1. One of the most important is the prejudice from 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 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, while "Chance, high arbiter, more embroils the fray." The age is gone when a nation within the enchanted circle of civilization could make war upon its neighbors for any declared purpose of booty or vengeance. It does "nought in hate, but all in honor." Such is the present rule. Professions of tenderness 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 upon the other some charge of hostile aggression, or to set up the excuse of defending some asserted right, some Texas, some Oregon. Each, like Pontius Pilate, 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.
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. Under existing Law of Nations these may be employed at any time. But the very law sanctioning War may be changed, as regards two or more nations by treaty between them, and as regards the body of nations by general consent. If nations can agree in solemn provisions of International Law to establish War as Arbiter of Justice, they can also agree to abolish this arbitrament, and to establish peaceful substitutes,—precisely as similar substitutes are established by Municipal Law to determine controversies among individuals. A system of Arbitration may be instituted, or a Congress of Nations, charged with the high duty of organizing an Ultimate Tribunal, instead of "these battles." To do this, the will only is required.
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 Lynch Law among nations, while it proclaims peaceful substitutes! Such a glory, unlike the earthly fame of battle, will be immortal as the stars, dropping perpetual light upon the souls of men.
2. Another prejudice 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, fallible, mistaken man. Not by any subtile alchemy can man transmute Wrong into Right. Because War is according to the practice of the world, it does not follow that it is right. For ages the world worshipped false gods,—not less false because all bowed before them. At this moment the prevailing numbers of mankind are heathen; but heathenism is not therefore true. Once it was the practice of nations to slaughter prisoners of war; but the Spirit of War recoils now from this bloody sacrifice. By a perverse morality in Sparta, theft, instead of being a crime, was, like War, dignified into an art and accomplishment; like War, it was admitted into the system of youthful education; and, like War, it was illustrated by an instance of unconquerable firmness, barbaric counterfeit of virtue. The Spartan youth, with the stolen fox beneath his robe eating into his bowels, is an example of fortitude not unlike that so often admired 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 Feejee Islands,—from the profane rites of innumerable savages,—from the crushing Juggernaut,—from the Hindoo widow on her funeral pyre,—from the Indian dancing at the stake; but had not all these, like War, the sanction of established usage?
Often is it 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. 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 exalted distinction of man that he is progressive,—that his reason is not merely the reason of a single human being, but that 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 grandly accumulating from generation to generation, with the superadded products of other lands. 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 by which it is covered, and the geography of countries, to an extent far beyond the ken of the most learned in other days. It is true, therefore, that antiquity is the real infancy of man. Then is he immature, ignorant, wayward, selfish, childish, finding his chief happiness in lowest pleasures, unconscious of the higher. The animal reigns supreme, and he seeks contest, war, blood. Already he has lived through infancy and childhood. Reason and the kindlier virtues, repudiating and abhorring force, now bear sway. The time has come for temperance, moderation, peace. 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.
Let us not, then, take for a lamp to our feet the feeble taper that glimmers from the sepulchre of the Past. Rather hail that ever-burning light above, in whose beams is the brightness of noonday.