Jeffersonian Republican. [volume] (Stroudsburg, Pa.) 1840-1853, 1851-07-24
Effects of War.


1t is stated in the foreign papers, that the
census of Crotia, Slavonica, Banet, and Tran
sylvania, recently taken, shows that there are
in those provinces. twenty-five thousand pid-
o,cs, the result of the Hungarian war. Such
facts as these are eloquent; and should be
known and circulated by every lover of peace.
Millions of men have fallen since wars began
millions and tens of millions. Cesar sac
rificed at least two millions, and Napoleon,
directly or indirectly, as many.
The dead are not ALL There are the dis
abled physically, who remain tax upon their
country or their friends. And there are the
disabled morally, whose war-tuition units
them for the arts and purposes of peace. And
there are the destitute widows and orphan
children, who, if not in all cases absolutely
dependent upon society by the death of the
heads of households, are less productive to
the state and less useful to the race, than
they would be under the culture and drec-
tlon of their natural protectors. Confusion
in commerce, hindrance to the progress of the
arts, impeded education, or false education,
Indifference to suffering, national exclusive
ness and hereditary enmity-such are few
only of the evils which follow war, righteous
or unrighteus, successful or unsuccessful. In
cases where war must be, it is only choice
between evils; and we rejoice in the belief
that, under the direction of Providence, the
purposes for which wars and fighting have
been permitted, are so nearly accomplished
that their occurrence will become more and
more rare, until "wars cease in all the EARTH"
/ The expense of war appears sordid part
of the calculation of its evils; but even this
should not be forgotten in the account. In
our own case, for instance, what millions of
money have been consumed in the late war
with Mexico! And the account is not yet
closed; for, by acts of Congress, so much of the
public domain has been given to the soldiers
and soldiers widows, that we do not undertake
to compute the amount acres, or the money
value of them. Justice to claimants under
the wars of preceding years, re-opens their
account and increases the vast aggregate
I We do not object to these grants. Men who
peril their lives should receive the semblance
of payment-though no payment can be real
ly adequate. And their representatives,
when the soldiers have left the world, are
entitled to compensation. That these ap-
propriations-tha pensions, gratuities and
land grants are among the just and necessa-
ry consequences of war, does not weaken our
argument, but rather enforces it.
Our policy as nation is peace. In peace,
education, industry, frugality, religion, the
true elements of national glory and happi-
ness are best cultivated. The notion that tc
preserve independence, our youth must be
trained as bulldogs. and be "sudden and
quick in guardian old-time fgment, pre-
served at second and third hand from the
4 Spartans, Goths, Huns, the banditti founders
of Rome, and other savages-is giving way
before common sense. We are a new nation
living in a new world, and must teach oul
race better than this, by precept and exam
pie. The war spirit needs no culture, but II
found sufficiently abundant whenever oppor
tunity occurs for its developement, as expe
rience testifes. Arthur's Home Gazette