere, from Spain to Russia, the same carnival of
woe.
*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, leaves to posterity to judge
whether his career of battle was True Glory.
Fu vera gloria? Aiposteri
L'ardua sentenza. -
Manzoni, II Cinque Maggio.
When men learn to appreciate moral Grandeur, the easy sentence
will be rendered.
The picture is various, yet identical in character. 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 ? What scene more
monumental than that at Salamanca, where, long
after the great battle, the ground, strewn with
fragments of casques and cuirasses, was still blanched by the skeletons of those
who fell? What catalogue of horror more complete
than the Russian campaign? At every step there
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 of the army,
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, more
than one hundred thousand of our fellow-men, equaling in number the population
of this whole city, sank to earth, dead or
wounded? Fifty days after the battle, no less
than twenty thousand are found, stretched where
they gasped out their breath, 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 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 continued against new
forces under the walls of Dresden ; and as the
emperor after indulging in royal supper with the
king of Saxony rides over the field of battle, he
sees ghastly new-made graves, with hands and arms
projecting, stark and stiff, above the earth. And
shortly afterwards, when shelter is needed for the
troops, the order is given to occupy the Hospitals
for the Insane, saying, " turn out the mad."
WAR ILLUSTRATED BY SIEGE OF GENOA
Why follow further in this career of blood?
There is 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 Superb,
City of palaces, dear to the memory of American
childhood as the birthplace of Christopher Columbus, 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 sat 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 the 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 last autumn of the last century, the
armies of the French Republic, which had dominated over Italy, were driven from their conquests,
and compelled, with shrunk forces, to seek shelter
under Massena, within the walls of Genoa. After
various efforts by the Austrian general on the
land, aided by a bombardment from the British
fleet in the harbor, to force the strong defences by
assault, the city was invested by a strict blockade.
All communication with the country was cut off,
while the harbor was closed by the ever-wakeful
British watch-dogs of war. Besides the French
troops, within the beleagured and unfortunate city,
were the peaceful unoffending inhabitants, more
than those of Boston in number. 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 noonday,
the daughter by the side of the mother, the husband
by the side of the wife. When grain and rice fail,
flaxseed, millet, cocoas, and almonds are ground by
handmills 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 thirty-two cents ; a
pound of bran for thirty 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 wretched soldiers,
after devouring all the horses, are reduced to the
degradation of feeding on dogs, cats, rats, and
worms, which are eagerly hunted in the cellars and
common sewers. Happy were now, exclaims 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 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
within the defences, those aliments which nature
destined solely for the beasts. A scrap of cheese
and scanty vegetables are all that can be afforded
to the sick and wounded, those sacred stipendiaries
of human charity. Men and women, in the last
anguish of despair, fill the air with groans and
shrieks ; some in spasms, convulsions, and contortions, gasping their expiring breath on the unpitying stones of the streets ; alas ! not more unpitying
than man. Children, whom a dying mother's arms
had ceased to protect, the orphans of an hour,
with piercing cries, seek in vain the compassion of
the passing stranger ; but none pity or aid. The
sweet fountains of sympathy are all closed by the
selfishness of individual distress. In the general
agony, some precipitate themselves into the sea,
while the more impetuous rush from the gates, and
impale their bodies on the Austrian bayonets.
Others still (pardon the dire recital !) are driven
to devour their shoes and the leather of their
pouches ; and the horror of human flesh so far
abates, that numbers feed like cannibals on the
corpses about them.*
*This account has been drawn from the animated sketches
of Botta (History of Italy, under Napoleon, vol. i. cap. i.), Alison (History of French Rev., vol. iv. cap. xxx.), and Arnold
(Modem History, lee. iv.). The humanity of the latter is particularly aroused to
condemn 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 blockaded town ! In this way, they may be
spared a languishing death by starvation ; but they must desert
firesides, pursuits, all that makes life dear, and become homeless
exiles, a fate little better than the former. It is strange that
Arnold's pure soul and clear judgment did not recognize the
truth, that the whole custom or institution of War is unrighteous
and unlawful, and that the horrors of this siege are its natural
consequence. Laws of War ! Laws in what is lawless ! rules of
wrong! There can be only one law of War; that is the great
law, which pronounces it unwise, unchristian, and unjust.
At this stage, the French general capitulated,
claiming and receiving what are called " the honors
of War ; " but not before twenty thousand innocent
persons, old and young, women and children, having
no part or interest in the contest, 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 plains of Marengo, shattered, as
with an iron mace, the Austrian empire in Italy.
DESOLATE HOMES
But wasted lands, famished cities, and slaughtered armies are only a part of " the purple testament
of bleeding war." Every soldier is connected
with others, as all of you, by dear ties of
kindred, love, and friendship. He has been
sternly summoned from the embrace of family. To him, there
is, perhaps, an aged mother, who has fondly hoped
to lean her decaying frame upon his more youthful
form; perhaps a wife, whose life has been just
entwined inseparably with his, now condemned to
wasting despair ; perhaps sisters, brothers. As he
falls on the field of war, must not all these rush with
his blood ? But who can measure the distress that
radiates as from a bloody sun, penetrating innumerable homes? Who can give the
gauge and dimensions of this incalculable
sorrow? Tell me, ye who feel the bitterness of
parting with dear friends -and kindred, whom you
watch tenderly till the last golden sands are
run out and the great hour-glass is turned, what
is the measure of your anguish? Your friend
departs, 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 forget the anguish that
fills the bosom and crazes the brain of Leonora, in
the matchless ballad of Burger, when seeking in
vain among returning squadrons for her lover left
dead on Prague's ensanguined plain? But every
field of blood has many Leonoras. Every war has
its desolate homes, as is most vividly pictured by
a master poet of antiquity, whose verse is an argument.*
* Agamemnon of AEschylus
; Chorus. This is from the beautiful translation by John Symmons.
But through the bounds of Grecia's land,
Who sent her sons for Troy to part,
See mourning, with much suffering heart,
On each man's threshold stand,
On each sad hearth in Grecia's land. Well may her soul with grief be rent; 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 wall on foreign strand ;
"Where they fell, in beauty's bloom,
There they lie in hated tomb ;
Sunk beneath the massy mound,
In eternal chambers bound.
WAR INEFFECTUAL TO ESTABLISH JUSTICE
III. But all these
miseries are to no purpose. War is utterly
ineffectual to secure or advance the object
which it professes to seek. The wretchedness which it entails, 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 great conflicts by which the world has been
lacerated. After long struggle, where each nation
inflicts and receives incalculable injury, peace has
been gladly obtained on the basis of the condition
before the War, known as the Status ante Bellum.
I cannot better illustrate this point, than by the
familiar example humiliating to both countries
of the last war with Great Britain, the professed
object of which was to obtain from the latter Power
a renunciation of her insolent claim to impress
our seamen. The greatest number of American
seamen officially alleged to be compulsorily serving
in the British navy was about eight hundred. To
overturn this injustice, the Arbitrament of War
was invoked, and the whole country was doomed
for more than three years to its accursed blight.
American 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 everywhere within
our borders. Weary at last with this rude Trial,
our Government appointed Commissioners to treat
for Peace, with these specific 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 hot
provided against, the United States have
appealed to arms ! in vain" *
* American State
Papers, vol. vii. p. 577.
Afterwards, finding small chance of extorting
from Great Britain a relinquishment of the
unrighteous claim, and foreseeing only an
accumulation of calamities from an inveterate prosecution of the War,
our Government directed their negotiators, in concluding 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, so rashly cast
away, but now hailed with an intoxication of joy,
contained no allusion to impressment, nor did it
provide for the surrender of a single American
sailor detained in the British navy. 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 pending question to superiority
of force, or to chance.
Superior Force may end in conquest ; this is its
natural consequence ; but it cannot adjudicate any
right. We expose the absurdity of its Arbitrament, when, by a familiar phrase of sarcasm, we
speak of the right of the strongest excluding, of
course, all idea of right, except that of the lion, as
he springs upon a weaker beast ; of the wolf, as he
tears in pieces the lamb ; of the vulture, as he
fattens upon the dove. The grossest spirits will
admit that this is not justice.
But the battle is not always to the strong. Superiority
of Force is often checked by the proverbial
contingencies of War. Especially are such contingencies
revealed in rankest absurdity, where nations, as
is their acknowledged custom, without regard to
their respective forces, whether weaker or
stronger, voluntarily appeal to this mad Umpirage. Who can measure beforehand 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 vocation, yet call it a
game. The Great Captain of our age, who seemed
to drag victory at 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." *
* Alison, VIII.
346.
The famous victory of
Marengo, accident of an accident, wrested unexpectedly at the close of the day from a foe, who
at an earlier hour was successful, taught him the
uncertainty of War. Afterwards, in bitterness of
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 Abbee 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." *
* Ib. IX. 239.
The same sentiment is repeated by the
military historian of the Peninsular campaigns,
when he 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 ; " *
* J Napier,
IV. 687.
and again, in
another place, considering the conduct of
Wellington, the same military historian, who is
an unquestionable authority, confesses : " 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." *
* Napier IV 477.
And can intelligent man look for
justice to an ever-rolling wheel armed with scythes?
Chance is written on every battlefield. It may
be discerned less in the conflict of large masses,
than in that of individuals, though equally present
in each. How capriciously the 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 two slain brothers
on the field, would overpower the three living
enemies? But this is not alone. In all the
combats of history, involving the fate of
individuals or nations, we learn to revolt at
the frenzy which carried questions of property,
of freedom, or of life, to a judgment so
uncertain and senseless.
THE TRIAL BY BATTLE
During the early
modern centuries, and especially in the moral
night of the dark ages, the practice extensively
prevailed throughout Europe, of submitting controversies, whether of individuals or
communities, to this adjudication. I pass over the
custom of Private War, though it aptly illustrates
the subject, stopping merely to join in that delight,
which, at a time of ignorance, before this mode
of determining justice had gradually yielded to the
ordinances of monarchs and an advancing civilization, hailed its temporary suspension, as
The Truce of God; and I come at once to the Judicial
Combat, or TRIAL BY BATTLE. In this custom, or
institution, as in a mirror, we may behold the
hideousness of War.
Trial by Battle
was a formal and legitimate mode of deciding
controversies, principally between individuals. Like other ordeals, by burning plough-shares, by holding hot iron, by dipping the hand in
hot water or hot oil and like the great Ordeal of
War it was a presumptuous appeal to Providence, under an apprehension and hope, that
Heaven would give the victory to him who had the
right. Its object was precisely the professed object
of War, the determination of Justice. It was sanctioned by Municipal Law as an Arbitrament
for individuals ; as War to the scandal of civilization
is still sanctioned by International Law, as an
Arbitrament for nations. Men, says the brilliant
Frenchman, Montesquieu, subject to rules even
their prejudices ; and Trial by Battle was surrounded by artificial regulations of multifarious
detail, constituting an extensive system, determining how and when it should be waged ; as War is
surrounded by a complex code, known as the Laws
of War.
No question was too sacred, grave, or recondite
for this Tribunal. The title of an abbey to a neighboring church, in France, was decided by it ; and
an emperor of Germany, according to a faithful
ecclesiastic, " desirous of dealing honorably with
his people and nobles " (mark here the standard of
honor !), waived the judgment of the court on a
grave question of law, as to the descent of property,
and referred it to champions. Human folly did not
stop here. In Spain, a subtle point of theology
was submitted to the same determination. But
Trial by Battle was not confined to particular countries or to rare occasions.
It prevailed everywhere in Europe, superseding
in many places all other ordeals and even trials
by proofs, and extending not only to criminal
matters, but to questions of property. Like War in our day, its justice and fitness
as an Arbitrament were early doubted or condemned. Luitprand, a king of the Lombards,
in Italy, during that middle period which
belongs neither to ancient nor to modern times,
in a law bearing date 713, expresses his
distrust of it as a mode of determining justice
; but the monarch is compelled to add that,
considering the custom of his Lombard people, he
cannot forbid the impious law. His words deserve
emphatic mention : Propter consuetudinem gentis nostrse Longobardorum legem impiam vetare nonpossumus.*
* Muratori, Rerum
Italic. Script, t. 2, p. 65.
The appropriate epithet
by which he branded Trial by Battle is the important bequest of the royal Lombard to a distant
posterity. For this, the name of the lawgiver
will be cherished, with grateful regard, in the
annals of civilization.
This custom received another blow from Rome.
At the latter part of the thirteenth century, Don Pedro of Aragon, after
exchanging letters of defiance with Charles of
Anjou, proposed to the latter a personal combat,
which was accepted, on condition that Sicily
should be the prize of success.*
*Sismondi,
Histoire des Fran9, VIII. 338-340.
Each called down upon himself all the
vengeance of Heaven, and the last dishonor, if, at
the appointed time, he failed to appear before the
Seneschal of Aquitaine, or, in case of defeat, if
he refused to consign Sicily undisturbed to the
victor. While the two champions were preparing
for the .lists, the pope, Martin IV., protested with
all his power against this new Trial by Battle,
which staked the sovereignty of a kingdom, a feudatory of the Holy See, on a wild stroke of chance.
By a papal bull, dated at Civita Vecchia, April 5th,
1283, he threatened excommunication to either of
the princes, who proceeded to a combat which he
pronounced criminal and abominable. By a letter
of the same date, the Pope announced to Edward I.
of England, Duke of Aquitaine, the agreement of
the two princes, which he most earnestly declared
to be full of indecency and rashness, hostile to the
concord of Christendom, and careless of Christian
blood ; and he urged upon the English monarch to
spare no effort to prevent the combat menacing
him with excommunication, and his territories
with interdict, if it should take place. Edward refusing to guarantee the safety of the combatants in
Aquitaine, the parties retired without consummating their duel. The judgment of the Holy See,
which thus accomplished its immediate object,
though not in terms directed to the suppression of
the custom of Trial by Battle, remains, nevertheless, from its peculiar energy
of language, in perpetual testimony against it.
ST. LOUIS ABOLISHES TRIAL BY BATTLE IN FRANCE
To a monarch of
France belongs the honor of first interposing
the royal authority, for the entire suppression
within his jurisdiction, of this impious custom,
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, whose unenlightened errors may find easy
condemnation in an 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, and the highest example
for a Christian prince or a Christian people, in
one word, a model of True Greatness. He was of
angelic conscience, subjecting all that he did to the
single and exclusive test of moral rectitude, disregarding every consideration of worldly advantage,
every fear of worldly consequence.
His soul, thus
tremblingly sensitive to questions of right, was
shocked by the judicial combat. It was a sin, in
his sight, thus to tempt God, by demanding of
him a miracle, whenever judgment was pronounced.
From these intimate convictions sprung a royal
Ordinance, first promulgated at a Parliament
assembled in 1260:
"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 FOREVER." *
* Guizot, Histoire
de la Civilization en France, IV. 162-164.
Such were the restraints on the royal authority,
that this Ordinance did not extend to the
demesnes of the barons and feudatories of the
realm, being confined in its operation to those
of the king. But where the power of the
sovereign did not reach, there he labored by
example, influence, and express intercession ;
treating with many of the great vassals, and
inducing them to renounce this unnatural usage.
Though for many years later it vexed some parts
of France, 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-descended sentiment of duty ; who began a long and illustrious reign, by renouncing and
restoring a portion of the conquests of his predecessor, saying to those about him, whose souls did not
ascend to the height of his morality, " 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, but to put
love between my children and his children, who are
cousins-german; and it seems to me that what I
thus give, I employ to good purpose ! " *
* I b. IV. 151.
Honor
to him who never grasped by force or cunning any
new acquisition ; who never sought advantage from the turmoil and dissension 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 strifes of others, "Blessed are the
Peacemakers;" * who, by an immortal Ordinance,
abolished Trial by Battle throughout his
dominions ; who executed equal justice to all,
whether his own people, or neighbors, and in the
extremity 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,
turning neither to the right hand nor to the
left ! " **
* Benoist soient tuit li apaiseur.
Joinville, p. 143.
** Sismondi, Histoire des France. VIII. 196.
TRIAL BY BATTLE ABOLISHED IN ENGLAND
To condemn Trial by Battle, no longer requires
the sagacity above his age of the Lombard monarch, or the intrepid judgment of the Sovereign
Pontiff, or the ecstatic soul of St. Louis. An incident of history, as curious
as it is authentic, illustrates this point, and shows the certain progress of
opinion. This custom, as a part of the common
law of England, was partially restrained by Henry
II., and rebuked at a later day by Elizabeth.
Though fallen into desuetude, quietly overruled by
the enlightened sense of successive generations, yet,
to the disgrace of English jurisprudence, it was not
legislatively abolished till almost in our own day,
as late as 1817, when the right to it was
openly claimed in Westminster Hall. An ignorant
man charged with murder, whose name, Abraham
Thornton, is necessarily connected with the
history of this monstrous usage, being proceeded
against by the ancient process of appeal,
pleaded, when brought into court, 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. The appellant not
choosing to accept this challenge, abandoned his
proceedings. The bench, the bar, and the whole
kingdom were startled by the outrage ; and at
the next session of parliament, Trial by Battle
was abolished in England. On introducing a bill for this purpose, the Attorney-General remarked, in appropriate terms, 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 Register,
vol. Ixi. p. 52 (1819) ; Blackstone, Com. Ill
337, Chitty's note.
These words aptly portray the impression which
Trial by Battle excites in our day. Its folly
and wickedness are apparent to all. As we revert
to those early periods in which it prevailed,
our minds are impressed by the general barbarism
; we recoil with horror from the awful
subjection of justice to brute force ; from the
impious profanation of God in deeming him
present at these outrages ; from the moral
degradation out of which they sprang, and which
they perpetuated ; we involve ourselves in
self-complacent virtue, and thank God that we
are not as these men, that ours is an age of light,
while theirs was an age of darkness !
ONE AND THE SAME LAW OF RIGHT FOR NATIONS
AND INDIVIDUALS
But do not forget, fellow-citizens, that this criminal and impious custom, which we all condemn in
the case of individuals, is openly avowed by our
i own country, and by the other countries of the 'great Christian Federation
nay, that it is expressly established by International Law as the
proper mode of determining justice between nations ; while the feats of
hardihood by which it is waged, and the triumphs
of its fields, are exalted beyond all other
labors, whether of learning, industry, or benevolence, as a well-spring of Glory.
Alas ! upon our own heads be the judgment of
barbarism, which we pronounce upon those that
have gone before ! At this moment, in this period
of light, while to the contented souls of many the
noonday sun of civilization seems to be standing
still in the heavens, as upon Gibeon, the relations
between nations continue to be governed by the
odious rules of brute violence, which once predominated between individuals. The
dark ages have not yet passed away ; Erebus and
black Night, born of Chaos, still brood over the
earth ; nor can we hail the clear day, until the
hearts of the nations are touched, as the hearts
of individual men, and all acknowledge one
and the same Law of Right.
Who has told you,
fond man ! thus to find Glory in an act when
performed by a nation which you condemn as a
crime or a barbarism when committed by an
individual ? In what vain conceit of wisdom and
virtue do you find this incongruous 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. Can States be less amenable to
the supreme moral law ? Each individual is an
atom of the mass. Must not the mass, in its conscience, be like the individuals of which it is composed? Shall the mass, in relations with other
masses, do what individuals in relations with each
other may not do? As in the physical creation, so
in the moral, there is but one rule for individuals
and masses. It was the lofty discovery of Newton,
that the simple law, which determines the fall of an
apple, prevails everywhere throughout the Universe
ruling each particle in reference to every other
particle, whether large or small reaching from
earth to heaven, and controlling the infinite motions
of the spheres ; so, with equal scope, another simple law, the Law of Right, which binds the individual, binds also two or three when gathered
together ; binds conventions and congregations of
men ; binds villages, towns, and cities ; binds
states, nations, and empires ; clasps the whole
human family in its sevenfold 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. This is the law, of Which the ancient poet
sings, as Queen alike of mortals and immortals. It
is of this, and not of any earthly law, that Hooker
speaks in that magnificent period which sounds
like an anthem ; "Of law, no 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 admiring her as the mother of their peace and joy."
Often quoted, and justly admired, sometimes as the
finest sentence of our English speech, this grand
declaration cannot be more justly invoked than to
condemn the pretension of one law for individuals
and another for nations.
Stripped of all delusive apologies, and tried by
that comprehensive law under which nations are
set to the bar like common men "War falls from Glory into barbarous guilt. It takes its place among
bloody transgressions, while its flaming honors are
turned into shame. Painful to existing prejudices
as it may be, we must learn to abhor it, as we
abhor similar transgressions by a vulgar offender.
Every word of reprobation, which the enlightened
conscience now fastens upon the savage combatant
in Trial by Battle, or which it applies to the unhappy being, who, in murderous duel, takes the
life of his fellow-man, belongs also to the nation
that appeals to War. Amidst the thunders which
made Sinai tremble, 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 one man may
not slay in duel, but that a nation may slay a
multitude in the duel of war ; 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 ?
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 State puts forth all
its energies to secure his punishment. Viewed in
the unclouded light of truth, what is War but
organized murder ; murder of malice aforethought ;
in cold blood ; under the sanctions of an impious
law; through the operation of an extensive machinery of crime ; with innumerable hands ; at incalculable cost of money; by subtle contrivances
of cunning and skill ; or amidst the fiendish atrocities of the savage brutal assault ?
The Scythian,
undisturbed by the illusion of military Glory,
snatched a phrase of justice from an
acknowledged criminal, when he called Alexander " the greatest robber in the world." And
the Roman satirist, filled with similar truth,
in pungent words, touched to the quick that
flagrant unblushing injustice which dooms to
condign punishment the very guilt, that in another sphere, and
on a grander scale, under the auspices of a nation,
is hailed with acclamation.
Ille crucem sceleris pretium tulit, hie diadema.*
* Juvenal, lat.
xiii. 105.
Mankind, blind to the real character of War, while
condemning the ordinary malefactor, may continue
yet a little longer to crown its giant actors with
Glory. A generous posterity may pardon to unconscious barbarism the atrocities which they have
waged ; but the whole custom and it is of this
that I speak though sanctioned by existing law,
cannot escape the unerring judgment of reason and
religion. The outrages which, under solemn sanctions of law, it permits and invokes for professed
purposes of justice, cannot be authorized by any
human power ; and they must rise in overwhelming
judgment, not only against those who wield the
weapons of Battle, but more still against all who
uphold its monstrous Arbitrament.
THE ST. LOUIS OF THE NATIONS
When, oh ! when shall the St. Louis of the
Nations arise the Christian ruler, or Christian
people, who, in the spirit of True Greatness, shall
proclaim, that henceforward forever the great Trial
by Battle shall cease; that "these battles" shall
be abolished throughout the Commonwealth of civilization ; that a spectacle so degrading shall
never
be allowed again to take place ; and that it is the
duty of Nations, involving of course the highest
policy, to establish love between each other, and, in
all respects, at all times, with all persons, whether
their own people or the people of other lands, to be
governed by the sacred Law of Right, as between
man and man. May God speed the coming of that
day !
OBSTACLES
I have already alluded, in the early part of this
Address, to some of the obstacles encountered by
the advocate of Peace. One of these is the war-like tone of the literature, by which our minds 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 incarnadined with
blood ; as the bones of swine, fed on madder, are
said to become red. But I now pass this by,
though a fruitful theme, and hasten to other topics.
I propose to consider in succession, very briefly,
some of those prejudices, which are most powerful
in keeping alive the custom of War.
BELIEF THAT WAR IS A NECESSITY
1. One of the most important is the prejudice
founded on a belief in its necessity. When War is
called a necessity', it is meant, of course, that its object can be attained in
no other way. Now I think that it has already
appeared with distinctness, approaching
demonstration, that the professed 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 are the emblems of successful force only, and not of established right. Justice is obtained solely by
the exercise of 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 " Chance, high arbiter, more
embroils the fray." The age has passed in which
a nation within the enchanted circle of civilization,
can make war upon its neighbor, for any professed
purpose of booty or vengeance. It does " naught
in hate, but all in honor." There are profession*
of tenderness even which mingle with the first
mutterings of strife. As if conscience-struck at
the criminal abyss into which they are plunging,
each of the great litigants seeks to fix the charge
of hostile aggression on the other, and to set up
the excuse of defending some asserted right, some
Texas, some 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 vail of the Temple was rent in
twain.
The proper modes,
for the determination of international disputes, are Negotiation, Mediation,
Arbitration, and a Congress of Nations all practicable and calculated to secure peaceful justice.
These may be employed at any time under the
existing Law of Nations. But the very law itself,
which sanctions War, may be changed, as regards
two or more nations by treaty between them, and as regards all the Christian nations by general consent. If nations can agree together in the solemn
provisions of International Law, to establish War
as an Arbiter of Justice, they can also agree
together to abolish this Arbitrament, and to establish peaceful substitutes;
precisely as similar substitutes have been
established by municipal law to determine
controversies among individuals. A system of
Arbitration may be instituted by treaties, or a
Congress of Nations may be charged with the high
duty of organizing an Ultimate Tribunal instead
of "these battles" for the decision of
international controversies. The will only is required for success in this work.
Let it not be
said, then, that War is a necessity ; and may
our country aspire to the Glory of taking the
lead in disowning the barbarous system of International LYNCH LAW, and in proclaiming peaceful
substitutes as the only proper mode of determining
justice between nations ! Such a Glory, unlike the
earthly fame of battle, will be immortal as the
stars, dropping perpetual light upon the souls of
men !
THE PRACTICE OP NATIONS NO RULE OP DUTY
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 an
extended scale. But it will not 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 cannot
follow that it is right. For ages, the world worshipped false gods ; but these
gods were not 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 judged as a
crime, was, by a perverse morality, like War
itself, dignified into an art and an
accomplishment ; like War, it was admitted
into the system of youthful education ; and it
was illustrated like War also, by an instance of
unconquerable firmness, which is a barbaric
counterfeit of virtue. The Spartan youth, with
the stolen fox beneath his robe eating into his
heart, is an example of mistaken fortitude, not
unlike that which we are asked to admire in the
soldier. Other illustrations 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 Fejee Islands ; from
the profane rites of innumerable savages; from
the crushing Juggernaut ; from the Hindoo widow
lighting her funereal pyre ; from the Indian dancing at the stake. But in their respective places
and days, had not all these, like War, the sanction
of established usage ?
It is often said, that we need not be wiser than our
fathers. Rather strive to excel our fathers. What
in them was good, imitate; but. do not bind ourselves, as in chains of Fate, by their imperfect example. Principles are higher than human examples.
Examples may be followed when they accord with
the admonitions of duty. But he is unwise 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. It is the lofty distinction of man that he is a progressive being ;
that his reason at the present day is not merely the
reason of a single human being, but the reason 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 truth, grandly accumulating from
generation to generation. The child at his mother's
knee is now taught 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, to an extent far beyond the ken of the
most learned in other days. Therefore, it is
true that antiquity is the real infancy of man.
Then it is, that he is immature, ignorant,
wayward, childish, selfish, finding his chief happiness in pleasures
of sense, unconscious of the higher delights of
knowledge, justice, love. The animal nature reigns
supreme, and he is driven on by the gross impulses
of force. He seeks contest, war, and blood. But
man is no larger in childhood. 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.
Cease, then, to look for a lamp to our feet, in
the feeble tapers that glimmer from the sepulchres
of the Past. Rather hail those ever-burning lights
above, in whose beams is the brightness of noon-day !
INFIDELITY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
3. There is a topic which I approach with diffidence, but in the spirit of frankness. It is the
influence which War, though condemned by Christ,
has derived from the Christian 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 Savior, and have learned
that by no earthly weapon of battle can true victory be won. The pride of conquest would have
been rebuked, and the bauble scepter of Empire have fallen from his hands. By
this conquer; by patience, suffering,
forgiveness 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
existence, 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, even to our own
day. The Pope of Rome, the asserted head of the church, 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, mingling the thunders of
battle with the thunders of the Vatican. The
dagger which projected from the sacred vestments
of de Retz, while still an archbishop, was called by
the Parisian crowd, u the Archbishop's Breviary."
We read of mitred prelates 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 became expert masters in military exercises. 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 swelling by his presence the pomp of a military parade ! Aye ! 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 encouraged to serve the
God of Battles, and, as citizen soldiers, to fight for Peace; a sentiment, in unhappy harmony with
the profane language of the British peer, when, in
addressing the House of Lords, he said,* " The best
road to Peace, my Lords, is War; 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 ; " but which surely can find no support
in the Religion of Him who expressly enjoins, 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.
**
* May 30th, 1794.
** Iniquissimam pacem, justissimo 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 sincere reluctance, that I here seemed,
by a particular allusion, to depart for a moment
from so great a theme 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.
Well may we be astonished, that now in an age of
civilization, the God of Battles should be invoked. Deo imperante, QUEM ADESSE BELLANTIBUS CREDUNT,
are the appropriate words of surprise, by which
Tacitus describes a similar savage superstition
of the ancient Germans. *
* De Moribus
German, § 7.
The polite Roman did not think God present, to
cheer those who fight in battle. And this Heathen superstition must at last
have lost something of its hold, even in Germany ;
for, at a recent period, her most renowned captain
whose false Glory procured from flattering
courtiers and a barbarous world the title of Great
Frederick of Prussia, declared, with a commendable frankness, that he always found the God of
Battles on the side of the strongest regiments ;
and when it was proposed to adopt as an inscription for his banner, soon to flout the sky of Silesia,
" For God and Country," he rejected the first word,
declaring that it was not proper to introduce the
name of the Deity in the quarrels of men. By this
Christian sentiment, the war-worn monarch may be
remembered, when the fame of his battles has
passed away.
And who is the God of Battles ? It is Mars ;
man-slaying, blood-polluted, city-smiting Mars ! *
* Iliad, V. 31.
Him we cannot adore. It is not He who binds the
sweet influences of the 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
Christians ; he is not Our Father in Heaven ; 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.
And yet Christ and Mars are still brought into
fellowship. Let us see them together. There now
floats in this harbor a national ship of the line.
Many of you have pressed its deck, and observed
with admiration the completeness which prevails
in all its parts ; its lithe masts and complex network of ropes ; its thick wooden walls, within which
are more than the soldiers of Ulysses ; its strong
defenses, and its numerous dread and rude-throated
engines of War. There each Sabbath, amidst this
armament of blood, while the wave comes gently
plashing against the frowning sides, from a pulpit
supported by 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 in such a place, those highest
words of the Master he professes, " Blessed are the
Peacemakers ; " " Love your Enemies ; " " Render
not evil for evil," must, like Macbeth's " Amen,"
stick in the throat.
It cannot be doubted that this strange and unblessed conjunction of the Christian clergy with
War, has had no little influence in blinding the world
to the truth now beginning to be recognized, that
Christianity forbids the whole custom of War.
Individual interests are mingled with prevailing
errors, and are so far concerned in maintaining them,
that it is not surprising how reluctantly military men
yield to this truth. They are naturally like lawyers, as
described by Voltaire, " the conservators of ancient
barbarous usages;" but that these usages especially that the impious Trial by Battle 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 the testimony 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 Christians
to bear arms, but those who came within its pale
abstained from their use, although at the cost of life,
thus renouncing not only the umpirage of War, but
even the right of self-defense. Marcellus, the Centurion, threw down his military belt at the head of
the legion, and in the face of the standards, declared
with a loud voice, that he would no longer serve in
the army, for he had become a Christian; 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 the fierce jealousy of waked wrath,
Will go forth with our armies and our fleets
To scatter the red ruin on our foes !
O blasphemy ! to mingle fiendish deeds
With blessedness ! *
* Religious
Musings by Coleridge, written Christmas Eve,
1794.
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 soldier ; for it was the sound of his drum
that inflamed the flagging courage of the troops.
THE POINT OF HONOR
4. From prejudices engendered by the Church, I
pass to prejudices engendered by the army itself;
having their immediate origin in military life, but
unfortunately diffusing themselves, in widening
though less apparent circles, throughout the community. I allude directly to what is called the point
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 evanescent, so impalpable, so chimerical, so unreal, and yet which exercises
such fiendish power over many men, and controls the
relations of States. As a little water, fallen into the
crevice of a rock, under the congelation of winter,
swells till it bursts the thick and stony fibres ; so a
word or 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 the demons
Hate and Strife, no longer restrained, are let loose
abroad. The musing Hamlet saw the strange and
unnatural potency of this sentiment, when his soul
pictured to his contemplations
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;
and when he, with a point which has given to the
sentiment its strongest and most popular expression, exclaims
Rightly to be great
Is not to stir without great argument;
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw
When honor's at the stake.
And when is Honor at stake ? This question opens
again the argument with which I commenced and
with which I hope to close this discourse. Honor
can be at stake only where justice and beneficence
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 followed by violence.
True Honor appears in the highest moral and intellectual excellence, in the dignity of the human soul,
in the 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. Are you aware that you indulge this sentiment, on a gigantic scale, when you recognize this
very point of honor as a proper apology 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,
fails to 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 transactions. From the
field of Pavia, where France suffered one of the
greatest reverses in her annals, the defeated king
writes to his mother : " All is lost, except honor."
At a later day, the renowned cook, Vatel, in a paroxysm of grief and
mortification at the failure of two dishes
expected on the table, exclaims, " I have lost
my honor" and afterwards stabs himself to the
heart.*
* The death of the
culinary martyr is described by Madame de
Sevigne, with the accustomed coldness and
brilliancy of her fashionable pen (Lettres L. and LI. Tom. I., p.164). Berchoux
records his exclamation
"Je suis perdu d'honneur, deux rotis ont manques."
Montesquieu, whose
writings are a constellation of epigrams, places
honor in direct contrast with virtue, and he
calls it a prejudice only. Such as it is, he
makes it the animating principle of monarchy,
while virtue is the animating principle of a
republic ; and he adds that, in well-governed
monarchies, almost everybody is a good citizen,
but it is 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 parental
affection, to justice, to the attributes of God.
He would seem to borrow a worldly phrase,
showing a slight appreciation of the distinctive
qualities on which reverence is accorded, who
should speak of a father, a mother, a judge, an
angel, or finally of God, as persons of honor.
In such sacred connections, we feel, beyond the
force of any argument, the mundane character of
the sentiment which plays such a part in history
and in common life.
The rule of honor is founded in the imagined
necessity of resenting by force a supposed injury,
whether of word or act.*
* This is well
exposed in a comedy of Moliere. Don Pedre. Souhaitez-vous quelque chose de moi ?
Hali. Oui ; un conseil sur un fait d'honneur. Je sais qu'en
ces matieres il est malaise de trouver un cavalier plus consomme
que vous.
Seigneur, fai refu un soufflet. 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 Vincertitude si,
pour me venger de V affront, je dots me battre avnc mon homme, ou
bien lefaire assassiner.
Don Pedre. Assassiner c'est le plus sur et le plus court chemin. Moliere, Le Sicilien, So. 13.
Admit that such an
injury is received, falsely seeming to sully the
character; is it wiped away by a resort to
force, with a descent to the brutal level of its
author? "Could I wipe your blood from my
conscience as easily as this insult from my
face," said a Marshal of France, greater on this
occasion than on any field of fame, " I would
lay you dead at my feet." It is Plato, reporting
the angelic wisdom of Socrates, who declares in
one of those beautiful dialogues, which shine
with stellar light across the ages, that it is
more shameful to do a wrong than to receive a wrong.*
* This proposition
is enforced by Socrates with unanswerable
reasoning and illustration, throughout the whole
of the Gorgias,
which it appears Cicero read diligently while studying at Athens
(De Oratore, I., 11).
This is page 1 of
2 of Sumner's speech.
Go to page 2.
More History
|
|
