Elements of Military Art and Science - Henry Wager Halleck (best free ebook reader .TXT) 📗

a deliberative body, under the high sanction of the constitution. It is true that such a law may be unjust and wrong, but we can scarcely agree that it will necessarily be so. The distinction between war, as thus duly declared, and "international Lynch-law" is too evident to need comment.

But it is said that the benefits of war are more than counterbalanced by the evils it entails, and that, "most commonly, the very means by which we repel a despotism from abroad, only establishes over us a military despotism at home."

Much has been said and written about military despotism; but we think he who studies history thoroughly, will not fail to prefer a military despotism to a despotism of mere politicians. The governments of Alexander and Charlemagne were infinitely preferable to those of the petty civil tyrants who preceded and followed them; and there is no one so blinded by prejudice as to say that the reign of Napoleon was no better than that of Robespierre, Danton, and the other "lawyers" who preceded him, or of the Bourbons, for whom he was dethroned.

"Cæsar," says a distinguished senator of our own country, "was rightfully killed for conspiring against his country; but it was not he that destroyed the liberties of Rome. That work was done by the profligate politicians without him, and before his time; and his death did not restore the republic. There were no more elections: rotten politicians had destroyed them; and the nephew of Cæsar, as heir to his uncle, succeeded to the empire on the principle of hereditary succession."

"And here History appears in her grand and instructive character, as Philosophy teaching by example: and let us not be senseless to her warning voice. Superficial readers believe it was the military men who destroyed the Roman republic! No such thing! It was the politicians who did it!--factious, corrupt, intriguing politicians—destroying public virtue in their mad pursuit after office—destroying their rivals by crime—deceiving and debauching the people for votes—and bringing elections into contempt by the frauds and violence with which they were conducted. From the time of the Gracchi there were no elections that could bear the name. Confederate and rotten politicians bought and sold the consulship. Intrigue and the dagger disposed of rivals. Fraud, violence, bribes, terror, and the plunder of the public treasury commanded votes. The people had no choice; and long before the time of Cæsar, nothing remained of republican government but the name and the abuse. Read Plutarch. In the 'Life of Cæsar,' and not three pages before the crossing of the Rubicon, he paints the ruined state of the elections,—shows that all elective government was gone,—that the hereditary form had become a necessary relief from the contests of the corrupt,—and that in choosing between Pompey and Cæsar, many preferred Pompey, not because they thought him republican, but because they thought he would make the milder king. Even arms were but a small part of Cæsar's reliance, when he crossed the Rubicon. Gold, still more than the sword, was his dependence; and he sent forward the accumulated treasures of plundered Gaul, to be poured into the laps of rotten politicians. There was no longer a popular government; and in taking all power himself, he only took advantage of the state of things which profligate politicians had produced. In this he was culpable, and paid the forfeit with his life. But in contemplating his fate, let us never forget that the politicians had undermined and destroyed the republic, before he came to seize and to master it."

We could point to numerous instances, where the benefits of war have more than compensated for the evils which attended it; benefits not only to the generations who engaged in it, but also to their descendants for long ages. Had Rome adopted the non-resistance principle when Hannibal was at her gates, we should now be in the night of African ignorance and barbarism, instead of enjoying the benefits of Roman learning and Roman civilization. Had France adopted this principle when the allied armies invaded her territories in 1792, her fate had followed that of Poland. Had our ancestors adopted this principle in 1776, what now had been, think you, the character and condition of our country?

Dr. Lieber's remarks on this point are peculiarly just and apposite. "The continued efforts," says he, "requisite for a nation to protect themselves against the ever-repeated attacks of a predatory foe, may be infinitely greater than the evils entailed by a single and energetic war, which forever secures peace from that side. Nor will it be denied, I suppose, that Niebuhr is right when he observes, that the advantage to Rome of having conquered Sicily, as to power and national vigor, was undeniable. But even if it were not so, are there no other advantages to be secured? No human mind is vast enough to comprehend in one glance, nor is any human life long enough to follow out consecutively, all the immeasurable blessings and the unspeakable good which have resolved to mankind from the ever-memorable victories of little Greece over the rolling masses of servile Asia, which were nigh sweeping over Europe like the high tides of a swollen sea, carrying its choking sand over all the germs of civilization, liberty, and taste, and nearly all that is good and noble. Think what we should have been had Europe become an Asiatic province, and the Eastern principles of power and stagnation should have become deeply infused into her population, so that no process ever after could have thrown it out again! Has no advantage resulted from the Hebrews declining any longer to be ground in the dust, and ultimately annihilated, at least mentally so, by stifling servitude, and the wars which followed their resolution? The Netherlands war of independence has had a penetrating and decided effect upon modern history, and, in the eye of all who value the most substantial parts and elementary ideas of modern and civil liberty, a highly advantageous one, both directly and through Great Britain. Wars have frequently been, in the hands of Providence, the means of disseminating civilization, if carried on by a civilized people—as in the case of Alexander, whose wars had a most decided effect upon the intercourse of men and extension of civilization—or of rousing and reuniting people who had fallen into lethargy, if attacked by less civilized and numerous hordes. Frequently we find in history that the ruder and victorious tribe is made to recover as it were civilization, already on the wane with a refined nation. Paradoxical as it may seem at first glance, it is, nevertheless, amply proved by history, that the closest contact and consequent exchange of thought and produce and enlargement of knowledge, between two otherwise severed nations, is frequently produced by war. War is a struggle, a state of suffering; but as such, at times, only that struggling process without which—in proportion to the good to be obtained, or, as would be a better expression for many cases, to the good that is to be borne—no great and essential good falls ever to the share of man. Suffering, merely as suffering, is not an evil. Our religion, philosophy, every day's experience, prove it. No maternal rejoicing brightens up a mother's eve without the anxiety of labor."

One word more, and we must leave this subject. It has been said by some that the duties of patriotism are less binding upon us than upon our ancestors; that, whatever may have been the practice in years that are past the present generation can in no manner bear arms in their country's cause, such a course being not only dishonorable, but in the eye of the Christian, wicked, and even infamous! It is believed, however, that such are not the general opinions and sentiments of the religious people of this country. Our forefathers lighted the fires of Religion and Patriotism at the same altar; it is believed that their descendants have not allowed either to be extinguished, but that both still burn, and will continue to burn, with a purer and brighter flame. Our forefathers were not the less mindful of their duty to their God, because they also faithfully served their country. If we are called upon to excel them in works of charity, of benevolence, and of Christian virtue, let it not be said of us that we have forgotten the virtue of patriotism.[2]

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