It
Is Not My Purpose Here To Say Whether In This Respect England Has
Given Cause Of Offense To The States, Or Whether Either Country Has
Given Cause Of Offense To The Other.
On both sides have many hard
words been spoken, and on both sides also have good words been
spoken.
It is unfortunately the case that hard words are pregnant,
and as such they are read, digested, and remembered; while good
words are generally so dull that nobody reads them willingly, and
when read, they are forgotten. For many years there have been hard
words bandied backward and forward between England and the United
States, showing mutual jealousies, and a disposition on the part of
each nation to spare no fault committed by the other. This has
grown of rivalry between the two, and in fact proves the respect
which each has for the other's power and wealth. I will not now
pretend to say with which side has been the chiefest blame, if there
has been chiefest blame on either side. But I do say that it is
monstrous in any people or in any person to suppose that such
bickerings can afford a proper ground for war. I am not about to
dilate on the horrors of war. Horrid as war may be, and full of
evil, it is not so horrid to a nation, nor so full of evil, as
national insult unavenged or as national injury unredressed. A blow
taken by a nation and taken without atonement is an acknowledgment
of national inferiority, than which any war is preferable. Neither
England nor the States are inclined to take such blows. But such a
blow, before it can be regarded as a national insult, as a wrong
done by one nation to another, must be inflicted by the political
entity of the one or the political entity of the other. No angry
clamors of the press, no declamations of orators, no voices from the
people, no studied criticisms from the learned few, or unstudied
censures from society at large, can have any fair weight on such a
creation or do aught toward justifying a national quarrel. They
cannot form a casus belli. Those two Latin words, which we all
understand, explain this with the utmost accuracy. Were it not so,
the peace of the world would indeed rest upon sand. Causes of
national difference will arise - for governments will be unjust as
are individuals. And causes of difference will arise because
governments are too blind to distinguish the just from the unjust.
But in such cases the government acts on some ground which it
declares. It either shows or pretends to show some casus belli.
But in this matter of threatened war between the States and England
it is declared openly that such war is to take place because the
English have abused the Americans, and because consequently the
Americans hate the English. There seems to exist an impression that
no other ostensible ground for fighting need be shown, although such
an event as that of war between the two nations would, as all men
acknowledge, be terrible in its results. "Your newspapers insulted
us when we were in our difficulties. Your writers said evil things
of us. Your legislators spoke of us with scorn. You exacted from
us a disagreeable duty of retribution just when the performance of
such a duty was most odious to us. You have shown symptoms of joy
at our sorrow. And, therefore, as soon as our hands are at liberty,
we will fight you." I have known school-boys to argue in that way,
and the arguments have been intelligible; but I cannot understand
that any government should admit such an argument.
Nor will the American government willingly admit it. According to
existing theories of government the armies of nations are but the
tools of the governing powers. If at the close of the present civil
war the American government - the old civil government consisting of
the President with such checks as Congress constitutionally has over
him - shall really hold the power to which it pretends, I do not fear
that there will be any war. No President, and I think no Congress,
will desire such a war. Nor will the people clamor for it, even
should the idea of such a war be popular. The people of America are
not clamorous against their government. If there be such a war it
will be because the army shall have then become more powerful than
the government. If the President can hold his own, the people will
support him in his desire for peace. But if the President do not
hold his own - if some general, with two or three hundred thousand
men at his back, shall then have the upper hand in the nation - it is
too probable that the people may back him. The old game will be
played again that has so often been played in the history of
nations, and some wretched military aspirant will go forth to flood
Canada with blood, in order that the feathers of his cap may flaunt
in men's eyes and that he may be talked of for some years to come as
one of the great curses let loose by the Almighty on mankind.
I must confess that there is danger of this. To us the danger is
very great. It cannot be good for us to send ships laden outside
with iron shields instead of inside with soft goods and hardware to
these thickly thronged American ports. It cannot be good for us to
have to throw millions into these harbors instead of taking millions
out from them. It cannot be good for us to export thousands upon
thousands of soldiers to Canada of whom only hundreds would return.
The whole turmoil, cost, and paraphernalia of such a course would be
injurious to us in the extreme, and the loss of our commerce would
be nearly ruinous. But the injury of such a war to us would be as
nothing to the injury which it would inflict upon the States.
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