The greatest minds in Germany have dealt with this problem, and given to its solution the exactness of science. No greater have been applied to any question. Foremost in this list, in time and in fame, is Leibnitz, that marvel of human intelligence, second, perhaps, to none in history, who, on reading the "Project of Perpetual Peace" by the Abbe de Saint-Pierre, pronounced this judgment: "I have read it with attention, and am persuaded that such a project is on the whole feasible, and that its execution would be one of the most useful things in the world." [Footnote: Observations sur le Projet d'une Paix Perpetuelle de M. l'Abbe de Saint-Pierre: Opera, ed. Dutens, (Genevae, 1768,) Tom. V. p. 56.] Thus did Leibnitz affirm its feasibility and its immense usefulness. Other minds followed, in no apparent concert, but in unison. I may be pardoned, if, without being too bibliographical, I name some of these witnesses.

At Goettingen, renowned for its University, the question was opened, at the close of the Seven Years' War in 1763, in a work by Totze, whose character appears in its title, "Permanent and Universal Peace in Europe, according to the Plan of Henry IV." [Footnote: Der ewige und allgemeine Friede in Europa, nach dem Entwurf Heinrichs IV.] At Leipsic, also the seat of a University, the subject was presented in 1767 by Lilienfeld, in a treatise of much completeness, under the name of "New Constitution for States," [Footnote: 2 Neues Staatsgebaeude.] where, after exposing the wretched chances of the battlefield and the expense of armaments in time of peace, the author urges submission to Arbitrators, unless a Supreme Tribunal is established to administer International Law and to judge between nations. In 1804 appeared another work, of singular clearness and force, by Karl Schwab, entitled "Of Unavoidable Injustice," [Footnote: Ueber das unvermeidliche Unrecht.] where the author describes what he calls the Universal State, in which nations will be to each other as citizens in the Municipal State. He is not so visionary as to imagine that justice will always be inviolate between nations in the Universal State, for it is not always so between citizens in the Municipal State; but he confidently looks to the establishment between nations of the rules which now subsist between citizens, whose differences are settled peaceably by judicial tribunals.

These works, justly important for the light they shed, and as expressions of a growing sentiment, are eclipsed in the contributions of the great teacher, Immanuel Kant, who, after his fame in philosophy was established, so that his works were discussed and expounded not only throughout Germany, but in other lands, in 1795 crave to the world a treatise entitled "On Perpetual Peace," [Footnote: Zum ewigen Frieden.] which was promptly translated into French, Danish, and Dutch. Two other works by him attest his interest in the subject, the first entitled "Idea for a General History in a Cosmopolitan View," [Footnote: Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte in weltburgerlicher Absicht.] and the other, "Metaphysical Elements of Jurisprudence." [Footnote: Metaphysische Anfangsgrunde der Rechtslehre.] His grasp was complete. A treaty of peace which tacitly acknowledges the right to wage war, as all treaties now do, according to Kant is nothing more than a truce. An individual war may be ended, but not the state of war; so that, even after cessation of hostilities, there will be constant fear of their renewal, while the armaments known as Peace Establishments will tend to provoke them. All this should be changed, and nations should form one comprehensive Federation, which, receiving other nations within its fold, will at last embrace the civilized world; and such, in the judgment of Kant, was the irresistible tendency of nations. To a French poet we are indebted for the most suggestive term, "United States of Europe"; [Footnote: Victor Hugo, Discours d'Ouverture du Congres de la Paix a Paris, 21 1849: Treize Discours, (Paris, 1851,) p. 19.] but this is nothing but the Federation of the illustrious German philosopher. Nor was Kant alone among his great contemporaries. That other philosopher, Fichte, whose name at the time was second only to that of Kant, in his "Groundwork of the Law of Nature," [Footnote: Grundlage des Naturrechts.] published in 1796, also urges a Federation of Nations, with an established tribunal to which all should submit. Much better for civilization, had the King at Konigsberg, instead of grasping the sword, hearkened to the voice of Kant, renewed by Fichte.

With these German oracles in its support, the cause cannot be put aside. Even in the midst of war, Philosophy will be heard, especially when she speaks words of concurring authority that touch a chord in every heart. Leibnitz, Kant, and Fichte, a mighty triumvirate of intelligence, unite in testimony. As Germany, beyond any other nation, has given to the idea of Organized Peace the warrant of philosophy, it only remains now that she should insist upon its practical application. There should be no delay. Long enough has mankind waited while the river of blood flowed on.



UPRISING OF WORKING-MEN.

The working-men of Europe, not excepting Germany, respond to the mandate of Philosophy, and insist that the War System shall be abolished. At public meetings, in formal resolutions and addresses, they have declared war against War, and they will not be silenced. This is not the first time that working-men have made themselves heard for international justice. I cannot forget, that, while Slavery was waging war against our nation, the working-men of Belgium in public meeting protested against that precocious Proclamation of Belligerent Rights by which the British Government gave such impulse to the Rebellion; and now, in the same spirit, and for the sake of true peace, they declare themselves against that War System by which the peace of nations is placed in such constant jeopardy. They are right; for nobody suffers in war as the working-man, whether in property or in person. For him war is a ravening monster, devouring his substance, and changing him from citizen to military serf. As victim of the War System he is entitled to be heard.

The working-men of different countries have been organizing in societies, of which it is difficult at present to tell the number and extent. It is known that these societies exist in Germany, France, Spain, Italy, and England, as well as in our own country, and that they have in some measure an international character. In France, before the war, there were 438,785 men in the organization, and in Germany 150,000. Yet this is but the beginning. [Footnote: La Solidarite, 25 Juin 1870,—as cited by Testu, _L' Internationale, (me edit.,) p. 275.]

At the menace of the present war, all these societies were roused. The society known as the International Working-Men's Association, by their General Council, issued an address, dated at London, protesting against it as a war of dynasties, denouncing Louis Napoleon as an enemy of the laboring classes, and declaring "the war-plot of July, 1870, but an amended edition of the coup d'etat of December, 1851." The address then testifies generally against war, saying,—

"They feel deeply convinced, that, whatever turn the impending horrid war may take, the alliance of the working classes of all countries will ultimately kill war." [Footnote: The General Council of the International Working-Men's Association on the War, (London, July 23, 1870.) p. iv.]

At the same time the Paris branch of the International Association put forth a manifesto addressed "To the Working-Men of all Countries," from which I take these passages:—

"Once more, under the pretext of European equilibrium, of national honor, political ambitions menace the peace of the world.

"French, German, Spanish working-men! let our voices unite in a cry of reprobation against war!

* * * * * *

"War for a question of preponderance, or of dynasty, can, in the eyes of working-men, be nothing but a criminal absurdity.

"In response to the warlike acclamations of those who exonerate themselves from the impost of blood, or who find in public misfortunes a source of new speculations, we protest,—we who wish for peace, work, and liberty.

* * * * * *

"Brothers of Germany!....our divisions would only bring about the complete triumph of despotism on both sides of the Rhine.

* * * * * *

"Working-men of all countries! whatever may be the result of our common efforts, we, members of the International Association of Working-Men, who know no frontiers, we send you, as a pledge of indissoluble solidarity, the good wishes and the salutations of the working-men of France." [Footnote: Testu, L'Internationale, pp. 279-80. The General Council of the International Working-Men's Association on the War, p. ii.]

To this appeal, so full of truth, touching to the quick the pretence of balance of power and questions of dynasty as excuses for war, and then rising to "a cry of reprobation against war," the Berlin branch of the International Association replied:—

"We join with heart and hand in your protestation..... Solemnly we promise you that neither the noise of drums nor the thunder of cannon, neither victory nor defeat, shall turn us aside from our work for the union of the proletaries of all countries." [Footnote: Testu, pp. 284-85. The General Council, etc., p. iii.]

Then came a meeting of delegates at Chemnitz, in Saxony, representing fifty thousand Saxon working-men, which put forth the following hardy words:—

"We are happy to grasp the fraternal hand stretched out to us by the working-men of France.... Mindful of the watchword of the International Working-Men's Association, Proletarians of all countries, unite! we shall never forget that the working-men of all countries are our friends, and the despots of all countries our enemies." [Footnote: The General Council of the International Working-Men's Association on the War, p. iii.]

Next followed, at Brunswick, in Germany, on the 16th of July,—the very day after the reading of the war document at the French tribune, and the "light heart" of the Prime-Minister,—a mass meeting of the working-men there, which declared its full concurrence with the manifesto of the Paris branch, spurned the idea of national antagonism to France, and wound up with these solid words:—

"We are enemies of all wars, but above all of dynastic wars" [Footnote: Ibid.]

The whole subject is presented with admirable power in an address from the Workmen's Peace Committee to the Working-Men of Great Britain and Ireland, duly signed by their officers. Here are some of its sentences:—

"Without us war must cease; for without us standing armies could not exist. It is out of our class chiefly that they are formed."

"We would call upon and implore the peoples of France find Germany, in order to enable their own rulers to realize these their peace-loving professions, to insist upon the abolition of standing armies, as both the source and means of war, nurseries of vice, and locust-consumers of the fruits of useful industry."

"What we claim and demand—what we would implore the peoples of Europe to do, without regard to Courts, Cabinets, or Dynasties—is to insist upon Arbitration as a substitute for war, with peace and its blessings for them, for us, for the whole civilized world." [Footnote: Herald of Peace for 1870, September 1st, pp. 101-2.]

The working-men of England responded to this appeal, in a crowded meeting at St. James's Hall, London, where all the speakers were working-men and representatives of the various handicrafts, except the Chairman, whose strong words found echo in the intense convictions of the large assemblage:—

"One object of this meeting is to make the horror universally inspired by the enormous and cruel carnage of this terrible war the groundwork for appealing to the working classes and the people of all other European countries to join in protesting against war altogether, [prolonged cheers,] as the shame of Christendom, and direst curse and scourge of the human race. Let the will of the people sweep away war, which cannot he waged without them. ['Hear!'] Away with enormous standing armies, ['Hear!'] the nurseries and instruments of war,—nurseries, too, of vice, and crushing burdens upon national wealth and prosperity! Let there go forth from the people of this and other lands one universal and all-overpowering cry and demand for the blessings of peace!" [Footnote: Ibid., October 1st, p. 125.]

At this meeting the Honorary Secretary of the Workmen's Peace Committee, after announcing that the working-men of upwards of three hundred towns had given their adhesion to the platform of the Committee, thus showing a determination to abolish war altogether, moved the following resolution, which was adopted:—-

"That war, especially with the present many fearful contrivances for wholesale carnage an destruction, is repugnant to every principle of reason, humanity, and religion; and this meeting earnestly invites all civilized and Christian peoples to insist upon the abolition of standing armies, and the settlement by arbitration of all international disputes." [Footnote: Herald of Peace for 1870, October 1st, p. 125.]

Thus clearly is the case stated by the Working-Men, now beginning to be heard; and the testimony is reverberated from nation to nation. They cannot be silent hereafter. I confidently look to them for important cooperation in this great work of redemption. Could my voice reach them now, wherever they may be, in that honest toil which is the appointed lot of man, it would be with words of cheer and encouragement. Let them proceed until civilization is no longer darkened by war. In this way will they become not only saviours to their own households, but benefactors of the whole Human Family.



ABOLITION OF THE WAR SYSTEM.

Such is the statement, with its many proofs, by which war is exhibited as the Duel of Nations, being the Trial by Battle of the Dark Ages. You have seen how nations, under existing International Law, to which all are parties, refer their differences to this insensate arbitrament,—and then how, in our day and before our own eyes, two nations eminent in civilization have furnished an instance of this incredible folly, waging together a world- convulsing, soul-harrowing, and most barbarous contest. All ask how long the direful duel will be continued. Better ask, How long will be continued that War System by which such a duel is authorized and regulated among nations? When will this legalized, organized crime be abolished? When at last will it be confessed that the Law of Right is the same for nations as for individuals, so that, if Trial by Battle be impious for individuals, it is so for nations likewise? Against it are Reason and Humanity, pleading as never before,—Economy, asking for mighty help,—Peace, with softest voice praying for safeguard,—and then the authority of Philosophy, speaking by some of its greatest masters,—all reinforced by the irrepressible, irresistible protest of working- men in different nations.

Precedents exist for the abolition of this duel, so completely in point, that, according to the lawyer's phrase, they "go on all fours" with the new case. Two of these have been already mentioned: first, when, at the Diet of Worms, in 1495, the Emperor Maximilian proclaimed a permanent peace throughout Germany, and abolished the "liberty" of Private War; and, secondly, when, in 1815, the German Principalities stipulated "under no pretext to make war upon one another, or to pursue their differences by force of arms." [Footnote: See, ante, p. 247.] But first in time, and perhaps in importance, was the great Ordinance of St. Louis, King of France, promulgated at a Parliament in 1260, where he says: "We forbid battles [i. e. TRIALS BY BATTLE] to all persons throughout our dominions,... and in place of battles we put proofs by witnesses... AND THESE BATTLES WE ABOLISH IN OUR DOMINIONS FOREVER." [Footnote: "Nous deffendons a tous les batailles par tout, nostre demengne,.... et on lieu des batailles nous meton prueves de tesmoins..... Et ces batailles nous ostons en nostre demaigne a toujours."——Recueil General des Anciennes Lois Francaises, par Jourdan, etc., (Paris, 1822- 33,) Tom. I. pp. 283-90.] These at the time were great words, and they continue great as an example. Their acceptance by any two nations would begin the work of abolition, which would be completed on their adoption by a Congress of Nations, taking from war its existing sanction.



THE WORLD A GLADIATORIAL AMPHITHEATRE.

The growing tendencies of mankind have been quickened by the character of the present war, and the unexampled publicity with which it has been waged. Never before were all nations, even those separated by great spaces, whether of land or ocean, the daily and excited spectators of the combat. The vast amphitheatre within which the battle is fought, with the whole heavens for its roof, is coextensive with civilization itself. The scene in that great Flavian Amphitheatre, the famous Colosseum, is a faint type of what we are witnessing; but that is not without its lesson. Bloody games, where human beings contended with lions and tigers, imported for the purpose, or with each other, constituted an institution of ancient Rome, only mildly rebuked by Cicero, [Footnote: "Crudele gladiatorum spectaculum et inhumanum nonnullis videri solet: et hand scio an ita sit, ut nunc fit."—Tusculanae Quaestiones, Lib. II. Cap. XVII. 41.] and adopted even by Titus, in that short reign so much praised as unspotted by the blood of the citizen. [Footnote: Suetonius: Titus, Cap. IX. Merivale, History of the Romans under the Empire, (London, 1862,) Ch. LX., Vol. VII. p. 56.] One hundred thousand spectators looked on, while gladiators from Germany and Gaul joined in ferocious combat; and then, as blood began to flow, and victim after victim sank upon the sand, the people caught the fierce contagion. A common ferocity ruled the scene. As Christianity prevailed, the incongruity of such an institution was widely felt; but still it continued. At last an Eastern monk, moved only by report, journeyed a long way to protest against the impiety. With noble enthusiasm he leaped into the arena, where the battle raged, in order to separate the combatants. He was unsuccessful, and paid with life the penalty of his humanity. [Footnote: St. Telemachus, A. D. 401. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ed. Milman, (London, 1846,) Ch. XXX., Vol. III. p. 70. Smith, Dict. Gr. and Rom. Biog. and Myth., art. TELEMACHUS.] But the martyr triumphed where the monk had failed. Shortly afterwards, the Emperor Honorius, by solemn decree, put an end to this horrid custom. "The first Christian Emperor," says Gibbon, "may claim the honor of the first edict which condemned the art and amusement of shedding human blood." [Footnote: Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ubi supra.] Our amphitheatre is larger than that of Rome; but it witnesses scenes not less revolting; nor need any monk journey a long way to protest against the impiety. That protest can be uttered by every one here at home. We are all spectators; and since by human craft the civilized world has become one mighty Colosseum, with place for everybody, may we not insist that the bloody games by which it is yet polluted shall cease, and that, instead of mutual-murdering gladiators filling the near-brought scene with death, there shall be a harmonious people, of different nations, but one fellowship, vying together only in works of industry and art, inspired and exalted by a divine beneficence?

In presenting this picture I exaggerate nothing. How feeble is language to depict the stupendous barbarism! How small by its side the bloody games which degraded ancient Rome! How pygmy the one, how colossal the other! Would you know how the combat is conducted? Here is the briefest picture of the arena by a looker- on:—

"Let your readers fancy masses of colored rags glued together with blood and brains, and pinned into strange shapes by fragments of bones,—let them conceive men's bodies without heads, legs without bodies, heaps of human entrails attached to red and blue cloth, and disembowelled corpses in uniform, bodies lying about in all attitudes, with skulls shattered, faces blown off, hips smashed, bones, flesh, and gay clothing all pounded together as if brayed in a mortar extending for miles, not very thick in any one place, but recurring perpetually for weary hours,—and then they cannot, with the most vivid imagination, come up to the sickening reality of that butchery." [Footnote: Scene after the Battle of Sedan: Herald of Peace for 1870, October 1st, p. 121] Such a sight would have shocked the Heathen of Rome. They could not have looked on while the brave gladiator was thus changed into a bloody hash; least of all could they have seen the work of slaughter done by machinery. Nor could any German gladiator have written the letter I proceed to quote from a German soldier:—

"I do not know how it is, but one wholly forgets the danger one is in, and thinks only of the effect of one's own bullets, rejoicing like a child at the sight of the enemy falling like skittles, and having scarcely a compassionate glance to spare for the comrade falling at one's side. One ceases to be a human being, and turns into a brute, a complete brute."

Plain confession! And yet the duel continues. Nor is there death for the armed man only. Fire mingles with slaughter, as at Bazeilles. Women and children are roasted alive, filling the air with suffocating odor, while the maddened combatants rage against each other. All this is but part of the prolonged and various spectacle, where the scene shifts only for some other horror. Meanwhile the sovereigns of the world sit in their boxes, and the people everywhere occupy the benches.

PERIL FROM THE WAR SYSTEM.

The duel now pending teaches the peril from continuance of the present system. If France and Germany can be brought so suddenly into collision on a mere pretext, what two nations are entirely safe? Where is the talisman for their protection? None, surely, except Disarmament, which, therefore, for the interest of all nations, should be commenced. Prussia is now an acknowledged military power, armed "in complete steel,"—but at what cost to her people, if not to mankind! Military citizenship, according to Prussian rule, is military serfdom, and on this is elevated a military despotism of singular grasp and power, operating throughout the whole nation, like martial law or a state of siege. In Prussia the law tyrannically seizes every youth of twenty, and, no matter what his calling or profession, compels him to military service for seven years. Three years he spends in active service in the regular army, where his life is surrendered to the trade of blood; then for four years he passes to the reserve, where he is subject to periodic military drills; then for five years longer to the Landwehr, or militia, with liability to service in the Landsturm, in case of war, until sixty. Wherever he may be in foreign lands, his military duty is paramount.

But if this system be good for Prussia, then must it be equally good for other nations. If this economical government, with education for all, subordinates the business of life to the military drill, other nations will find too much reason for doing the same. Unless the War System is abandoned, all must follow the successful example, while the civilized world becomes a busy camp, with every citizen a soldier, and with all sounds swallowed up in the tocsin of war. Where, then, are the people? Where are popular rights? Montesquieu has not hesitated to declare that the peril to free governments proceeds from armies, and that this peril is not corrected even by making them depend directly on the legislative power. This is not enough. The armies must be reduced in number and force. [Footnote: De l'Esprit des Lois, Liv. XI. Ch. 6.] Among his papers, found since his death, is the prediction, "France will be ruined by the military." [Footnote: "La France se perdra par les gens de guerre."—Pensees Diverses,—Varietes: (Oeuvres Melees et Posthumes, (Paris, 1807, Didot,) Tom. II. p. 138.)] It is the privilege of genius like that of Montesquieu to lift the curtain of the future; but even he did not see the vastness of suffering in store for his country through those armies against which he warned. For years the engine of despotism at home, they became the sudden instrument of war abroad. Without them Louis Napoleon could not have made himself Emperor, nor could he have hurried France into the present duel. If needed in other days, they are not needed now. The War System, always barbarous, is an anachronism, full of peril both to peace and liberal institutions.



PEACE.

An army is a despotism; military service is a bondage; nor can the passion for arms be reconciled with a true civilization. The present failure to acknowledge this incompatibility is only another illustration how the clear light of truth is discolored and refracted by an atmosphere where the cloud of war still lingers. Soon must this cloud be dispersed. From war to peace is a change indeed; but Nature herself testifies to change. Sirius, brightest of all the fixed stars, was noted by Ptolemy as of reddish hue, [Footnote: Almagest, ed. et tr. Halma, (Paris, 1816- 20,) Tom. II. pp. 72, 73.] and by Seneca as redder than Mars; [Footnote: Naturales Quaestiones, Lib. I. Cap. 1.] but since then it has changed to white. To the morose remark, whether in the philosophy of Hobbes or the apology of the soldier, that man is a fighting animal and that war is natural, I reply,—Natural for savages rejoicing in the tattoo, natural for barbarians rejoicing in violence, but not natural for man in a true civilization, which I insist is the natural state to which he tends by a sure progression. The true state of Nature is not war, but peace. Not only every war, but every recognition of war as the mode of determining international differences, is evidence that we are yet barbarians,—and so also is every ambition for empire founded on force, and not on the consent of the people. A ghastly, bleeding, human head was discovered by the early Romans, as they dug the foundations of that Capitol which finally swayed the world. [Footnote: Dionysius Halicarnassensis, Antiquitates Romanae, Lib. IV. Capp. 59-61.] That ghastly, bleeding, human head is the fit symbol of military power.

Let the War System be abolished, and, in the glory of this consummation, how vulgar all that comes from battle! By the side of this serene, beneficent civilization, how petty in its pretensions is military power! how vain its triumphs! At this moment the great general who has organized victory for Germany is veiled, and his name does not appear even in the military bulletins. Time is the glory of arms passing from sight, and battle losing its ancient renown. Peace does not arrest the mind like war. It does not glare like battle. Its operations, like those of Nature, are gentle, yet sure. It is not the tumbling, sounding cataract, but the tranquil, fruitful river. Even the majestic Niagara, with thunder like war, cannot compare with the peaceful plains of water which it divides. How easy to see that the repose of nations, like the repose of Nature, is the great parent of the most precious bounties vouchsafed by Providence! Add Peace to Liberty,—

"And with that virtue, every virtue lives."

As peace is assured, the traditional sensibilities of nations will disappear. Their frontiers will no longer frown with hostile cannon, nor will their people be nursed to hate each other. By ties of constant fellowship will they be interwoven together, no sudden trumpet waking to arms, no sharp summons disturbing the uniform repose. By steam, by telegraph, by the press, have they already conquered time, subdued space,—thus breaking down old walls of partition by which they have been separated. Ancient example loses its influence. The prejudices of another generation are removed, and the old geography gives place to a new. The heavens are divided into constellations, with names from beasts, or from some form of brute force,—as Leo, Taurus, Sagittarius, and Orion with his club; but this is human device. By similar scheme is the earth divided. But in the sight of God there is one Human Family without division, where all are equal in rights; and the attempt to set up distinctions, keeping men asunder, or in barbarous groups, is a practical denial of that great truth, religious and political, the Brotherhood of Man. The Christian's Fatherland is not merely the nation in which he was born, but the whole earth appointed by the Heavenly Father for his home. In this Fatherland there can be no place for unfriendly boundaries set up by any,—least of all, place for the War System, making nations as hostile camps.

At Lassa, in Thibet, there is a venerable stone in memory of the treaty between the courts of Thibet and China, as long ago as 821, bearing an inscription worthy of a true civilization. From Eastern story learn now the beauty of peace. After the titles of the two august sovereigns, the monument proceeds: "These two wise, holy, spiritual, and accomplished princes, foreseeing the changes hidden in the most distant futurity, touched with sentiments of compassion towards their people, and not knowing, in their beneficent protection, any difference between their subjects and strangers, have, after mature reflection and by mutual consent, resolved to give peace to their people... In perfect harmony with each other, they will henceforth be good neighbors, and will do their utmost to draw still closer the bonds of union and friendship. Henceforward the two empires of Han (China) and Pho (Thibet) shall have fixed boundaries... In preserving these limits, the respective parties shall not endeavor to injure each other; they shall not attack each other in arms, or make any more incursions beyond the frontiers now determined." Then declaring that the two "must reciprocally exalt their virtues and banish forever all mistrust between them, that travellers may be without uneasiness, that the inhabitants of the villages and fields may live at peace, and that nothing may happen to cause a misunderstanding," the inscription announces, in terms doubtless Oriental: "This benefit will be extended to future generations, and the voice of love (towards its authors) will be heard wherever the splendor of the sun and the moon is seen. The Pho will be tranquil in their kingdom, and the Han will be joyful in their empire." [Footnote: Travels of the Russian Mission through Mongolia to China, and Residence in Peking, in 1820-21, by George Timkowski, Vol. I. pp. 460-64.] Such is the benediction which from early times has spoken from one of the monuments erected by the god Terminus. Call it Oriental; would it were universal! While recognizing a frontier, there is equal recognition of peace as the rule of international life.



THE REPUBLIC.

In the abolition of the War System the will of the people must become all-powerful, exalting the Republic to its just place as the natural expression of citizenship. Napoleon has been credited with the utterance at St. Helena of the prophecy, that "in fifty years Europe would be Republican or Cossack." [Footnote: See the New York Times of August 11, 1870, where the reputed prophecy is cited in these terms, in a letter of the 27th July from the London correspondent of that journal, with remarks indicating an expectation of its fulfilment in the results of the present war.] This famous saying has been variously represented; but the following are its original terms, as recorded at the time by Las Cases, to whom it was addressed in conversation, and as authenticated by the Commission appointed by Louis Napoleon for the collection and publication of the matters now composing the magnificent work entitled "Correspondance de Napoleon Ier":—-

"Dans Petat actuel des choses, avant dix ans, toute l'Europe peut etre cosaque, ou toute en republique."—LAS CASES, Memorial de Sainte-Hellene, (Reimpression de 1823 et 1824,) Tom. III. p. 111,—Journal, 18 Avril 1816. Correspondence de Napoleon I, (Paris, 1858-69,) Tom. XXXIL p. 326.] Evidently Europe will not be Cossack, unless the Cossack is already changed to Republican,—as well may be, when it is known, that, since the great act of Enfranchisement, in February, 1861, by which twenty- three millions of serfs were raised to citizenship, with the right to vote, fifteen thousand three hundred and fifty public schools have been opened in Russia. A better than Napoleon, who saw mankind with truer insight, Lafayette, has recorded a clearer prophecy. At the foundation of the monument on Bunker Hill, on the semi-centennial anniversary of the battle, 17th June, 1825, our much-honored national guest gave this toast: "Bunker Hill, and the holy resistance to oppression, which has already enfranchised the American hemisphere. The next half-century Jubilee's toast shall be,—To Enfranchised Europe."[Footnote: Columbian Centinel, June 18, 1825.] The close of that half-century, already so prolific, is at hand. Shall it behold the great Jubilee with all its vastness of promise accomplished? Enfranchised Europe, foretold by Lafayette, means not only the Republic for all, but Peace for all; it means the United States of Europe, with the War System abolished. Against that little faith through which so much fails in life, I declare my unalterable conviction, that "government of the people, by the people, and for the people"— thus simply described by Abraham Lincoln [Footnote: Address at the Consecration of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg, November 19, 1863: McPherson's Political History of the United States during the Great Rebellion, p. 606.]—is a necessity of civilization, not only because of that republican equality without distinction of birth which it establishes, but for its assurance of permanent peace. All privilege is usurpation, and, like Slavery, a state of war, relieved only by truce, to be broken by the people in their might. To the people alone can mankind look for the repose of nations; but the Republic is the embodied people. All hail to the Republic, equal guardian of all, and angel of peace!

Our own part is simple. It is, first, to keep out of war,—and, next, to stand firm in those ideas which are the life of the Republic. Peace is our supreme vocation. To this we are called. By this we succeed. Our example is more than an army. But not on this account can we be indifferent, when Human Rights are assailed or republican institutions are in question. Garibaldi asks for a "word," [Footnote: "The cause of Liberty in Italy needs the word of the United States Government, which would be more powerful in its behalf than that of any other."—Message to Mr. Sumner from Caprera, May 24,1869.] that easiest expression of power. Strange will it be, when that is not given. To the Republic, and to all struggling for Human Rights, I give word, with heart on the lips. Word and heart I give. Nor would I have my country forget at any time, in the discharge of its transcendent duties, that, since the rule of conduct and of honor is the same for nations as for individuals, the greatest nation is that which does most for Humanity.

THE END