“That may he so,” answered Mildred, drawn into a conversation in spite of herself, “but I dislike to hear of wholesale murder. The great God did not put His intelligent creatures here to butcher each other. I cannot, therefore, but think that war is a sin.”
“No doubt, the aggressive party is guilty,” answered the clerk. “The rebels brought on the war. Don’t you think, then, that the rebels are responsible for all the blood that has been, and may be shed?”
“I was speaking on general principles,” answered Mildred. “It does not become me to measure the degree of guilt that may attach to either party. It is a sin to commit murder; it is a violation of God’s commandment.”
“Is it, when done in self-defence?”
“I suppose,” replied Mildred, “that if homicide is absolutely necessary to the preservation of one’s life, it would be justifiable. But in the case of war, who is to determine which party is fighting purely in self-defence?”
“In the present war,” said the clerk, “I don’t see how there can be any doubt about it. The rebels fired the first gun, and dishonored the flag of our country.”
“Yet,” said Mildred, “the rebels claim that they are fighting in self-defence.”
“Do you sympathize with the rebels?” asked the clerk, looking narrowly into her face, as though he would read her thoughts. “Probably you may be a Copper-head?”
“I did not say I sympathized with either party,” answered Mildred quietly.