Gambar halaman
PDF
ePub

.

Our present national patriotic songs would no longer be sung,. but would become obsolete and be forgotten. Other patriotic songs, celebrating alternate victories and defeats of both sections, would take their places. How could peace be preserved between dense masses of population thus situated?

The truth of this position is shown by the experience of other nations. The States of South America are generally divided from each other by air lines; and, though the people are of the same mixed races, profess the same religion, speak the same language, and have substantially the same manners and customs, revolutions and desolating wars are very common among them. The main reason is their proximity to each other. Brazil and Chili form exceptions to this rule; and, while the government of the first is a monarchy and that of the second a republic, they are both prosperous. Brazil is practically separated from other States by vast uninhabited tracts of country; and her greater population, and preponderating power, give her additional security. Chili is separated from La Plata by the Andes on the east, and from Bolivia by a desert on the north.* Contiguous nations are always enemies. The history of the world shows this to be true. Before the union of Scotland and England, the two nations were nearly always at war. The effect of the union has been to prevent these frequent wars; and this is the main reason why it has proven of such immense benefit to both countries. The mutual advantages of the union all admit. (Hal

* The population of Brazil is some 8,000,000. Navy in 1857 consisted of fortytwo ships in active service. Total naval force in 1858, 4,600 men. Revenue in 1859, was 19 millions of dollars. Expenditures 18 millions. "The soundness of the general financial condition of the country was made evident during the commercial panic in the latter part of 1857, when Brazil stood firm, while almost all other countries were drawn into the vortex of the crisis." (New Am. Cy., art. Brazil.) The population of Chili in 1857 was 1,558,453. "The Chilians are not a longlived people; pulmonary diseases, affections of the heart and liver, and epidemic dysentery prove fatal to great numbers, and reduce the average duration of human life there to a lower point than in more variable climates." "The climate, though so delightful, seems to predispose the inhabitants to apathy and indolence, the dolce far niente of Italy." “A large part of the soil of Chili is unproductive.” "The Chilenos are more enterprising than the inhabitants of most of the South American States, and the planters and merchants often accumulate large amounts of property." The mercantile marine in 1848 was 105 vessels, tonnage 12,628. In 1858, 269 vessels, tonnage 62,209. Increase in ten years 164 vessels, and 49,581 tons. "The improvement of the people in intelligence, wealth, and social progress, has been rapid within the last six years." (Id., art. Chili.)

lam's Constitutional History, 675.) England and France are neighboring nations and hereditary enemies.

Besides these causes of war, there would exist others not to be overlooked or forgotten. The people inhabiting the free States of the valley of the Mississippi, would never rest satisfied while the mouths of that river were in the possession of a foreign power. From the delicate and intricate nature of the interests involved, no treaty stipulations could possibly avoid difficulties. One party would feel insecure under the consciousness that the other was master of all access by water to the ocean. This jealousy and fear would inevitably produce collisions.

§ 6. These wars would be carried on by regular soldiers.

[ocr errors]

Each section is threaded with railroads and telegraphic lines, and a large invading force could be concentrated at almost any point along the line, within three days' time. In the present advanced state of the world, no time is lost in sending orders, and very little in concentrating troops. Napoleon said war was the art of concentrating the greatest number of men at a given point within a given time. The knowledge of the science and art of war is so well diffused in this age, and the courage of disciplined troops of different nations is so nearly equal, that numbers generally prevail. The general history of battles within the present century will prove this to be true. Napoleon, in his first campaigns, was able to rout his enemies; but long before the close of his career, he could only drive them from the field in good order. In most of the great battles fought by him, the hostile forces were about equal.

When this Union shall have been permanently dissolved, each division will be compelled to keep a standing army as large as it can support. The weaker section would naturally seek compensation in superior discipline. This would lead to the permanent creation of a large standing army; and what one does, the other, in self-defence, would be compelled to do. It would not be safe or wise to rely upon militia to repel a sudden invasion. Men engaged in the peaceful pursuits of life must have time for consideration, and some discipline, before they can have confidence in each other, and possess courage to meet a disciplined foe. The weakness of a peaceful and un

armed community was fully shown by the raid of old John Brown.

The condition, of things on the continent of Europe proves the correctness of these views. France has a standing army of some seven hundred thousand men. Prussia, Austria, and Russia, the same; while that of Great Britain does not exceed three hundred thousand, and only some sixty thousand of these are kept at home. Were it not for her vast colonial possessions, and her general interference with continental affairs, her standing army, in time of peace, need not to exceed a hundred thousand men. The reason is, that her territory cannot be invaded by land, and she has the control at sea. We are, while united, in a better condition, because a wide ocean lies between us and all other powerful nations. An invasion of our country, while united, would be idle, if not impossible. But when we are once divided, the condition of things is entirely changed, and our enemies are at our very doors, always ready and able to attack us; and we must, of necessity, be able at all times to meet them. A standing army of a reasonable size, is not an evil but a benefit; but one as large as a people can possibly sustain, is a most grievous burden. It takes too much from the industrial force of the country, gives rise to exorbitant taxation, and becomes dangerous to liberty.

7. The evils of war.

The evils of war are not properly estimated by the great mass of men, because they are prone to see only its glories. History shows that, in general, the masses are the first to clamor for war, and the first to ask for peace. By sad experience they find out the dire effects of this destructive custom.

Aside from the terrible destruction of human life,* the effects of frequent wars, in a business and financial point of view, may

* The effect of the frequent wars among a portion of the States of South America has been to produce a great disparity between the number of the sexes. Lt. Gibbon, in his account of the exploration of the valley of the Amazon, under the direction of the Department of the Navy, speaking of the town of Santa Cruz, in Bolivia, says:

"The women are very pretty, and affectionate to their husbands. He chooses her from among five, there being about that number of women to one man in the town." (Vol. ii., p. 161.)

I know not the author of the following article, nor have I examined authorities to

be appreciated by considering the present condition of the different powers of Europe. The plan of carrying on war by means of national loans, is of modern origin. The beginning of the national debt of Great Britain was occasioned by the war with Holland in 1672. (Hallam's Con. His., 452, note.) It was further increased by the nine years' unsuccessful war, which terminated at the peace of Ryswick, and much augmented by

prove the correctness of the statistics given; but they are substantially correct in so far as my own recollection of history has enabled me to judge:

HAVOC TO LIFE BY WAR.-It is difficult to conceive what fearful havoc this custom has made of human life. It has at times entirely depopulated immense districts. In modern, as well as ancient times, large tracts have been left so utterly desolate that a traveller might pass from village to village, even from city to city, without finding a solitary inhabitant. The war of 1756, waged in the heart of Europe, left in one instance no less than twenty contiguous villages without a single man or beast. The Thirty Years' War, in the seventeenth century, reduced the population of Germany from 12,000,000 to 4,000,000-three-fourths; and that of Wirtemberg from 500,000 to 48,000-more than nine-tenths! Thirty thousand villages were destroyed; in many others the population entirely died out; and in districts once studded with towns and cities, there sprang up immense forests.

Look at the havoc of sieges, in that of Londonderry 12,000 soldiers, besides a vast number of inhabitants; in that of Paris, in the 16th century, 30,000 victims of mere hunger; in that of Malplaquet, 34,000 soldiers alone; in that of Ismael, 40,000; of Vienna, 70,000; of Ostend, 120,000; of Mexico, 150,000; of Acre, 300,000; of Carthage, 700,000; of Jerusalem, 1,000,000.

Mark the slaughter of single battles-at Lepanto, 25,000; at Austerlitz, 30,000; at Eylau, 60,000; at Waterloo and Quatre Bras, one engagement, in fact, 70,000; at Borodino, 80,000; at Fontenoy, 100,000; at Arbela, 300,000; at Chalons, 300,000 of Attila's army alone; 400,000 Usipetes slain by Julius Cæsar in one battle, and 430,000 Germans in another.

Take only two cases more: The army of Xerxes, says Dr. Dick, must have amounted to 5,283,320; and, if the attendants were only one-third as great as is common at the present in Eastern countries, the sum total must have reached nearly six millions. Yet in one year this vast multitude was reduced, though not entirely by death, to 300,000 fighting men; and of these only 3,000 escaped destruction. JenghizKhan, the terrible ravager of Asia in the 13th century, shot 90,000 on the plains of Nessa, and massacred 200,000 at the storming of Kharasm. In the district of Herat, he butchered 1,600,000, and in two cities with their dependencies, 1,760,000. During the last twenty-seven years of his long reign, he is said to have massacred more than half a million every year; and in the first fourteen years he is supposed, by Chinese historians, to have destroyed not less than eighteen millions—a sum total of 32,000,000 in forty-one years.

In any view, what a fell destroyer is war! Napoleon's wars sacrificed full six millions, and all the wars consequent on the French Revolution some nine or ten millions. The Spaniards are said to have destroyed in forty-two years more than twelve millions of American Indians. Grecian wars sacrificed 15,000,000; Jewish wars, 25,000,000; the wars of the twelve Cæsars, 30,000,000 in all; the wars of the Roman Empire, of the Saracens and the Turks, 60,000,000 each; those of the Tartars, 89,000,000; those of Africa, 100,000,000! "If we take into consideration," says the learned Dr. Dick, "the number not only of those who have perished through the natural consequences of war, it will not perhaps be overrating the destruction of human life, if we affirm that one-tenth of the human race has been destroyed by the ravages of war, and, according to this estimate, more than fourteen thousand millions of human beings have been slaughtered in war since the beginning of the world." Edmund Burke went still further, and reckoned the sum total of its ravages, from the first, at no less than thirtyfive thousand millions.

the war of the grand alliance, commenced in 1702, for the succession to the crown of Spain.

*

The immediate relief to the nation has led to the practice, in modern times, of creating national debts to defray the extraordinary expenses of war. What the ultimate result of such a practice may be, time alone can determine. But the amount of the national debts of the different countries of Europe has become so great, that it would seem almost impossible to increase them to any considerable extent. There must, in the nature of things, be a point beyond which the national credit cannot go; and when that point shall have been reached, the nation will not only have to pay the expenses of new wars without the aid of further loans, but also, at the same time, pay the interest upon former loans, or repudiate. A resort to the latter alternative would effectually destroy the credit of the government, and lead to a discontinuance of the practice of national loans.

This practice of creating great national debts is a selfish one,

* "A war of nine years, generally unfortunate, unsatisfactory in its results, carried on at a cost unknown to former times, amid the decay of trade, the exhaustion of resources, the decline, as their sums give reason to believe, of population itself, was the festering wound that turned a people's gratitude into factiousness and treachery." (Hallam's Con. His., p. 565.) The historian, on page 564, gives a detailed description of the financial condition of England, showing that "public credit sank so low, that in 1696 it was hardly possible to pay the fleet and army from month to month, and a total bankruptcy seemed near at hand. . . . Certainly the vessel of our Commonwealth has never been so close to shipwreck as in this period."

"The king

The war of the Grand Alliance produced results about as exhaustive. dom had been impoverished by twenty years of uninterruptedly augmented taxation, the annual burdens being triple in amount to those paid before the Revolution. Yet amid these sacrifices, we had the mortification of finding a debt rapidly increasing, whereof the mere interest far exceeded the ancient revenues of the crown, to be bequeathed, like an hereditary curse, to unknown ages." (Id., 608.) Though England had not been invaded, such was the state of distress produced by war, that the "population was at best stationary." France had suffered more severely. (Id., 609) During "the hundred years' war "between England and France, (1337 to 1453,) the sufferings of both nations were great, but those of France much greater. Twice France was upon the eve of becoming a dependency of the English crown.

"The nation, exhausted by the long wars of William and Anne, recovered strength in thirty years of peace that ensued; and in that period, especially under the prudent rule of Walpole, the seeds of our commercial greatness were gradually ripened. It was evidently the most prosperous season that England had ever experienced . . . In the war of 1743, which, from the selfish practice of relying wholly on loans, did not much retard the immediate advance of the country, and still more after the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, a striking increase of wealth became perceptible."-(Hallam's Con. His., 656.)

« SebelumnyaLanjutkan »