The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1875-04-17
Letter from WASHINGTON.
INTERNATIONAL NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. ON THE SUB
JEoT-0UR CORRESPONDENT vIEws-PREs-
IDENT GRANTS DITTO, &C.


JEoT-0UR CORRESPONDENTS vIEws-PREs-
IDENT GRANTS DITTO, &C.
WASHINGTON, d. c., April 18TH, 1875.
The next great reform movement is one which
effects not particular nation only, but "all the
world and the rest of mankind, to quote the
well-remembered tautology that crept into the
first and only message of President Taylor. l
allude to what is commonly known as the "Peace
Movement" | am reminded of this by discus
sien which had the pleasure of taking part in at
the lecture room of the Young Mems Christian
Association, on Saturday night, by invitation of
that excellent institution, which is one of the
liberalized appliances of that useful organization.
propose to give here synoptical outline of
the arguments the peace side made. The points
were chiefly two. First, that war never settles
any great principle of governmental right, or of
morals. Citing our own recent and sad expert
ence, illustrated this with the fact that it was
not pretended that it would do so at the start Mr..
Seward, speaking as Secretary of State and the
accredited organ of the nation, proclaimed that,
end as it might, the result of the struggle would
not alter the status of a single human being,
black or white. Mr.. Lincoln proclaimed that his
animus was to save the Union, with or without
slavery" These two proclamations went pari
passu, as the logicians say, to the same point,
viz, that the war was not to even furnish an il
lustration (not to say an acknowledgement of
the fundamental axiom of our governmental sys-
tem-the personal brth-rightof life, liberty and
the pursuit of happiness" whose application
would not have failed to cut slavery up by the
very roots The destruction of slavery was
mere incident of the war; not its purpose, by this
showing before the world-an accident | was
about to say When it succumbed, it did so to
mere physical force, net moral force-to the
physical weakness of those who sought to uphold
it with fancieG superior physical strength and
power of endurance aided, as it was hoped, by
local conditions and the very social appliances
which slavery itself supplied 10 the Confederate
cause. Its DOWNFALL therefore, settled no prin-
ciple. 1t did not even extort confession Of
wrongness of principle. To the contrary, yen
find its uphoders conending that their 'lost
cause" was only "lost cause" for the time
lost not because of an inherent defect in the caSaS
belh, or the ultimate purpose of the struggle.
Meanwhile, On the side of the Federalists
NO PRINCIPLE WAS SETTLED
by the struggle. Those who weAt into it with
opinions adverse to slavery as a principle Of gov
ernment were very few. If they survived, of
course their opinions remained Unchanged
Those who went into it to "save the Union"
from Mr.. Lincoln's motive point, that is, without
slavery or with it-came out unchanged, with
few exceptions. Of course those who had never
stopped to consider that question, or if they dd)
protested that there was no wrong in slavery that
prompted them to enter the army, came out if
at all, unchanged. They got their money-pay,
their eclat-pay, their sense of glory-pay, their
popularity-earned pay, their patriotic, sef-satis
faction-pay, or whatever other conceivable in
ducement for linen and brethren" who, accord
ing to Carlyle, in his "Sartor Resartus" had emo
personal quarrel busy as the devil u.s." and that
was the end and all of it. There was no new
view of the great questions of the age, in either
governmental or social life, infused int the great
mass of the soldiery on either sde-no progress
individually, and therefore none collectively,
gained-ne step toward higher plane of thought
or sphere Of action. Superior physical endur-
ance, stimulated by the longest purse brought
"victory" to the one side and ''defeat" to the
other-that was all.
In the second place, this failure to gain any
thing in principle-any new view of human re-
ations and human duties, either as applied to in
divduals or those aggregates ofindividuals called
nations-was precisely what was to be expected,
seeing that men do not carry on wars, but 6rutes.
l am not dealing in mere epthets now. | mean
to affirm that war is not conducted perforce of
the intellectual powers-much less of the moral
feelings. These come from the upper brain-that
which distinguishes man from the brute In
wars, as in mobs or riots, land wars are only
riots on larger scale, the passions Of the lower,
or animal brain, bear sane.
REASON is IN ABBYANCE.
More correctly speaking, it is overwhelmed
drowned out, might say. 1t is not the province
of that cerebral department to suggest great
principles or lay down permanent rules of inter-
national action. 1t is of itself incapable of any
such grand function.
The specific proposition under discussion was
to refer all international disputes to a court Of
arbitration, instead of the sword. ItpresupPosed
the sway of the intellectual and moral forces OF
the upper brain in the determination of disputes
between nations on the very same principle tina.
our State courts settle like questions between in-
dividuals, or the Federal courts those between
States, under our system. When such court
passes upon a question submitted to it, the forces
of craftsmanship, mental accumen, legal lore,
moral perceptions of right the experiences of life,
will all be brought to bear, as in the Alabama
arbitration which SO wisely and mercifully and
hopefully took the place Of a threatened trial of
brute force between this country and England
The result of
THE RECENT WORLD CONFERENCE
had between the representatives of the civilized
ionsholding commercial intercourse in regard
to international postage and rules for its observ
ance, is another hopeful signal but France
agreeing to the terms of final arrangement, it
seems. And then again, the virtual confession
Of the present war-educated Chief Magistrate, the
other day, that warfare had been failure, and
the expression of his hope that the principle of
International arbitration was gaining favor as
transpired during some conference the precise OBJ
ject of which do not now recall, afford an ad-
ditional ground for the trust that the day is not
far distant according to the scale of reckoning
for cosmopolitan life and progress, when men
shall learn war no mere, but leave it to the lower
order of animals, where it is unavoidable for lack
of the powers of reason and the moral sense
wherewith the human family has been, for wise
purposes, endowed by the benefcent Creator.
J. E. S.