happy will it be, when their lyre, so full of delight, and so potent in its influence, shall be attuned to the celebration of the arts of benevolence and peace; and happier will it be than it now is, when, as in the present instance, they paint the sufferings and blighting influence, rather than the factitious charms and glories of international strife.

"Once I beheld a captive, whom the wars
Had made an inmate of the prison-house,

Cheering with wicker work, (that almost seem'd
To him a sort of play,) his dreary hours.
I ask'd his story. In my native tongue,

(Long use had made it easy as his own,)
He answer'd thus. Before these wars began,
I dwelt upon the willowy banks of Loire.

I married one, who from my boyish days
Had been my playmate. One morn, I'll ne'er forget!
While choosing out the fairest little twigs,
To warp a cradle for our child unborn,
We heard the tidings, that the Conscript-lot
Had fallen on me. It came like a death-knell.
The mother perish'd; but the babe surviv'd;
And, ere my parting day, his rocking couch
I made complete, and saw him sleeping smile-
The smile that played erst on the cheek of her,
Who lay clay cold. Alas! the hour soon came,
That forced my fetter'd arms to quit my child.
And whether now he lives to deck with flowers
The sod upon his mother's grave, or lies
Beneath it by her side, I ne'er could learn.

I think he's gone; and now I only wish

For liberty and home, that I may see,

And stretch myself, and die upon the grave."

ARTICLE II.

WAR AS A MEANS OF INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE.

BY FRANCIS FELLOWES, HARTFORD.

THE sentiment of dependence on a superior power is inseparable from the feeling of human limitation and weakness. Nations and commanders of armies have thus in all ages more or

less distinctly recognized a higher influence, which, when their courage and force and skill have been exerted to the utmost, determines the issue of wars and battles, and adjudges the victory. This influence has been designated by different names. Some have called it fortune-chance-fate-destiny; others, divine providence-heaven-Deity. With the ancients, when men engaged in war, the gods themselves took sides in the contest. The councils of heaven were divided, and the celestials themselves embroiled by the disputes of mortals. The great epic poems of antiquity are full of examples. Almost all savage nations have their god of war, whom on the eve of battle they invoke, and to whom they offer a part of the spoils of victory. In the conduct of heroes we sometimes recognize the existence of the same sentiment. Charles XII. of Sweden, in his first battle, gaining some advantage over the enemy, threw himself upon his knees to thank God for the first success of his arms. The great master of war in more modern times, was accustomed to ascribe every thing to the inflexible decree of his destiny. Far be it from us to decry this sentiment, properly understood and directed towards the proper object. It is becoming in man, to whatever rank or power he may be elevated, or whatever be his condition, whether he be the ruler of a nation, or the humblest of its subjects, the peaceful citizen, or the commander of armies, to recognize his dependence upon a superintending Providence, which rules alike over the great interests of nations, and the minutest affairs of the obscurest individual.

But there is one form of the sentiment, the justness of which seems to us of such dubious character and pernicious tendency, as to deserve examination. We allude to the opinion that an appeal to arms is an appeal to the God of Hosts, to do justice between the parties by deciding the issue of the contest according to the merits of the case. In a note to a former article, we had occasion to state the opinion of some eminent jurists upon this point, and to question its correctness. "Offences against the law of nations," says Sir William Blackstone, "can rarely be the object of the criminal law of any particular state. For

offences against this law are principally incident to whole states or nations; in which case recourse can only be had to war, which is an appeal to the God of hosts to punish such infractions of public faith as are committed by one independent people against another: neither state having any superior jurisdiction to resort to upon earth for justice." "War," to use the language of Lord Bacon, says Chancellor Kent, and he seems to appropriate the sentiment, "is one of the highest trials of right, for as princes and states acknowledge no superior upon earth, they put themselves upon the justice of God by an appeal to arms." War, then, according to this opinion, is an authorized legal mode of prosecuting right, which must invariably, since the decision is made by a court which cannot err, be attended with complete success. There is here no possibility of error in the judgment, either from deficiency of evidence, falsity of witnesses, imperfections of the law, or from the incapacity of the judge to weigh the evidence, to apply the law to the facts, and from the consideration of both to pronounce the just decision. We here speak of error in the widest sense of the term. The judgment must be absolutely right. The judge has, concentered in himself, the most perfect evidence of the facts. He is himself the fountain of all equity, the source of all justice. In his bosom resides the highest majesty of the law. He is the author of universal jurisprudence, a system perfect as a whole and in all its parts, which in its general principles and its minutest detail is ever present to his mind. In a word, he is infinitely removed from ignorance either of the facts or of the law, and from all possibility of mistake or partiality in the application of the law to the facts. The decision, too, once made, must be invariably executed, at least so far as its execution is dependent on the power of the minister of the law. There is no covert to which the guilty can resort, no refuge to which the wrong doer can repair. So far as personal submission, or services, or property can make reparation for the wrong and for the expense of the prosecution-satisfaction full and complete must be made. Admirable system of National Justice! How happy are nations! The weak have no need to

fear the powerful. The little and the great are alike secure, provided they neglect not the means instituted for their safety by the resort to arms, as the authorized appeal to the court of heaven. Only let the appeal be made and the decree of Heaven's high Chancery settles all matters involved in the dispute upon the basis of the most full and perfect equity.

But it may be well, before we felicitate ourselves further upon this perfect mode of dispensing justice between nations, to examine the authority directing or allowing the appeal. It is indispensably necessary to the very existence of the right of appeal that the appeal be prescribed by some competent power. The privilege of making it must be expressly granted, and the mode of prosecuting it be circumstantially described and as circumstantially observed. In what a ridiculous attitude would the parties to a suit exhibit themselves, should they appeal from an inferior to a superior tribunal, in a case where no right of appeal has been granted by the law. It is then in the very nature of an appeal, that it be allowed by law and that according to an established form. Where shall we find the law which authorizes nations in case of differences to appeal to Heaven to dispense justice between them, and defines the mode of making the appeal to be a resort to arms? Is it to be found in the Bible? We shall search its pages in vain for this remarkable doctrine: In case of national disputes, there being no superior jurisdiction to resort to upon earth for justice, let nations cast themselves upon their arms. I will preside over the struggle and cause its issue to be such that justice between the parties shall be done, saith the Lord of Hosts. Need it be said that not a solitary passage can be found in the Bible which teaches this doctrine. It is not in the historic narrative of Moses, nor in the sententious wisdom of Solomon. It is not in the eloquent sorrow and unshaken trust of Job. It is not in the elegant sublimity of Isaiah, nor in the tender pathos of Jeremiah. It is not in the terrific imagery of Ezekiel, nor in the lofty devotional strains of David. It is not in the historians, nor in the prophets, nor in the poets. It is not in the forcible argument and manly sense of Paul. Espe

cially, it is not in the divine and peaceful precepts of Jesus Christ. In a word, it is no where to be found, either in the Old Testament or in the New. We are aware that the Jews were divinely commanded to make war upon certain other nations. They were assured of the favor of the Most High, and directed to look to him for aid. He went before them and was round about them with a mysterious and miraculous energy. At the sound of the trumpet the walls of cities fell. At their approach the hearts of nations, greater and mightier than they, died within them for fear. Kings and armies fled away. It was Jehovah in his sovereignty extinguishing the lurid fires upon the altars of idolatry, and preparing the way for a peculiar people, a nation of priests unto himself, whose office it was to receive and preserve upon the earth the sacred light of heaven. It was Jehovah manifesting himself in behalf of that chosen seed in which, in the fulness of time, all the nations of the earth were to be blessed. At all events, it was a special commission for a special purpose. If we read their history with the remembrance of this fact before us, we shall be far from deriving thence an argument in favor of the doctrine in question. We shall not feel ourselves authorized by it to conclude that war is a mode of terminating national differences upon the principles of justice as between the parties, sanctioned by the word of God.

Is the doctrine under discussion contained by implication in the circumstances of the case? Though not found in the pages of revelation, is it yet contained in the principles of sound philosophy? "There is no superior jurisdiction upon earth to resort to for justice in the case of national disputes. War is one of the highest trials of right; for, as princes and states acknowledge no superior upon earth, they put themselves upon the justice of God by an appeal to arms.". The absence of every other mode of determining differences between nations establishes the position that a resort to arms is a mode prescribed by the authority of God. Such is the argument. If indeed there be no other mode, then, manifestly, national differences, if they exist, must be settled by this mode,