Strange that men should fail to apply to nations the moral principles which are now so generally applied to the individual units of a nation!
The tendency is to condemn the violation of these commandments, not in proportion to the injury done, but rather in inverse proportion. No one will dispute the validity of the injunction against covetousness as long as the object coveted is of little value or not greatly desired, but the last and all-inclusive specifications, viz., "or anything that is thy neighbor's," is sometimes interpreted by nations to except a neighbor's vineyard or a neighbor's territory. Covetousness turns to might as the principle to be invoked, and the greater the unlawful desire the firmer the faith in the false principle.
Conquest is the word used to describe the means employed for securing the thing desired, if the force is employed by a nation, and conquest violates the commandments Thou Shalt Not Steal and Thou Shalt Not Kill.
By what sophistry can rulers convince themselves that, while petit larceny is criminal, grand larceny is patriotic; that, while it is reprehensible for one man to kill another for his money, it is glorious for one nation to put to the sword the inhabitants of another nation in order to extend boundaries?
It is a mockery of moral distinctions to hang one man for taking the life of another, either for money or in revenge, and then make a hero of another man who wades "through slaughter to a throne, and shut the doors of mercy on mankind."
As in the case of the individual, the violation of the commandments Thou Shall Not Covet, Thou Shalt Not Steal, and Thou Shalt Not Kill, are usually traceable to the violation of the first great commandment—Thou Shalt Have No Other Gods Before Me—that is, to the putting of self before service of the Creator.
The violation of these commandments by nations is not always, but usually, due to selfishness—the putting of supposed material advantages before obedience to the Divine Law.
War is occasionally altruistic in purpose and the soldier always exhibits unselfishness of high order, but, as a rule, conflicts are waged for selfish ends.
The individual finds that Jehovah's justice cannot be evaded; for wrongdoing works its own punishment on the wrongdoer in the form of perverted character when he escapes the penalties of human law. The nation is as powerless to repeal or to ignore with impunity the laws of God—"Though hand join in hand they shall not be unpunished."
If I have made it clear that the doctrine that might makes right is the most common cause of war, we may pass to the consideration of a maxim quite sure to be applied in war, namely, that "like cures like"—the theory upon which retaliation rests.