The Sun.
London, England, 1866-05-19 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

TIMES.—In that disease of nations which may be
called suppressed war, and is only a less evil than
war itself, there arrives a time when the question of
wishes and designs yields in prominence and reality
to calculations of a more physical and material cha-
racter. Th e matter for speculation is no longer the
policy of a Minister, or the passion of a people, or
the fanaticism of a race, so much as the almost un-
controllable working of certain financial and military
conditions. Peace—it is the very boast of peace---
has a natural and spontaneous development of its
own, and the foremost labourers in the cause of peace
and prosperity are content to be told that they have
wisely let things take their own course. War also
works itself out by its own agencies and its own
laws, leaving to statesmen .and legislatures the
humble task of recruiting its ranks, and catering for
its material necessities. But it is not to be supposed
that we pass, as in a picture or theatrical change of
scene, immediately from the benign reign of the one
goddess to the fell sway of the other, or that upon
the mere throwing back of a gate on its hinges the
dogs of war issue forth and ravage a secure and un-
troubled land. On the contrary, there is a disastrous
twilight, in which peace seems virtually to have gone
and war to have only not yet arrived. and when we
cannot help feeling that the issues of life and death
are fast slipping away from the feeble grasp of man.
Even in the full tide of war, and when mutual de-
struction has become the law of nations, battles are
precipitated by causes beyond control, and armies
fight because they must, there being no help for it.
They cannot retreat, or they are without subsist-
ence, or they perceive that delay will bring down
upon them an overwhelming concentration. As
both sides may be more or less in this case, two
armies may be pitted, whether they desire it or
not, for mutual carnage. Many times sines the
beginning of this century all the nations of Central
Europe might, with a slight effort of imagination,
have fancied themselves so many bands of gladia-
tors, exchanging deadly thrusts for the amusement
of their masters in a Roman arena ; so helpless had
they become. The secondary German States must
already have unpleasant reminiscences of the time
when they were led as sheep to the slaughter, and had
not even the satisfaction of an interest in the quarrel.
But the case of the larger German States is not so
very much better, and, indeed, seldom has it been
better, so harsh and so irresistible are the influences
that twist and turn, now in this direction, now in
that, a crowd of communities that have neither a
common policy nor any policy at all that can be
adhered to and carried out. But, though these States
have even now hardly a policy that any statesman
could avow, except where it is purely defensive, there
is something much more potent. There are uni-
versal preparations for war to the utmost resources
and credit of every State in Central and Southern
Europe, and to its utmost powers of maintenance and
endurance. There is a war in every respect except
that which alone brings war to a conclusion, the ex-
haustive actuality of war. In this country we have
the means of estimating the force of any sudden and
imperious demand on the youth and strength of a
population. Men are becoming scarce in these Isles.
Trades are combining, and obtaining their demands
often without a struggle. Great works, and small
works, too, as everybody knows, hang for want of
hands. Though ours is still the proud boast that we
have neither a soldier nor a sailor that is not volunteer,
sometimes the recruiting is slow, though we bid high.
On the Continent there are few soldiers that are not
conscripts, and that are not taken away from em-
ployments more to their taste. Yet, of men thus
generally soldiers by compulsion, and now ready to
march anywhere at a few days' call, there are said
to be 900,000 in the Austrian Empire, 500,000 in
the Prussian, 400,000 in Italy, and in the minor
German States as many as will carry the fearful
sum over two millions. Such is the immense num-
ber of men, in regions by no means so populous or
wealthy as ours, subtracted from industry and pro-
ductive power, and added to the side of waste, diffi-
culty, and debt. These figures stand for at least
£2,000,000 added weekly to national debts already,
with an exception or two, overwhelming. Then
comes the question, natural to be asked—'< Will
not this intolerable inconvenience and cost make
reason heard, and compel a disarmament ?" On
the contrary, great armaments are themselves new
reasons for war. They are the visible means and
opportunity of that which often only waits for
means and opportunity. They continually empty
the Exchequer that must be filled, and destroy the
credit that must be repaired. They inflict a dis-
grace which they can themselves alone remove. The
spirit evoked must do its errand, and will not other-
wise be laid. It will not be trifled with. In the
wars of old we read that an army was melting
away, so it must attack, or be attacked. In the
mere standing under arms numbers fall, for sickness
does its work. Long before a shot is fired a skilful
General can inflict on his antagonist a greater loss
of men and money than he himself suffers by such
changes of position as compel long and forced
marches. He may oblige 100,000 men to encamp
in a marsh or in mountainous passes, or to crowd
into a pestilential camp or casemated fortresses. A
military power may be worn away by such means,
though it may happen that the foe has to give up
the game in sorrow. But it must never be for-
gotten that the larger proportion of the cost and
Joss of war is not in the battles, but in the inter-
vals, in the marching and waiting. The Federals,
it is officially declared, lost no more than about
300,000 lives in the whole of the late war, but of
these less than 100,000 were killed or mortally
wounded ; for they that died by sickness and fatigue
were twice as many. Sickness and fatigue will very
shortly show themselves in the two million men now
marching and counter-marching, wherever war
threatens most, on our continent. Will this be an
argument for real war or not ? It will hardly be
so much as an argument at all, for it must in time
compel the decision whether to fight or to be de-
stroyed without fighting. The weary and despond-
ing feelings of the bystanders testify to the real cha-
racter of the question and the stage it has reached.
It is now vain for this Minister or that Emperor to
declar
maye
declare, phrases, and possibly with some feel-
ing he mistake for sincerity, that he wishes for
nothing so much as peace, and that his only ambi-
tion is to pacify and arbitrate. It is vain for any
Government to allege its fears, or to cry for dis-
armament. All are now on a course which does
not permit them to stop, and which reduces political
manifestoes to passionate or plausible ejaculations.
It matters not what the passenger wishes or says
when the train is in motion. Of course, if a na-
tion comes to be worn out without fighting, that is
equivalent to passing through the ordeal of actual
war and accepting its results. If, for example,
400,000 Italians choose to stand under arms for a
whole year, with all the usual expenditure of that
position, in the face of an empty treasury, bankrupt
credit, and taxation already overwhelming, they are
working up to a definite and speedy result, though
it is very probable they have no choice in the mat-
ter, and must proceed as they have begun. But
the very gulf before them compels rather than per-
suades them to cut the knot of an intolerable posi-
tion. Yet, how they will then fare, or how they
will afterwards stand, it needs one o; their own
Sibyls to say. But what is it that has brought so
many States and so large a portion of the human
race to the point where they seem no longer masters
of their own actions, but urged on by some fatality
or inscrutable force ? For this we must look back,
not very far, to the first outbreak of this flame in
the recent appeals to the national sentiment made
with little consistency, and, as it now appears, with
still less honesty. Confessedly something was to be
done in the grand heroic line, and a martial ardour
was to be roused to avoid that worse evil, popular
reforms at home. How far these were possible is
another affair, but it is the old, old story. The
despot must yield the sword as well as the sceptre ;
he must gain victories, and his subjects will no
longer feel themselves slaves when they have helped
him to make their neighbours share their yoke. The
Germans are not content with their own political
institutions, unless they can inflict them on as many
others, and thereby feel that they occupy at least
an intermediate step in the scale, and have people
below themselves. Hence the periodical outburst
of ambition which the Ministers of absolutism know
so well how to use, but which they know so little
how to conduct to any desirable end.
THE " ANGLO-A3IERICAN TIMES." There is
no perfect vehicle of human thought. As a
means of communicating ideas, the most lucid and
accurate language is still very defective. Let
each sentence be accurately fitted to its context ; let
it be pregnant with eloquence, formed with gram-
matical precision, and each word be most carefully
chosen •, let the voice and gesture of the greatest
orator be used with all the power and genius of
which man is capable ; his language, with all pos-
sible accessories, will still fail to give to his audience
a full and perfect comprehension of the ideas which
he wishes to convey. No single auditor could be
found to understand a long speech in all its details,
in each sentence and each word, precisely ac

tended bythe orator. If this be true, under the most
favourable circumstances, it applies with far greater
force in the ordinary cases in which adventitious
aids to comprehension are almost altogether
neglected. There are other cases still in which the
technical language used has a direct and natural
tendency to mislead those who have not made that
technical language their special study. In this re-
spect common little legal phrases are the most
decidedly vicious. We all read speeches in the.
i
Legislature ; we all study Acts of Parliament and
Acts of Congress. We all read law reports n the
daily papers, and we set up, not merely for lawyers,
but for judges of the various matters in dis-
pute. And yet, from some little technical ex-
pression, our judgments as to the legal conse-
quences of certain acts are often utterly at fault.
Nothing could exemplify the fact we have
mentioned more perfectly than .a certain phrase °I
pregnant emptiness, which is very commonly used,
and on which, across the Atlantic, some people are
striving to build a political superstructure not un-
likely to have a mighty influence on the destinies
of a continent. We all know that the word bull
shmild mean good fbr nothing, and that the word
Void should mean empty : what then is the actual
meaning of the legal phrase " Null and Void ,3
The legal phrase " Null and Void !" Pees
it mean of no effect ? Let us examine it a
little. We can scarcely do this better than
the light of example. Time was, a little
while since, that a certain gentleman " bell!
"to command," was interfered with by t"
authorities of Ireland. His destiny was tt to free
" his country from the Saxon yoke," but the
Saxon disapproved of Stephens and his destiny/
and very foolishly attempted to incarcerate the one
and thus alter the course of the other. But Ste-
phens escaped, and his destiny was thus far trium;
phant. It is also possible that his destiny will lead.,
him to further successes. He may possibly land
in Ireland with a Fenian force, proclaim a re-
public, and, himself the chief, decree the con-
fiscation of the lands of the Saxon, and the e%•••
tinction of the race ; he may possibly carry this out
to the extent of taking possession of a town, cutting
off several hundred heads, and turning over to his
followers the confiscated property of the place ; and
then—he maypos,sibly be caught by the Saxon. Under
such circumstances, would his acts be recognised bpd
the authorities ? They wouli certainly be considered
null and uoid. But would that mean that the
acts in question were of no effect ? It could net
.
possibly have such a meaning; for wrongs cannot
be perfectly righted—the dead cannot be restored to
life. Would it mean that the acts in question wer.e,
of no legal eject? In a certain technical sense !`'
would, but in the broadest sense it would not. 016,
acts would be the legal justification of the severest
measures of repression ; they would have the legal
effect of rendering him and his followers outlaws t,O
be captured dead or alive ; and if captured alive, to
be reserved only for the more ignominious death.
This is an extreme example, but it correctly
illustrates the meaning of the phrase null and qt •
Acts which are null and void generally have ina"
portant effects, moral and immoral, legal and other-
wise, but they never have that legal effect which ica;
intended by their authors. Five years ago, eleven 49'
the United States passed formal acts of secession.
Those acts were treated by the American Govern-
ment as null and void. They have now been for-
mally declared null and void by the Legi
or the constitutional Conventions, of ten of
.thce..
States which passed the acts of secession. This boot,
the case, it is stoutly maintained that the States
lately engaged in the rebellion are now in the sale"
legal position as if the acts of secession had never
been passed. "By those acts," it is said, "they
were not carried out of the Union. They al."
consequently, still States in the Union, in ,pre-
cisely the same legal position which they weT-,.,
slaturest
have continued to occupy if the acts of secessit
had never been passed. All the rights which
the constitution guarantees to the individtlie,
States still belong to them. They are clearly
entitled to send Senators and Representatives to
Congress without any special conditions of au"
imttance." This argument is very plausible,
but it is founded entirely on a misconceptiol
of the meaning of the phrase Null and Void.
.1
affects to treat those illegal acts of secession which
e
were passed by the Southern States as of no prae,i
tical or legal effect, when, in fact, they produce',
the most tremendous practical effect which the cL
tury has known--when, in truth, they virtually
affected the legal status of millions of people. Thlo
acts were illegal; they were Null and Void, but t'he•
world mourns their desolating effect, and ti;
human race has a right to expect good care to
taken that they shall not be repeated in future.
Alen commit terrible crimes, and they suffer
the penalty of death. Corporations commit illeXe4
acts for which they are liable to extinction.
eleven States which have broken the common lal„
that bound them to the others, the States which have
rights
.n committedo l
e s s treasontha
than
against s against
civilisation snaattiioonn human,
the a
which. in a mad career of blood caused the destruc-
tion of hundreds of thousands of lives and thou-
sands of millions of property--these States cannot
claim as a right, exemption from all punishments
beyond the accidents of the strife ; least of all can
they claim equal rights in the great Republic whrcle",
they combined to destroy, except they freely pro'eci
abundant guarantees of future good conduct, a°
found their claim, not on the constitution willha
eh
they would have destroyed for ever, not on the
human rights which they would have denied for aye
but on the sympathies and the tender mercies of
brethren who stand ready to forgive the fearAlid
errors of the past, and with labour, counsel, an t
treasure freely to assist them in achieving a grey
and noble future.