CHAPTER XXI.

THE STATESMAN'S RETRIBUTION.

"If statesmen were more accustomed to calculation, wars would be much less frequent."-FRANKLIN.

ROBERT HALL remarks in his Reflections on War, that, "if statesmen, if Christian statesmen at least, had a proper feeling on this subject, and would open their hearts to the reflections which such scenes must inspire, instead of rushing eagerly to arms, would they not try every expedient, every lenient art consistent with national honor, before they ventured on this desperate remedy, or rather, before they plunged into this gulf of horrors?" None but an affirmative answer can be given to such a question. But the difficulty is, that many statesmen are not Christians, and that they do not have a proper feeling on the subject of war. Indeed, as a general rule, it is not warriors that make war in this age, so much as it is statesmen. Warriors know what war is, and they do not involve nations in a conflict so readily oftentimes as those who only know the theory of war: while statesmen, sitting at their ease, in cabinet or congress, by a vote or a slip of the pen, gather vast armies to the field, and give the signal for great nations to dash themselves against each other in mighty conflict. They have little proper feeling of the waste in war of life, treasure, happiness, virtue, liberty.

They know not what they are doing, or if they know, it is a dreamy, misty, distant, and unfelt species of knowledge, that does not press with any motive-power on the springs of

action. One day's hard march over the burning plain, one hour of Cerro Gordo, one night's fevered watching in the hospital, the amputation of their little finger, would teach them more what they really do when they set a war in operation, — its wounds, and pains, and horrid deaths, than the whole experience of their life-time. "I have read," said an actor at Palo Alto, "many accounts of battles, but never a description of one."

The late sanguinary contest was originated in political causes, as already demonstrated. It was not generals but politicians that filled the magazine, and laid the fatal train. There was a huge mass of combustible war-passions lying latent and ready in the American population, but they are chiefly responsible at the bar of God and man, who wittingly and deliberately touched the explosive spark. Had there been any "proper feeling" in the great body of American statesmen, of the evils and guilt of war, they never would have voted men and money with overwhelming majorities in both houses of Congress to wage a distant and invasive warfare beyond the limits of our own country. Many of those men have already lived to lament the act into which they were betrayed by a sudden temptation, and many others will yet live to see the day when they shall bitterly deplore that deed of darkness, and all its evil consequences to their country and the world. They mistook the age in which they lived, when they feared to be called peace-men. They did not anticipate the glory which would encircle the immortal sixteen, “faithful found among the faithless." If ever an earnest rebuke were deserved by large bodies of men, it is by those who at first weakly yielded to the call for millions of money and thousands of men, and voted year after year, after the odious schemes of conquest and slavery were disclosed, still to uphold such a system of wrong and wretchedness. The inconsistencies of political men and parties are tco glaring to be allowed to pass without notice and severe

condemnation. Professing freedom, they waged a war to extend slavery. Calling themselves the friends of the people, they sanctioned and supported a war that loaded their country with a heavy war-debt, and sent misery into multitudes of once happy homes. Putting peace forward as their policy, they have been contented with waging, for the short period of its continuance, one of the sharpest, bloodiest, and most injurious of wars. Advocating universal humanity, and the rights of man as men, they have forced our free institutions, as we call them, by stress of arms upon large portions of a foreign land and a foreign people. Such palpable and flagrant violations of right and justice will bring a retribution sooner or later to the authors of the war, and will involve many of the innocent with the guilty. Men of place and power, exalted as their position may be in the sight of men, are amenable to the laws of God. "The statesman's retribution" is no empty phrase, but expresses a most solemn and instructive lesson of history.

For it is well known the actual effect of war is, that instead of raising politicians to honor and authority, it puts them very unceremoniously aside to make way for the elevation to the highest civil offices of those who have fought their way to fame. The revolutionary war furnished one warrior, but more a civilian than a warrior, for the Presidency. The war of 1812 supplied two candidates of opposite parties, who entered the White House under a perfect whirlwind of enthusiasm. The war with Mexico has already given one incumbent to the lofty chair of state, and it has half a score of others in expectancy. Meanwhile, the great statesmen of the country, who have guided by their wisdom and eloquence the national councils, and who have shed an intellectual and historical glory over the pages of the past, and who will live forever on the tongues of men, have been passed by, or if raised to this more than kingly eminence, have occupied it but for the shortest possible period.

The

"When politicians bring on war," says the North American Review, April, 1848, "they must pay the penalty. In republics, if civilians wish to retain their just influence as statesmen, they must preserve peace. War always has given, and always will give, in our own and in every free country, ascendency to military reputation. Snatching the prizes of political ambition from the politician, it will carry the successful general to his seats of power. Some of the politicians who pushed this country into the war of 1812, still live to brood over the fact, that that war raised up military chieftains who clutched from their grasp the presidential crown, which otherwise would have encircled their brows in sure succession. It is a most instructive circumstance in our history, that when James Madison, then at the head of the government, manifested a reluctance to favor a declaration of war with England, a committee of three was despatched from a republican caucus to communicate to him the determination of that party to insist upon the measure. experienced wisdom of that great statesman was overruled, and constrained by the short-sighted zeal of less wary politicians. Of that caucus Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun were the master spirits, and of that committee they were members. Although quite young men, they had, by their genius and eloquence, even then acquired the greatest degree of popularity that can be attained in the sphere of statesmanship. The whole nation was waiting, with admiring eagerness, to confer upon them, one after the other, its highest honor. They had their way, and war was declared. When the revolutionary series of Presidents was brought to a close, on the retirement of James Munroe, Gen. Jackson, the hero of New Orleans, took from Mr. Clay so many of the electoral votes of the West, and from Mr. Calhoun so many of the votes of the South and Middle States, as to leave them both distanced in the race. The popularity of Jackson yielded only to that of General Harrison, the hero

of Tippecanoe; and a fresh crop of military chieftains has just been reared, to destroy, in all probability, the last chance of these veteran aspirants for the great prize. It is not the least of the eminent services they have rendered their country, that, in their baffled ambition, the distinguished statesmen and truly great men whom we have named, teach to all coming times the salutary lesson, that, if politicians will have war, they must step aside forever from the path of honor, and relinquish the posts of power to overshadowing rivals, created by their own suicidal hands. It is not unlikely, that this lesson will be corroborated by the political results of the war in which the country is now involved. Let us hope that it may make a deep and durable impression upon that class of persons whom it so vitally concerns. When the leaders of parties become convinced, that in promoting warlike measures and a military spirit, they are digging their own graves, we confidently rely upon perpetual peace.”

The same general rule has held good in regard to a host of other offices. The warrior has ever taken precedence of the statesman, however wise or great. We have preferred men of action to men of thought, and have cared little apparently what their actions were. Nothing shows more distinctly the low and coarse type of modern civilization than this choice of warriors to conduct the affairs of Christian nations. No mistake could be greater than for civilians to encourage the madness of war, and hope in times of turbulence to rise to honor and place. For by every war they foment and wage, they are calling into existence numbers of popular and well-known rivals, who will easily distance them in any race for office. However well educated, large in experience, ripe in civil wisdom, eloquent in council, sagacious in trouble, indefatigable in serving the country, patriotic in sentiment, and really laboring for the true glory of the land and the true good of the human family, the mighty orator, the profound statesman, the far-famed jurist, or the unsullied