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.
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