World Affairs Institute

A GREAT QUESTIONAuthor(s): ABEL STEVENSSource: Advocate of Peace (1847-1884), New Series, Vol. 3, No. 26 (FEBRUARY 15, 1871), p. 15Published by: World Affairs InstituteStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27904908 .

Accessed: 12/06/2014 21:27

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

World Affairs Institute and Heldref Publications are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extendaccess to Advocate of Peace (1847-1884).

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 188.72.126.108 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 21:27:16 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Feb., 1871. THE ADVOCATE OF PEACE. 15

[Abridged from the Christian Advocate.]

A GREAT QUESTION. BY RET. ABEL STEVENS, D. D.

" There is a revival of the old 4 Peace Society's project

for the abolition of war. Both in England and this country recent movements show that the experiment is far from being abandoned.

" The ' peace' men of England have lately held meetings

and made declarations about the present war. " In this country some of our best pens have treated of the

war from the 'peace doctrine* stand-point, notably that of Mrs. L. M. Child. The Boston poetess, Julia Ward Howe, has been energetic in organizing a movement of American and

English women for a reform of international law in favor of peace, assuming that the recent horrors of war, both in this country and Continental Europe, have prepared the mind of the world for an advance which has heretofore seemed

impractica ble. Mr. Bryant and other good authorities lend their names to her programme, and St unquestionably presents some plausi ble and imposing features. It is a legitimate undertaking for the wives and mothers of Christendom, who are the chief suffer ers by its disastrous quarrels. The scheme proposes to create a public sentiment on the subject, and surely woman's power ought to be the most effectual means for such a change. 44

Perhaps, the present moment is more auspicious than any antecedent one since that immediately following the fall of the

great Napoleon for the success of an energetic movement of the kind. Austria, Prussia and France, have, within a very few years past,

had sad experiences of war. The households of nearly naif the continent of Europe, and more than half the continent of North America, mourn to-day in deepest desola tion. 44 It is gratifying to the friends of peace to find that just at this moment so high an authority as David Dudley Field, of

Near York, has dared to speak emphatically in favor of such a reform. The daily press reports his elaborate address before the 4

New York Association for the Advancement of Art and Science.' His theme was the 4

Probable changes

of interna tional law consequent upon the Franco-Prussian war.' His

speech is a remarkably able argument, and relates throughout, directly or indirectly, to what may be called the 4

Peace Ques tion.'

44 He advocated a confederative judiciary for the mainten

ance of peace, and proposed that our own country should seek the honor of the initiation of a measure which would thus con stitute an epoch in the history of civilization. Mr. Field showed that his plan was exemplified on this continent by the old Articles of Confederation which provided for the settle ment of interstate disputes

? a function which ten years after ward was vested in the Supreme Court, where it has ever since been beneficently exercised, in some instances determining even

questions of boundary between States. Our confederation of States has, he contends, enabled us to exemplify a policy which

satisfactorily solves the problem of an international court or

congress for all Christendom, and could be applied in a modi fied form, to questions usually leading to war. Theoretically the proposition seems exceedingly simple and practicable ; in

one form or another it has long been advocated by the friends of peace. Senator Sumner once discussed it fully and eloquent ly before the American Peace Society. It is one of those ideas

which the higher sentiments, if not instincts, of humanity sug gest in long but persistent anticipation of their realization. The passions of nations are, however, so inappeasable, the

point of honor,' is yet

so fastidious and unchristian in national matters, that few thinkers have dared to hope for any such

great reform in international policy, and peace theories and

peace societies are heedlessly rejected as sentimental impossi

bilities by men who acknowledge that, theoretically, they seem to be among the most feasible of international experiments. It

may, however, be well, at this juncture in the military history Of Christendom, to challenge emphatically this skeptical tem

per, and to ask if our skepticism is not itself the chief obstruc tion to the proposed, the sublime reform.

" And this would seem to be precisely

the opportune time

for such an inquiry. The whole civilized world is stunned by the immeasurable disasters ot late wars. The Crimean, the

Austro-Italian, the Russo-Austrian, the Franco-Prussian, and the American civil wars, not to speak of the never ending con tests of Central and South America, have drenched Christen dom in blood within the present generation. " Our own terrible struggle in the rebellion has taught us this lesson in a manner never to be forgotten. Commissioner

Wells's estimates of the financial waste of that war give the ag gregate figures at very nearly nine thousand two hundred and

eight million dollai's, besides the loss of about six hundred thousand lives of our most vigorous and capable young men !

" The losses by the wars of Europe, from the Crimean t >

the present Prusso-French contest, would be equally appalling. " Now these are facts ?stern facts, put again and again into

precise mathematical form, and put beyond dispute. Is it pos sible that Christendom can deliberately confront them without

being astounded at its military folly and guilt? without seeing that its most urgent, most immediate problem is a better meth od for the

adjudication of its international questions ? Can

publicists, divines, philosophers, statesmen, philanthropists, shake their heads and pass them by, leaving the stupendous in terests involved to the chance inquiries or expedients of the uncertain future ?" Is there amore imperative duty now be fore the enlightened world than the discussions and determina tion of some remedy for this immeasurable folly? Is not the

hopelessness with which the subject is usually dismissed, un

founded, and is not that hopelessness the chief obstacle in its

way ? "

RESULTS TO BE ANTICIPATED THE WAR IN EUROPE.

by hon. amasa walker.

It is quite safe to predict that the war now raging between France and Prussia will have a .most powerful influence in

bringing about universal disarmament. There are many reasons for this. The conflict was so entirely unprovoked by Prussia, was commenced by Bonaparte upon so miserable a pretext, was so clearly dynastic, waged wholly upon the balance-of-power principle, and so palpably the result of the present war-system of constant military preparation, that the people of both'the countries involved in the struggle cannot fail to see that the

only remedy for such enormous evils, the only security for the

peace of nations must be a general, simultaneous abandonment of that terrible system by which such wars are made, not only possible, but certain.

A recent letter in " The Nation," from a French corres

pondent gives most encouraging assurance that the right sentiments upon this subject are beginning to find expression in France, where of all other countries

they are most to be de

sired. The letter referred to says, ?* There is a moral conviction

of the horror and unrighteousness of all war. This latter feel

ing seems to me to be spreading into a universal creed, and to

arise from the very steam of the battle-fields and out of the

very excesses of war itself. Every day the war endures 1 mark this "feeling growing stronger,and (let me say it to the honor of Frenchmen) the more successful are the several actions oa the part of the citizen soldiers, the more openly it appears to me that they express their* disgust and loathing for the fact of war. It is a thing of hourly occurrence now to hear young Frenchmen, lavish of their lives in their country's cause, say: ' This must be the last war. It is not only monstrous, but

absurd, that reasonable beings, educated, civilized men, should

agree to destroy each other, and to devote the best efforts of their intelligence to discovering the best means of mangling the human frame.' You may depend upon it, that whatever circum stance brings this war to a conclusion, there will be a clamor

throughout France when it is concluded for a universal disar

mament, and for an alteration in the public law of the world which shall substitute arbitration for the antiquated and savage appeal to arms." This is the right language, precisely what we desire to hear from the French people, and we have no doubt but it will be heard with equal emphasis from Germany, England and other nationalities as soon as peace has been restored.

Jesus Christ. ? My kingdom is not of this world; if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight.

This content downloaded from 188.72.126.108 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 21:27:16 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions