force, does much to enhance the glory and moral power of his martyrdom.

The general principle, then, which authorizes and regulates the use of physical force, may be thus stated. Coercion should be used so far, and only so far, as it is necessary to check the criminal propensity of those who are not restrained, by considerations of justice, from infringing the rights of others. This principle limits the use of force to the protection of the rights of all; and it is of the utmost consequence to hold fast the distinction between this and every other object, however desirable and laudable.

Thus it is highly important to individuals, and to society, that all superstition and bigotry should be eradicated, and that true religion should be planted everywhere. But we have no right to promote religion by force, either directly by imprisonment and war, or by connecting with the profession of a certain creed any civil or political disabilities. The most thorough conviction, based on the clearest evidences, that our faith alone is true and conducive to the welfare, temporal and eternal, of mankind, does not justify the use of any means but such as are included in the exercise of our common rights. My personal and social rights authorize me to use my own faculties for the purpose of enlightening and converting all who are disposed to hear me; and I have a right to use my property for erecting churches, and supporting preachers and missionaries. This is the extent of my rights of conscience, my religious liberty, which, as it allows to every one an equal range of religious action, every one has a right to defend and secure from encroachment.

The principle that regulates the use of force, as above stated, justifies its employment only so far as it is necessary and sufficient to overcome the criminal propensity that is not restrained by a sense of justice. The restriction of physical power to cases of necessity implies the duty of individuals and of society, before resorting to force, to use every means that may render that resort unnecessary. Hence the individual who is attacked by others, under circumstances in which he cannot apply to the constituted officers of the law, is bound first to remonstrate with the aggressor, then to threaten, and only when remonstrance and threatening prove fruitless, to employ force-unless the conduct of the aggressor should be such as to leave him no time but for immediate resistance. In both cases he is justified in using such forcible measures as are sufficient, and no more than are necessary, for the security of his rights. For the same reason, where the aid of the law is available, the individual must apply to its responsible administrators, instead of resorting to single-handed violence, or of raising a mob. It is for the purpose of removing or diminishing the necessity of coercive measures that laws are made, which are or ought

to be nothing else than declarations of right, calculated by their justice to inspire respect and obedience. Courts of justice are established for a peaceable, impartial settlement of contested claims. To secure the compliance of those whom the respect for equal laws and impartial tribunals is not sufficient to restrain, punishments are threatened; and only when the fear of them is not sufficient to repress the criminal desire, the actual infliction is resorted to for effecting this purpose. The same principle applies to nations.

Both with regard to war and to punishments, the principle which authorizes force, only so far as it is necessary to secure invaded rights, forbids all useless violence and all cruelty. Hence the great importance of the difficult science of adapting the modes and degrees of punishments to the nature and degree of guilt evinced by the crime, for the purpose of securing the rights of all. The manner and the degree of punishment should answer both the immediate object of depriving the criminal of the power, and the more remote end of checking the criminal propensity, and reforming the character of the offender. It is when weighed in this scale, that capital punishments are found unjustifiable; for they are not absolutely necessary to secure society from a repetition of the same crime, and not calculated to reform the criminal; and no human being can be so utterly depraved as to render all attempt at reformation hopeless. The barbarous maxim that blood should be shed merely because blood has been shed, is growing obsolete; and the vindication of any punishment, on the ground of its serving as a terrifying example, is unsatisfactory, in as much as terror may be the effect of unjust as well as just punishments. The terrifying character of the punishment does not make it just; otherwise the code of Draco would be the most perfect work of penal legislation. If we add to these considerations, which may be summed up in the simple maxim, not to give unnecessary pain, that of the uncertainty of all human evidence, so justly urged by the author of the Penal Code of Louisiana, in opposition to capital punishments, we are satisfied that the taking of human life, though it may be necessary as a last resort of individual or national self-defence, is unjustifiable as a punishment, which, in order to be just, must bear the character of corrective discipline.

The same reasoning applies to war, and all preparations for war. Every war, to be just, must possess these three attributes: it must have justice for its object; it must be resorted to only when all peaceable means of redress prove of no avail; and it must inflict no injury beyond what is necessary for the redress of wrong. Of the last of these requisites we have already spoken, as implied in the general principle, that the infliction of evil beyond what is necessary to repress the criminal propensity of the evil-doer, is crime. Even in war, the principle of peace should be acted upon

as far as possible. It should prevent the violation of the personal rights and private property of the inhabitants of a hostile country, as well as enjoin humanity toward prisoners.

With regard to the first of the above-mentioned requisites of a just war, we have already remarked, that resort to arms for any purpose but the protection of human rights, is unjust; though authorized by the legitimate sovereign, it is a conspiracy for robbery and murder, whether it be undertaken to satisfy the ambition or gratify the whim of a despot, or to uphold the balance of power among nations, or to establish universal peace, or to promote the interests of the cross or the crescent.

But when the rights of man, on the safety of which the destinies of mankind on earth depend, are violated though it be in the person of a single individual, or by the infringement of a single rightthat single individual becomes the representative of mankind, and this single right is identified with universal justice. It is guarded by the armed providence of the law, and insured by the collected moral and physical power of the community. It is not the injury done but the injustice of the act which constitutes the right and the duty of war. Whether it be the Great King demanding earth and water, or a mother country laying an unconstitutional impost upon tea-the demand is wrong, and resistance right; and when all peaceable means of opposition are exhausted, war becomes a duty.

The justice of the war does not depend on its being either offensive, or defensive,—if these words relate merely to the fact that one or the other of the contending parties was the first to commence actual hostilities. The question is simply who is the oppressor, and who the oppressed. He who disregards the rights of his fellow man, virtually commences hostilities, and he whom he has wronged, is acting in a moral point of view on the defensive, though he should be the first to take the sword. Hence the assertion, that all offensive war is wrong, and defensive war alone is justifiable, is correct only when it is understood as relating not to the mere fact of one having been the first or the last to take up arms, but to the aggression or defence of right.

But war in order to be just must not only have justice for its object, but it must not be resorted to until all peaceable means of redress have been tried in vain. This principle applies, as we have shown, to the use of physical force in general. The freer the government, the more manifold and powerful are the inducements to abstain from a violation of right, which makes the resort to force necessary. The general information of the people with regard to the rights and duties of all, the participation of all the citizens in the deliberation and enactment of the law; its promulgation in the manner best calculaled to make it familiar to all; then the institu

tion of impartial popular tribunals to decide upon every case of contention arising under the law; still more the secure enjoyment of all the advantages which the law insures to every one who obeys it; and the powerful influence of public opinion strengthening the principles of honesty in individuals; and where such principles are wanting, the fear of just punishments contained in the law-all there are so many appeals to every individual to abstain from acts which must bring down upon him the sword of the law. And thus between nations, the more their mutual intercourse is unfettered and unrestricted, making each country interested in the welfare of every other by a constant interchange of productions, so much the stronger the inducements to settle any existing differences by arbitration and compromise, rather than war. It is not until all appeals to self-interest and conscience, all attempts at an amicable adjustment of difficulties, have proved fruitless, that resort to the last means of redress may be justified.

How long and how far an injured nation may forbear, magnanimously enduring wrong rather than have recourse to the fearful remedy of war, and extend the hand of peace before exchanging the olive branch for the sword-is a question which must depend on the nature and circumstances of the case. Arbitration is one of the means of amicable adjustment resorted to, particularly of late, with signal success. There are indeed questions, such as involve independence and sovereignty, which no nation can leave to be decided by arbitration. But with regard to those which come under the head of questions of national profit or honor,' there does not seem to be any good reason for governments to refuse the decision by an umpire. It is in most cases not a due sense of the rights of property and national honor, but rather the reckless passion of aggrandizement, and the sensitiveness of the duellist, which make governments willing to lavish the blood and treasure of nations rather than compromise a doubtful pecuniary claim, or simply to explain what could be easily settled by frank and honorable explanation.

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The efforts of the Peace Societies, therefore, for the purpose of inducing governments to adjust their disputes about matters of profit and honor by arbitration, are founded upon just principles, and deserving of universal sympathy and co-operation.

Another more permanent measure of universal pacification has been proposed by philanthropists, and recently brought before the Federal Legislature. It is a Congress of Nations,' consisting of delegates from all the states of the civilized world for the purpose of composing a code of international law; and a High Court'

Report of the Committee of the Massachusetts Legislature on the subject of Peace.

commissioned to decide all disputes between nations according to that law. These decisions, however, as well as the code, are to be invested with no other than an advisory power.

The establishment of a Congress and High Court of Nations is certainly a sublime conception; and we do not see any good reasons for considering it an impracticable scheme. But in order to make it a beneficent institution, the true object for which laws are made, and legislatures and courts of judicature are appointed, should not be lost sight of. Laws are just and morally binding, only inasmuch as they are declarations of the rights of all. It is for the purpose of securing to each human being the greatest freedom consistent with equality, that laws are made, legislators, judges, and magistrates appointed. All governments derive their just power from the consent of the governed; and this power is delegated to them for no other purpose than to secure the inalienable rights with which the Creator has endowed all men; and whenever they assume any other power, it is one of the inalienable rights and duties of their constituents to take it from them. This is the doctrine of the Declaration of Independence, and to secure these blessings of liberty to themselves and their descendants, the Constitution of the United States was framed by the founders of this Republic. Whatever partial inconsistencies may be imputed to us in our attempts at carrying these principles into effect, still these are the principles which "We, the People of these United States," have acknowledged as just in themselves, and to the support of which we stand pledged before the political world.

In conformity with this our political creed, our Federal Government, in its intercourse with foreign powers, has been guided by the principle, that treaties for the protection of commerce and the private rights of the citizens of our own and other countries, be formed with those who actually possess the sovereign power in any country, so as to recognise only the fact, without acknowledging the justice of the title by which the power is held. In forming treaties with the Ottoman Porte, or with the Autocrat of all the Russias, it is evident that we are not negotiating with those who according to our political creed are the only rightful sovereigns of those countries; we are not treating with the Turkish and Russian nations, but simply with those, whoever they be, who have the power to protect the private rights of our citizens in those parts of the world.

Now, it would be inconsistent with our own political principles, as well as the most obvious facts, were our government to acknowledge an assembly composed almost entirely of delegates of the monarchs of Europe, as a " Congress and High Court of Nations." It is unreasonable to expect that in their decisions and regulations they would be guided by any other maxims than those which are VOL. V. NO. XV.-MARCH, 1839. u