VI.
The right of making prisoners of war, and depriving them of their liberty, and of the power and opportunity of farther resistance, is undoubted, for it is founded on the principles of security and self-defence. But when the soldier has laid down his arms, and submitted to the will of the conqueror, the right of taking his life ceases, unless he should forfeit the right himself by some new crime; and the savage errors of antiquity, in putting prisoners to death, have long been renounced by civilized nations.
Among the European states prisoners of war are seldom ill-treated; and when the number of prisoners is so great as not to be fed, or kept with safety, it has been the custom to parole them, either for a certain length of time, or for the war. All authorities agree that they cannot be made slaves, although under certain circumstances they may be set at labor on the public fortifications and works.
Prisoners of war are retained to prevent their returning to the field of conflict, and there are times when they may be detained and refused all ransom, when, for instance, it is obvious that the parole will not be regarded by the opposing commanders, and when their exchange would throw a preponderance of weight into the ranks of the antagonist. It would have been very dangerous for the Czar Peter the Great to have exchanged his Swedish prisoners for an equal number of unequal Russians; but whilst retained they were treated with kindness.
VII.
The rebel policy and system towards the Federal prisoners, along the entire line, without exception, from Virginia to Texas, was one of stupendous atrocity. It was one of the most inhuman and monstrous that hate and tyranny ever invented. It was no less derogatory to human character than defiant to the principles of Christianity; but Christianity was unknown there. The gods of worship were the deities of the dark ages, and the fancied garlands of flowers that decorated their statues were nothing more than wreaths of cyprus leaves. This stockade was the epitome and concentration of all earthly misery, to which the Bastile and the Inquisition offer but feeble comparisons, as prototypes, as models, as ideas, for the destruction of human life.
In this we recognize the perversion of the natural sentiments after two centuries of crime, the defiance of all honorable law, “the barbarism of slavery.”
What can we, in extenuation, ascribe to recklessness, what to ignorance? “There is,” says the eloquent Rousseau, “a brutal and ferocious ignorance, which springs from a bad heart and a false spirit. A criminal ignorance, which extends itself even to the duties of humanity; which multiplies vices, which degrades reason, debases the soul, and renders man like the beasts.”
These men destroyed the strength, the lives of thousands, by stealthy means, and excused their consciences by the reflections of perverted nature: as Timour said to his victims, “It is you who assassinate your own souls!”