"The end of a just war," says Vattel, "is to avenge, or prevent, injury."
"If the safety of the State lies at stake, our precaution and foresight cannot be extended too far. Must we delay to arrest our ruin until it has become inevitable?"
"Where the end is lawful, he who has the right to pursue that end has, of course, a right to employ all the means necessary for its attainment."
"When the conqueror has totally subdued a nation, he undoubtedly may, in the first place, do himself justice respecting the object which had given rise to the war, and indemnify himself for the expenses and damages sustained by it; he may, according to the exigency of the case, subject the nation to punishment by way of example; and he may, _if prudence require it, render her incapable of doing mischief with the same ease in future_."
"Every nation," says Chancellor Kent, "has an undoubted right to provide for its own safety, and to take due precaution against distant, as well as impending danger."
Our rights as belligerents, therefore, are ample for our security in time to come. The Rebel States will not cease to be enemies by being defeated and exhausted and disabled from continuing active hostilities. They have invoked the laws of war, and they must abide the decision of the tribunal to which they have appealed. We may hold them as enemies until they submit to such reasonable terms of peace as we may demand. Whether we shall require any indemnity for the vast expenditures and losses to which we have been subjected is a question of great magnitude; but it is of little importance compared with that of guarding against a recurrence of the Rebellion, by removing the cause of it. It would be worse than madness to restore them to all their former rights under the government they have done their utmost to destroy, and at the same time permit them to retain a system that would surely involve us or our children in another struggle of the same kind.
Slavery and freedom cannot permanently coexist under the same government. There is an inevitable, perpetual, irrepressible conflict between them. The present rebellion is but the culmination of this conflict, long existing,—transferred from social and political life to the camp and the battle-field. In the new arena, we have all the rights of belligerents in an international war. Slavery has taken the sword; let it perish by the sword. If we spare it, its wickedness will be exceeded by our folly. As victors, the world concedes our right to demand, for our own future peace, as the only terms of restoration, not only the abolition of Slavery in all the Rebel States, but its prohibition in all coming time. It cannot be, that, with the terrible lessons of these passing years, we shall be so utterly destitute of wisdom and prudence as to leave our children exposed to the dangers of another rebellion, after entailing upon them the vast burdens of this, by our national debt.
It has been said, that, if Slavery should be abolished, the States could afterwards reestablish it. This is claimed, on the ground that every State may determine for itself the character of its own domestic institutions. The right to do so has been conceded to some of the new States.
But it should be remembered that this right has been, to establish Slavery by bringing in slaves from the old States,—not by taking citizens of the United States, and reducing them to slavery. If one such citizen can be enslaved, then can any other; and the very foundations of the Federal Government can be overturned by a State. For a government that cannot protect its own citizens from loss of citizenship by being chattellized is no government at all.
Citizenship is a reciprocal relation. The citizen owes allegiance; the government owes protection. When a person is naturalized, he takes the oath of allegiance. Does he got nothing in return? Can a State annul all the rights which the Federal Government has conferred? Then, indeed, would it be better for those who come to our shores to remain citizens of the old nations; for they could protect them, but we cannot. Then, to be a citizen of the United States—a privilege we had thought greater than that of Roman citizenship when that empire was in its glory—is a privilege which any State may annul at its pleasure!