The daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1848-1851, 1849-05-07
Sc Third Page for Cry News, &C.
The Wars of the World.

More than two centuries ago the pnuosophef VI
Malmesbury, living in the midst OF one OF the most
important revolutions the world ever witnessed,
save out the opinion that the natural state of man
was war But tie revolution which Hobbies OBJ.
served. though powerful in its movements and i'm
portant in its consequences, was but the action of
a single people. The race was strong, the causes
were mighty and the principles involved were of
vital importance Still the revolution-or as it is
sometimes called the rebelion--of 1910 was but
as child s-play in comparison with revolutions since
effected or with those now going on in Europe and
other parts of the world. How much more natural
would have appeared Hobbies observation had he
lived in the middle of the nineteenth century !
Now, from Canada and from St. Petersburg, from
India and from Italy, from Denmark and from Hun
gary-from the North and from the South, from
The East and from the West-we hear OF nothing
but "wars and rumors of wars" Can 1t be that
Hobbies was rght-that, after all, mans greatest
delight consists in staying and numbering his TEL
bowman. Must men forever remain the slaves
and instruments of their purely destructive propen-
sites Or are we yet bra in the germ OF being,
and is it necessary to pass through these lower
grades of existence before we can arrive at the
higher and nober states that await US in the future!
Considering the nature of man and of the world
that surrounds him, you would be disposed to say
that there sufficient to engage his thoughts and
absorb his energies in the efforts he must continually
make to wiring subsistence from the elements
about him. But no! this does not suffice to en-
gage his active and restless passions. Not satisfied
with the struggle he constantly carries on with
nature-not content with overcoming those agen-
cies which hourly tend to the consumption Of his
body and the wasting of his physical strength, he
cries aloud for other mployments-demands yet
more stirring occupations. Or is it because he is
not allowed free scope for the exercise of his COM
bative powers in his contests with nature, that he
attacks his fellow.man! Is it because he is not
allowed freely to wrestle with natural agencies
that he turns ercely on his fellows and hacks them
to pieces with swords and bayones, or shivers them
to atoms with bomb.shes and cannon.balls
Would man he warlike if he were free Would
he amuse himself with the destruction of his fellow
beings if he permitted 10 play, to his hearts
content, with the impedments to existence which
nature has placed in his way!
1t cannot be that man was made to be the de-
stroyer of man. 1t cannot be that we were sent
into the world in order to extirpate others, and
fling from the stage Of existence those who may be
our equals if not superors, in all that raises us
above the brutes that perish. Whenever war ORR
ginates--whenever man is called on to fight his
fellow, it must be the result of wrong-it must
spring from an injustice practiced in the past or
attempted in the present. And where rests the
blame of all the wars that have devastated the
world and made vast Gogotha of planet
adorned with beauty and fitted up for the enjoy
ment Of the race that dwells upon it! Rests it
with the injurer or with the injured-with the
eppressor or the oppressed When Brescia is be-
sieged and bombarded.-when its walls are battered
to the ground, and the few remaining houses serve
but az a vast funeralpile for the miserable women
and children that may be locked up in theme-is it
10 the account of the down-trodden and much
Abused Italians or of the grasping and tyrannical
Austrans that we must place all this carnage and
erueltyi When thousands are butchered in Genoa,
Is 1t to the wronger or to the wronged that we must
inpute all those Rtoans 81 agony all those suffer-
mss OF humanity! It will not do to say that the
one party is made up of rebels and the other OF
loyalists-that one side consists Of those false to
their king and the other of those true to their
country and their sovereign. But looking at the
question in the broad light of justice, you must
pronounce which side is right and which side is
wrong To the party If injustice belongs all the
EflHlc-Wltl IL tLAs VIC hOsPoai"A'y "a ''NS
sale murder and massacre, no matter by whom
directly committed.
If, then, the citizens of the United States will be
instructed by the past, and by the numerous strug-
giles which are goine on in the world at the present
tme they will lean the great, the transcendently
sublime lesson that the only way of preserving the
peace Of is in the practice of strict justice
II we would remain free from those quarres which
at present divide other nations-f we wish to keep
away fon us those civil wars which now agitate
slmost eve , country of Europe-it must be by
mainta.ng the absolute equality of individuals
and Of classes of citizens. Whenever government
prefer one man, or one set OF men, to another
when it e1alts interest or depresses another-it
con,it an injustice and sows the seeds of war 1t is
on " the preservation Of the ustest equality that
We can ever hope to put down wars and upon
III. American nation, as the great harbnger and
forerunner in the of equality, rests the duty
of taking the lead in proclaiming the doctrines of
universal peace and fraternity.
1T needs be that offences must come but wo
be to him by whom the offence cometh," said the
great religious Regeneration of the world. As long
as men are governed by party passions, and infu-
enced by the base instincts that lead them to OPP
press their fellows, long will it be necessary for
the oppressed to resist the oppressor. But "wo
to him by whom the offence cometh!" Wrongs,
like debts, bear interest; and when the injured
rise in their might and assert the prerogative to
which they are by nature entitled, wo to those
who attempt to keep them down, and to trample
in the dust the god-created form made to walk
erect and look toward the stars.
~ See Third Page for interesting News Items.
Do We are indebted to the steamers Bride, Sui
tana and Peytona for late river papers. We thank
the clerk of the Bride for the memoranda with
which he furnished us.
ST.. LOUIS AND FoRT LEAvENwoRTH TELE-
GRAPH-Mr Sanford J. Smith will leave in dav
or two, says the ST. Louis Reveille of the 29th on
a visit to the towns on the Missouri river He will
go prepared to put the line between this city and