Not that I love country less, but Humanity more, do I now and here plead the cause of a higher and truer patriotism. I cannot forget that we are men by a more sacred bond than we are citizens,—that we are children of a common Father more than we are Americans.
Thus do seeming diversities of nations—separated by accident of language, mountain, river, or sea—all disappear, and the multitudinous tribes of the globe stand forth as members of one vast Human Family, where strife is treason to Heaven, and all war is nothing else than civil war. In vain restrict this odious term, importing so much of horror, to the dissensions of a single community. It belongs also to feuds between nations. The soul trembles aghast in the contemplation of fields drenched with fraternal gore, where the happiness of homes is shivered by neighbors, and kinsman sinks beneath the steel nerved by a kinsman's hand. This is civil war, accursed forever in the calendar of Time. In the faithful record of the future, recognizing the True Grandeur of Nations, the Muse of History, inspired by a loftier justice and touched to finer sensibilities, will extend to Universal Man the sympathy now confined to country, and no war will be waged without arousing everlasting judgment.
6. I might here pause, feeling that those who have accompanied me to this stage will be ready to join in condemnation of War, and to hail Peace as the only condition becoming the dignity of human nature, while it opens vistas of all kinds abundant with the most fruitful promises. But there is one other consideration, yielding to none in importance,—perhaps more important than all, being at once cause and effect,—the cause of strong prejudice in favor of War, and the effect of this prejudice. I refer to Preparations for War in time of Peace. Here is an immense practical evil, requiring remedy. In exposing its character too much care cannot be taken.
I shall not dwell upon the fearful cost of War itself. That is present in the mountainous accumulations of debt, piled like Ossa upon Pelion, with which civilization is pressed to earth. According to the most recent tables, the public debt of European nations, so far as known, amounts to the terrific sum of $7,777,521,840,—all the growth of War! It is said that there are throughout these nations 17,000,000 paupers, or persons subsisting at the public expense, without contributing to its resources. If these millions of public debt, forming only a part of what has been wasted in War, could be apportioned among these poor, it would give to each $450,—a sum placing all above want, and about equal to the average wealth of an inhabitant of Massachusetts.
The public debt of Great Britain in 1842 reached to $3,827,833,102, the growth of War since 1688. This amount is equal to two thirds of all the harvest of gold and silver yielded by Spanish America, including Mexico and Peru, from the discovery of our hemisphere by Christopher Columbus to the beginning of the present century, as calculated by Humboldt.[77] It is much larger than the mass of all the precious metals constituting at this moment the circulating medium of the world. Sometimes it is rashly said, by those who have given little attention to the subject, that all this expenditure has been widely distributed, and therefore beneficial to the people; but this apology forgets that it has not been bestowed on any productive industry or useful object. The magnitude of this waste appears by contrast. For instance, the aggregate capital of all the joint-stock companies in England of which there was any known record in 1842, embracing canals, docks, bridges, insurance, banks, gas-lights, water, mines, railways, and other miscellaneous objects, was about $800,000,000,—all devoted to the welfare of the people, but how much less in amount than the War Debt! For the six years preceding 1842, the average payment for interest on this debt was $141,645,157 annually. If we add to this sum the further annual outlay of $66,780,817 for the army, navy, and ordnance, we shall have $208,425,974 as the annual tax of the English people, to pay for former wars and prepare for new. During this same period, an annual appropriation of $24,858,442 was sufficient for the entire civil service. Thus War consumed ninety cents of every dollar pressed by heavy taxation from the English people. What fabulous monster, what chimæra dire, ever raged with a maw so ravenous? The remaining ten cents sufficed to maintain the splendor of the throne, the administration of justice, and diplomatic relations with foreign powers,—in short, all the more legitimate objects of a nation.[78]
Thus much for the general cost of War. Let us now look exclusively at the Preparations for War in time of Peace. It is one of the miseries of War, that even in Peace its evils continue to be felt beyond any other by which suffering humanity is oppressed. If Bellona withdraws from the field, we only lose sight of her flaming torches; the baying of her dogs is heard on the mountains, and civilized man thinks to find protection from their sudden fury only by inclosing himself in the barbarous armor of battle. At this moment, the Christian nations, worshipping a symbol of common brotherhood, occupy intrenched camps, with armed watch, to prevent surprise from each other. Recognizing War as Arbiter of Justice, they hold themselves perpetually ready for the bloody umpirage.