Now, most of the men who have thus died or been maimed were in the prime of life, able-bodied and hearty men. Had they remained at home in the works of peace, it is not likely that more than 500 of the number would have died. So then 14,500 lives may be set down at once to the account of the war. The wounded men are of course to thank the war, and that alone, for their smart and the life-long agony which they are called on to endure.
Such is the American loss. The loss of the Mexicans we cannot now determine. But they have been many times more numerous than the Americans; have been badly armed, badly commanded, badly trained, and besides have been beaten in every battle; their number seemed often the cause of their ruin, making them confident before battle and hindering their retreat after they were beaten. Still more, they have been ill provided with surgeons and nurses to care for the wounded, and were dest.i.tute of medicines. They must have lost in battle five or six times more than we have done, and have had a proportionate number of wounded.
To "lie like a military bulletin" is a European proverb; and it is not necessary to trust reports which tell of 600 or 900 Mexicans left dead on the ground, while the Americans lost but five or six. But when we remember that only twelve Americans were killed during the bombardment of Vera Cruz, which lasted five days; that the citadel contained more than 5,000 soldiers and over 400 pieces of cannon, we may easily believe the Mexican losses on the whole have been 10,000 men killed and perished of their wounds. Their loss by sickness would probably be smaller than our own, for the Mexicans were in their native climate, though often ill furnished with clothes, with shelter and provisions: so I will put down their loss by ordinary diseases at only 5,000, making a total of 15,000 deaths. Suppose their number of wounded was four times as great as our own, or 20,000. I should not be surprised if this were only half the number.
Put all together and we have in total, Americans and Mexicans, 24,000 men wounded, more or less, and the greater part maimed for life; and we have 30,000 men killed on the field of battle, or perished by the slow torture of their wounds, or deceased of diseases caused by extraordinary exposures; 24,000 men maimed; 30,000 dead!
You all remember the bill which so hastily pa.s.sed Congress in May, 1846, and authorized the war previously begun. You perhaps have not forgot the preamble, "Whereas war exists by the act of Mexico." Well, that bill authorized the waste of $200,000,000 of American treasure, money enough to have built a railroad across the Isthmus of Panama, and another to connect the Mississippi and the Pacific ocean; it demanded the disturbance of industry and commerce all over the land, caused by withdrawing $100,000,000 from peaceful investments, and diverting 150,000 Americans from their productive and peaceful works; it demanded a loss yet greater of the treasure of Mexicans; it commanded the maiming of 24,000 men for life, and the death of 30,000 men in the prime and vigor of manhood. Yet such was the state of feeling, I will not say of thought, in the Congress, that out of both houses only sixteen men voted against it. If a prophet had stood there he might have said to the representative of Boston, "You have just voted for the wasting of 200,000,000 of the very dollars you were sent there to represent; for the maiming of 24,000 men and the killing of 30,000 more--part by disease, part by the sword, part by the slow and awful lingerings of a wounded frame! Sir, that is the English of your vote." Suppose the prophet, before the vote was taken, could have gone round and told each member of Congress, "If there comes a war, you will perish in it;"
perhaps the vote would have been a little different. It is easy to vote away blood, if it is not your own!
Such is the cost of the war in money and in men. Yet it has not been a very cruel war. It has been conducted with as much gentleness as a war of invasion can be. There is no agreeable way of butchering men. You cannot make it a pastime. The Americans have always been a brave people; they were never cruel. They always treated their prisoners kindly--in the Revolutionary war, in the late war with England. True, they have seized the Mexican ports, taken military possession of the custom-houses, and collected such duties as they saw fit; true, they sometimes made the army of invasion self-subsisting, and to that end have levied contributions on the towns they have taken; true, they have seized provisions which were private property, s.n.a.t.c.hing them out of the hands of men who needed them; true, they have robbed the rich and the poor; true, they have burned and bombarded towns, have murdered men and violated women. All this must of course take place in any war. There will be the general murder and robbery committed on account of the nation, and the particular murder and robbery on account of the special individual. This also is to be expected. You cannot set a town on fire and burn down just half of it, making the flames stop exactly where you will. You cannot take the most idle, ignorant, drunken, and vicious men out of the low population in our cities and large towns, get them drunk enough or foolish enough to enlist, train them to violence, theft, robbery, murder, and then stop the man from exercising his rage or l.u.s.t on his own private account. If it is hard to make a dog understand that he must kill a hare for his master, but never for himself, it is not much easier to teach a volunteer that it is a duty, a distinction, and a glory to rob and murder the Mexican people for the nation"s sake, but a wrong, a shame, and a crime to rob or murder a single Mexican for his own sake. There have been instances of wanton cruelty, occasioned by private licentiousness and individual barbarity. Of these I shall take no further notice, but come to such as have been commanded by the American authorities, and which were the official acts of the nation.
One was the capture of Tabasco. Tabasco is a small town several hundred miles from the theatre of war, situated on a river about eighty miles from the sea, in the midst of a fertile province. The army did not need it, nor the navy. It did not lie in the way of the American operations; its possession would be wholly useless. But one Sunday afternoon, while the streets were full of men, women, and children, engaged in their Sunday business, a part of the naval force of America swept by; the streets running at right angles with the river, were enfiladed by the hostile cannon, and men, women, and children, unarmed and unresisting, were mowed down by the merciless shot. The city was taken, but soon abandoned, for its possession was of no use. The killing of those men, women, and children was as much a piece of murder, as it would be to come and shoot us to-day, and in this house. No valid excuse has been given for this cold-blooded ma.s.sacre; none can be given. It was not battle, but wanton butchery. None but a Pequod Indian could excuse it.
The theological newspapers in New England thought it a wicked thing in Dr. Palfrey to write a letter on Sunday, though he hoped thereby to help end the war. How many of them had any fault to find with this national butchery on the Lord"s day? Fighting is bad enough any day; fighting for mere pay, or glory, or the love of fighting, is a wicked thing; but to fight on that day when the whole Christian world kneels to pray in the name of the Peacemaker; to butcher men and women and children, when they are coming home from church, with prayer-books in their hands, seems an aggravation even of murder; a cowardly murder, which a Hessian would have been ashamed of. "But "twas a famous victory."
One other instance, of at least apparent wantonness, took place at the bombardment of Vera Cruz. After the siege had gone on for a while, the foreign consuls in the town, "moved," as they say, "by the feeling of humanity excited in their hearts by the frightful results of the bombardment of the city," requested that the women and children might be allowed to leave the city, and not stay to be shot. The American General refused; they must stay and be shot.
Perhaps you have not an adequate conception of the effect produced by bombarding a town. Let me interest you a little in the details thereof.
Vera Cruz is about as large as Boston was in 1810; it contains about 30,000 inhabitants. In addition it is protected by a castle, the celebrated fortress of St. Juan d" Ulloa, furnished with more than 5,000 soldiers and over 400 cannons. Imagine to yourself Boston as it was forty years ago, invested with a fleet on one side, and an army of 15,000 men on the land, both raining cannon-b.a.l.l.s and bomb-sh.e.l.ls upon your houses; shattering them to fragments, exploding in your streets, churches, houses, cellars, mingling men, women, and children in one promiscuous murder. Suppose this to continue five days and nights; imagine the condition of the city; the ruins, the flames; the dead, the wounded, the widows, the orphans; think of the fears of the men antic.i.p.ating the city would be sacked by a merciless soldiery; think of the women! Thus you will have a faint notion of the picture of Vera Cruz at the end of March, 1847. Do you know the meaning of the name of the city? Vera Cruz is the True Cross. "See how these Christians love one another." The Americans are followers of the Prince of Peace; they have more missionaries amongst the "heathen" than any other nation, and the President, in his last message, says, "No country has been so much favored, or should acknowledge with deeper reverence the manifestations of the Divine protection." The Americans were fighting Mexico to dismember her territory, to plunder her soil, and plant thereon the inst.i.tution of slavery, "the necessary back-ground of freedom."
Few of us have ever seen a battle, and without that none can have a complete notion of the ferocious pa.s.sions which it excites. Let me help your fancy a little by relating an anecdote which seems to be very well authenticated, and requires but little external testimony to render it credible. At any rate, it was abundantly believed a year ago; but times change, and what was then believed all round may now be "the most improbable thing in the world." At the battle of Buena Vista, a Kentucky regiment began to stagger under the heavy charge of the Mexicans. The American commander-in-chief turned to one who stood near him, and exclaimed, "By G.o.d, this will not do. This is not the way for Kentuckians to behave when called on to make good a battle. It will not answer, sir." So the General clenched his fist, knit his brows, and set his teeth hard together. However, the Kentuckians presently formed in good order and gave a deadly fire, which altered the battle. Then the old General broke out with a loud hurrah. "Hurrah for old Kentuck," he exclaimed, rising in his stirrups; "that"s the way to do it. Give "em h.e.l.l, d.a.m.n "em," and tears of exultation rolled down his cheeks as he said it. You find the name of this General at the head of most of the whig newspapers in the United States. He is one of the most popular candidates for the Presidency. Cannons were fired for him, a hundred guns on Boston Common, not long ago, in honor of his nomination for the highest office in the gift of a free and Christian people. Soon we shall probably have clerical certificates, setting forth, to the people of the North, that he is an exemplary Christian. You know how Faneuil Hall, the old "Cradle of Liberty," rang with "Hurrah for Taylor," but a few days ago. The seven wise men of Greece were famous in their day; but now nothing is known of them except a single pungent aphorism from each, "Know thyself," and the like. The time may come when our great men shall have suffered this same reduction descending, all their robes of glory having vanished save a single thread. Then shall Franklin be known only as having said, "Don"t give too much for the Whistle;" Patrick Henry for his "Give me Liberty or give me Death;" Washington for his "In Peace prepare for War;" Jefferson for his "All men are created equal;" and General Taylor shall be known only by his attributes rough and ready, and for his aphorism, "Give "em h.e.l.l, d.a.m.n "em." Yet he does not seem to be a ferocious man, but generous and kindly, it is said, and strongly opposed to this particular war, whose "natural justice" it seems he looked at, and which he thought was wicked at the beginning, though, on that account, he was none the less ready to fight it.
One thing more I must mention in speaking of the cost of men. According to the Report quoted just now, 4,966 American soldiers had deserted in Mexico. Some of them had joined the Mexican army. When the American commissioners, who were sent to secure the ratification of the treaty, went to Queretaro, they found there a body of 200 American soldiers, and 800 more were at no great distance, mustered into the Mexican service.
These men, it seems, had served out their time in the American camp, and notwithstanding they had, as the President says in his message, "covered themselves with imperishable honors," by fighting men who never injured them, they were willing to go and seek a yet thicker mantle of this imperishable honor, by fighting against their own country! Why should they not? If it were right to kill Mexicans for a few dollars a month, why was it not also right to kill Americans, especially when it pays the most? Perhaps it is not an American habit to inquire into the justice of a war, only into the profit which it may bring. If the Mexicans pay best, in money, these 1,000 soldiers made a good speculation. No doubt in Mexico military glory is at a premium, though it could hardly command a greater price just now than in America, where, however, the supply seems equal to the demand.
The numerous desertions and the readiness with which the soldiers joined the "foe," show plainly the moral character of the men, and the degree of "patriotism" and "humanity" which animated them in going to war. You know the severity of military discipline; the terrible beatings men are subjected to before they can become perfect in the soldier"s art; the horrible and revolting punishments imposed on them for drunkenness, though little pains were taken to keep the temptation from their eyes, and for disobedience of general orders. You have read enough of this in the newspapers. The officers of the volunteers, I am told, have generally been men of little education, men of strong pa.s.sions and bad habits; many of them abandoned men, who belonged to the refuse of society. Such men run into an army as the wash of the street runs into the sewers. When such a man gets clothed with a little authority, in time of peace, you know what use he makes of it; but when he covers himself with the "imperishable honors" of his official coat, gets an epaulette on his shoulder, a sword by his side, a commission in his pocket, and visions of "glory" in his head, you may easily judge how he will use his authority, or may read in the newspapers how he has used it. When there are brutal soldiers, commanded by brutal captains, it is to be supposed that much brutality is to be suffered.
Now desertion is a great offence in a soldier; in this army it is one of the most common; for nearly ten per cent of the American army has deserted in Mexico, not to mention the desertions before the army reached that country. It is related that forty-eight men were hanged at once for desertion; not hanged as you judicially murder men in time of peace, privately, as if ashamed of the deed, in the corner of a jail, and by a contrivance which shortens the agony, and makes death humane as possible. These forty-eight men were hanged slowly; put to death with painful procrastinations, their agony wilfully prolonged, and death embittered by needless ferocity. But that is not all: it is related, that these men were doomed to be thus murdered on the day when the battle of Churubusco took place. These men, awaiting their death, were told they should not suffer till the American flag should wave its stripes over the hostile walls. So they were kept in suspense an hour, and then slowly hanged one by one. You know the name of the officer on whom this barbarity rests: it was Colonel Harney, a man whose reputation was black enough and base enough before. His previous deeds, however, require no mention here. But this man is now a General, and so on the high road to the Presidency, whenever it shall please our Southern masters to say the word. Some accounts say there were more than forty-eight who thus were hanged. I only give the number of those whose names lie printed before me as I write. Perhaps the number was less; it is impossible to obtain exact information in respect to the matter, for the Government has not yet published an account of the punishments inflicted in this war. The information can only be obtained by a "Resolution" of either house of Congress, and so is not likely to be had before the election. But at the same time with the execution, other deserters were scourged with fifty lashes each, branded with a letter D, a perpetual mark of infamy on their cheek, compelled to wear an iron yoke, weighing eight pounds, about their neck. Six men were made to dig the grave of their companions, and were then flogged with two hundred lashes each.
I wish this hanging of forty-eight men could have taken place in State street, and the respectable citizens of Boston, who like this war, had been made to look on and see it all; that they had seen those poor culprits bid farewell to father, mother, wife, or child, looking wistfully for the hour which was to end their torment, and then, one by one, have seen them slowly hanged to death; that your representative, ye men of Boston, had put on all the halters! He did help put them on; that infamous vote, I speak not of the motive, it may have been as honorable as the vote itself was infamous, doomed these eight and forty men to be thus murdered.
Yes, I wish all this killing of the 2,000 Americans on the field of battle, and the 10,000 Mexicans; all this slashing of the bodies of 24,000 wounded men; all the agony of the other 18,000 that have died of disease, could have taken place in some spot where the President of the United States and his Cabinet, where all the Congress who voted for the war, with the Baltimore conventions of "44 and "48, and the Whig convention of Philadelphia, and the controlling men of both political parties, who care nothing for this bloodshed and misery they have idly caused, could have stood and seen it all; and then that the voice of the whole nation had come up to them and said, "This is your work, not ours.
Certainly we will not shed our blood, nor our brothers" blood, to get never so much slave territory. It was bad enough to fight in the cause of freedom. In the cause of slavery--G.o.d forgive us for that! We have trusted you thus far, but please G.o.d we never will trust you again."
Let us now look at the effect of this war on the morals of the nation.
The Revolutionary war was the contest for a great idea. If there were ever a just war it was that, a contest for national existence. Yet it brought out many of the worst qualities of human nature on both sides, as well as some of the best. It helped make a Washington, it is true, but a Benedict Arnold likewise. A war with a powerful nation, terrible as it must be, yet develops the energy of the people, promotes self-denial, and helps the growth of some qualities of a high order. It had this effect in England from 1798 to 1815. True, England for that time became a despotism, but the self-consciousness of the nation, its self-denial and energy were amazingly stimulated; the moral effect of that series of wars was doubtless far better than of the infamous contest which she has kept up against Ireland for many years. Let us give even war its due: when a great boy fights with an equal, it may develop his animal courage and strength--for he gets as bad as he gives, but when he only beats a little boy that cannot pay back his blows, it is cowardly as well as cruel, and doubly debasing to the conqueror.
Mexico was no match for America. We all knew that very well before the war begun. When a nation numbering 8,000,000 or 9,000,000 of people can be successfully invaded by an army of 75,000 men, two thirds of them volunteers, raw, and undisciplined; when the invaders with less than 15,000 can march two hundred miles into the very heart of the hostile country, and with less than 6,000 can take and hold the capital of the nation, a city of 100,000 or 200,000 inhabitants, and dictate a peace, taking as much territory as they will--it is hardly fair to dignify such operations with the name of war. The little good which a long contest with an equal might produce in the conqueror, is wholly lost. Had Mexico been a strong nation we should never have had this conflict. A few years ago, when General Ca.s.s wanted a war with England, "an old-fashioned war," and declared it "unavoidable," all the men of property trembled.
The northern men thought of their mills and their ships; they thought how Boston and New York would look after a war with our st.u.r.dy old father over the sea; they thought we should lose many millions of dollars and gain nothing. The men of the South, who have no mills and no ships and no large cities to be destroyed, thought of their "peculiar inst.i.tution;" they thought of a servile war; they thought what might become of their slaves, if a nation which gave $100,000,000 to emanc.i.p.ate her bondmen should send a large army with a few black soldiers from Jamaica; should offer money, arms, and freedom to all who would leave their masters and claim their unalienable rights. They knew the southern towns would be burnt to ashes, and the whole South, from Virginia to the Gulf, would be swept with fire, and they said, "Don"t."
The North said so, and the South; they feared such a war, with such a foe. Everybody knows the effect which this fear had on southern politicians, in the beginning of this century, and how gladly they made peace with England soon as she was at liberty to turn her fleet and her army against the most vulnerable part of the nation. I am not blind to the wickedness of England more than ignorant of the good things she has done and is doing; a Paradise for the rich and strong, she is still a Purgatory for the wise and the good, and the h.e.l.l of the poor and the weak. I have no fondness for war anywhere, and believe it needless and wanton in this age of the world, surely needless and wicked between Father England and Daughter America; but I do solemnly believe that the moral effect of such an old-fashioned war as Mr. Ca.s.s in 1845 thought unavoidable, would have been better than that of this Mexican war. It would have ended slavery; ended it in blood no doubt, the worst thing to blot out an evil with, but ended it and for ever. G.o.d grant it may yet have a more peaceful termination. We should have lost millions of property and thousands of men, and then, when peace came, we should know what it was worth; and as the burnt child dreads the fire, no future President, or Congress, or Convention, or Party would talk much in favor of war for some years to come.
The moral effect of this war is thoroughly bad. It was unjust in the beginning. Mexico did not pay her debts; but though the United States, in 1783, acknowledged the British claims against ourselves, they were not paid till 1803. Our claims against England, for her depredations in 1793, were not paid till 1804; our claims against France, for her depredations in 1806-13, were not paid us till 1834. The fact that Mexico refused to receive the resident Minister which the United States sent to settle the disputes, when a commissioner was expected--this was no ground of war. We have lately seen a British amba.s.sador ordered to leave Spain within eight and forty hours, and yet the English Minister of foreign affairs, Lord Palmerston, no new hand at diplomacy, declares that this does not interrupt the concord of the two nations! We treated Mexico contemptuously before hostilities began; and when she sent troops into a territory which she had always possessed, though Texas had claimed it, we declared that that was an act of war, and ourselves sent an army to invade her soil, to capture her cities, and seize her territory. It has been a war of plunder, undertaken for the purpose of seizing Mexican territory, and extending over it that dismal curse which blackens, impoverishes, and barbarizes half the Union now, and swiftly corrupts the other half. It was not enough to have Louisiana a slave territory; not enough to make that inst.i.tution perpetual in Florida; not enough to extend this blight over Texas--we must have yet more slave soil, one day to be carved into Slave States, to bind the Southern yoke yet more securely on the Northern neck; to corrupt yet more the politics, literature, and morals of the North. The war was unjust at its beginning; mean in its motives, a war without honorable cause; a war for plunder; a quarrel between a great boy and a little puny weakling who could not walk alone, and could hardly stand. We have treated Mexico as the three Northern powers treated Poland in the last century--stooped to conquer. Nay, our contest has been like the English seizure of Ireland.
All the justice was on one side, the force, skill, and wealth on the other.
I know men say the war has shown us that Americans could fight. Could fight!--almost every male beast will fight, the more brutal the better.
The long war of the Revolution, when Connecticut, for seven years, kept 5,000 men in the field, showed that Americans could fight; Bunker Hill and Lexington showed that they could fight, even without previous discipline. If such valor be a merit, I am ready to believe that the Americans, in a great cause like that of Mexico, to resist wicked invasion, would fight as men never fought before. A republic like our own, where every free man feels an interest in the welfare of the nation, is full of the elements that make soldiers. Is that a praise?
Most men think so, but it is the smallest honor of a nation. Of all glories, military glory, at its best estate, seems the poorest.
Men tell us it shows the strength of the nation and some writers quote the opinions of European kings who, when hearing of the battles of Monterey, Buena Vista, and Vera Cruz, became convinced that we were "a great people." Remembering the character of these kings, one can easily believe that such was their judgment, and will not sigh many times at their fate, but will hope to see the day when the last king who can estimate a nation"s strength only by its battles, has pa.s.sed on to impotence and oblivion. The power of America--do we need proof of that?
I see it in the streets of Boston and New York; in Lowell and in Lawrence; I see it in our mills and our ships; I read it in those letters of iron written all over the North, where he may read that runs; I see it in the unconquered energy which tames the forest, the rivers, and the ocean; in the school-houses which lift their modest roof in every village of the North; in the churches that rise all over the freeman"s land: would G.o.d that they rose higher, pointing down to man and to human duties, and up to G.o.d and immortal life! I see the strength of America in that tide of population which spreads over the prairies of the West, and, beating on the Rocky Mountains, dashes its peaceful spray to the very sh.o.r.es of the Pacific sea. Had we taken 150,000 men and $200,000,000, and built two railroads across the continent, that would have been a worthy sign of the nation"s strength. Perhaps those kings could not see it; but sensible men could see it and be glad. This waste of treasure and this waste of blood is only a proof of weakness. War is a transient weakness of the nation, but slavery a permanent imbecility.
What falsehood has this war produced in the executive and legislative power; in both parties, whigs and democrats! I always thought that here in Ma.s.sachusetts the whigs were the most to blame; they tried to put the disgrace of the war on the others, while the democratic party coolly faced the wickedness. Did far-sighted men know that there would be a war on Mexico, or else on the tariff or the currency, and prefer the first as the least evil?
See to what the war has driven two of the most famous men of the nation: one wished to "capture or slay a Mexican;"[12] the other could encourage the volunteers to fight a war which he had denounced as needless, "a war of pretexts," and place the men of Monterey before the men of Bunker Hill;[13] each could invest a son in that unholy cause. You know the rest: the fathers ate sour grapes, and the children"s teeth were set on edge. When a man goes on board an emigrant ship, reeking with filth and fever, not for gain, not for "glory," but in brotherly love, catches the contagion, and dies a martyr to his heroic benevolence, men speak of it in corners, and it is soon forgot; there is no parade in the streets; society takes little pains to do honor to the man. How rarely is a pension given to his widow or his child; only once in the whole land, and then but a small sum.[14] But when a volunteer officer--for of the humbler and more excusable men that fall we take no heed, war may mow that crop of "vulgar deaths" with what scythe he will--falls or dies in the quarrel which he had no concern in, falls in a broil between the two nations, your newspapers extol the man, and with martial pomp, "sonorous metal blowing martial sounds," with all the honors of the most honored dead, you lay away his body in the tomb. Thus is it that the nation teaches these little ones, that it is better to kill than to make alive.
I know there are men in the army, honorable and high-minded men, Christian men, who dislike war in general, and this war in special, but such is their view of official duty, that they obeyed the summons of battle, though with pain and reluctance. They knew not how to avoid obedience. I am willing to believe there are many such. But with volunteers, who, of their own accord, came forth to enlist, men not blinded by ignorance, not driven by poverty to the field, but only by hope of reward--what shall be said of them! Much may be said to excuse the rank and file, ignorant men, many of them in want--but for the leaders, what can be said? Had I a brother who, in the day of the nation"s extremity, came forward with a good conscience, and perilled his life on the battle field, and lost it "in the sacred cause of G.o.d and his country," I would honor the man, and when his dust came home, I would lay it away with his fathers"; with sorrow indeed, but with thankfulness of heart, that for conscience" sake he was ready even to die. But had I a brother who, merely for his pay, or hope of fame, had voluntarily gone down to fight innocent men, to plunder their territory, and lost his life in that felonious essay--in sorrow and in silence, and in secrecy would I lay down his body in the grave; I would not court display, nor mark it with a single stone.
See how this war has affected public opinion. How many of your newspapers have shown its true atrocity; how many of the pulpits? Yet, if any one is appointed to tell of public wrongs, it is the minister of religion. The Governor of Ma.s.sachusetts[15] is an officer of a Christian church; a man distinguished for many excellences, some of them by no means common: it is said, he is opposed to the war in private, and thinks it wicked; but no man has lent himself as a readier tool to promote it. The Christian and the man seem lost in the office, in the Governor! What a lesson of falseness does all this teach to that large cla.s.s of persons who look no higher than the example of eminent men for their instruction. You know what complaints have been made, by the highest authority in the nation, because a few men dared to speak against the war. It was "affording aid and comfort to the enemy." If the war-party had been stronger, and feared no public opinion, we should have had men hanged for treason, because they spoke of this national iniquity! Nothing would have been easier. A "gag law" is not wholly unknown in America.
If you will take all the theft, all the a.s.saults, all the cases of arson, ever committed in time of peace in the United States since the settlement of Jamestown in 1608, and add to them all the cases of violence offered to woman, with all the murders, they will not amount to half the wrongs committed in this war for the plunder of Mexico. Yet the cry has been and still is, "You must not say a word against it; if you do, you "afford aid and comfort to the enemy."" Not tell the nation that she is doing wrong? What a miserable saying is that; let it come from what high authority it may, it is a miserable saying. Make the case your own. Suppose the United States were invaded by a nation ten times abler for war than we are, with a cause no more just, intentions equally bad; invaded for the purpose of dismembering our territory and making our own New England the soil of slaves; would you be still? would you stand and look on tamely while the hostile hosts, strangers in language, manners, and religion, crossed your rivers, seized your ports, burnt your towns? No, surely not. Though the men of New England would not be able to resist with most celestial love, they would contend with most manly vigor; and I should rather see every house swept clean off the land, and the ground sheeted with our own dead; rather see every man, woman, and child in the land slain, than see them tamely submit to such a wrong: and so would you. No, sacred as life is and dear as it is, better let it be trodden out by the hoof of war, rather than yield tamely to a wrong. But while you were doing your utmost to repel such formidable injustice, if in the midst of your invaders men rose up and said, "America is in the right, and brothers, you are wrong, you should not thus kill men to steal their land; shame on you!" how should you feel towards such? Nay, in the struggle with England, when our fathers perilled every thing but honor, and fought for the unalienable rights of man, you all remember, how in England herself there stood up n.o.ble men, and with a voice that was heard above the roar of the populace, and an authority higher than the majesty of the throne they said, "You do a wrong; you may ravage, but you cannot conquer. If I were an American, while a foreign troop remained in my land, I would never lay down my arms; no, never, never, never!"
But I wander a little from my theme, the effect of the war on the morals of the nation. Here are 50,000 or 75,000 men trained to kill. Hereafter they will be of little service in any good work. Many of them were the off-scouring of the people at first. Now these men have tasted the idleness, the intemperance, the debauchery of a camp; tasted of its riot, tasted of its blood! They will come home before long, hirelings of murder. What will their influence be as fathers, husbands? The nation taught them to fight and plunder the Mexicans for the nation"s sake; the Governor of Ma.s.sachusetts called on them in the name of "patriotism" and "humanity" to enlist for that work: but if, with no justice on our side, it is humane and patriotic to fight and plunder the Mexicans on the nation"s account, why not for the soldier to fight and plunder an American on his own account? Ay, why not?--that is a distinction too nice for common minds; by far too nice for mine.
See the effect on the nation. We have just plundered Mexico; taken a piece of her territory larger than the thirteen states which fought the Revolution, a hundred times as large as Ma.s.sachusetts; we have burnt her cities, have butchered her men, have been victorious in every contest.
The Mexicans were as unprotected women, we, armed men. See how the l.u.s.t of conquest will increase. Soon it will be the ambition of the next President to extend the "area of freedom" a little further south; the l.u.s.t of conquest will increase. Soon we must have Yucatan, Central America, all of Mexico, Cuba, Porto Rico, Hayti, Jamaica,--all the islands of the Gulf. Many men would gladly, I doubt not, extend the "area of freedom" so as to include the free blacks of those islands. We have long looked with jealous eyes on West Indian emanc.i.p.ation--hoping the scheme would not succeed. How pleasant it would be to reestablish slavery in Hayti and Jamaica, in all the islands whence the gold of England or the ideas of France have driven it out. If the South wants this, would the North object? The possession of the West Indies would bring much money to New England, and what is the value of freedom compared to coffee and sugar and cotton?
I must say one word of the effect this war has had on political parties.
By the parties I mean the leaders thereof, the men that control the parties. The effect on the democratic party, on the majority of Congress, on the most prominent men of the nation, has been mentioned before. It has shut their eyes to truth and justice; it has filled their mouths with injustice and falsehood. It has made one man "available" for the Presidency who was only known before as a sagacious general, that fought against the Indians in Florida, and acquired a certain reputation by the use of bloodhounds, a reputation which was rather unenviable even in America. The battles in northern Mexico made him conspicuous, and now he is seized on as an engine to thrust one corrupt party out of power, and to lift in another party, I will not say less corrupt, I wish I could; it were difficult to think it more so. This latter party has been conspicuous for its opposition to a military man as ruler of a free people; recently it has been smitten with sudden admiration for military men, and military success, and tells the people, without a blush, that a military man fresh from a fight which he disapproved of, is most likely to restore peace, "because most familiar with the evils of war!" In Ma.s.sachusetts the prevalent political party, as such, for some years seems to have had no moral principle; however, it had a prejudice in favor of decency: now it has thrown that overboard, and has not even its respectability left. Where are its "Resolutions?" Some men knew what they were worth long ago; now all men can see what they are worth.
The cost of the war in money and men I have tried to calculate, but the effect on the morals of the people, on the press, the pulpit, and the parties, and through them on the rising generation, it is impossible to tell. I have only faintly sketched the outline of that. The effect of the war on Mexico herself, we can dimly see in the distance. The Government of the United States has wilfully, wantonly broken the peace of the continent. The Revolutionary war was unavoidable; but for this invasion there is no excuse. That G.o.d, whose providence watches over the falling nation as the falling sparrow, and whose comprehensive plans are now advanced by the righteousness and now by the wrath of man, He who stilleth the waves of the sea and the tumult of the people, will turn all this wickedness to account in the history of man,--of that I have no doubt. But that is no excuse for American crime. A greater good lay within our grasp, and we spurned it away.
Well, before long the soldiers will come back, such as shall ever come--the regulars and volunteers, the husbands of the women whom your charity fed last winter, housed and clad and warmed. They will come back. Come, New England, with your posterity of States, go forth to meet your sons returning all "covered with imperishable honors." Come, men, to meet your fathers, brothers. Come, women, to your husbands and your lovers; come. But what! is that the body of men who a year or two ago went forth, so full of valor and of rum? Are these rags the imperishable honors that cover them? Here is not half the whole. Where is the wealth they hoped from the spoil of churches? But the men--"Where is my husband?" says one; "And my son?" says another. "They fell at Jalapa, one, and one at Cerro Gordo; but they fell covered with imperishable honor, for "twas a famous victory." "Where is my lover?" screams a woman whom anguish makes respectable spite of her filth and ignorance;--"And our father, where is he?" scream a troop of half-starved children, staring through their dirt and rags. "One died of the vomit at Vera Cruz. Your father, little ones, we scourged the naked man to death at Mixcoac."
But that troop which is left, who are in the arms of wife and child, they are the best sermon against war; this has lost an arm and that a leg; half are maimed in battle, or sickened with the fever; all polluted with the drunkenness, idleness, debauchery, l.u.s.t, and murder of a camp.
Strip off this man"s coat, and count the stripes welted into his flesh, stripes laid on by demagogues that love the people, "the dear people!"
See how affectionately the war-makers branded the "dear soldiers" with a letter D, with a red-hot iron, in the cheek. The flesh will quiver as the irons burn; no matter: it is only for love of the people that all this is done, and we are all of us covered with imperishable honors! D stands for deserter,--aye, and for demagogue--yes, and for demon too.
Many a man shall come home with but half of himself, half his body, less than half his soul.
"Alas, the mother that him bare, If she could stand in presence there, In that wan cheek and wasted air, She would not know her child."
"Better," you say, "for us better, and for themselves better by far, if they had left that remnant of a body in the common ditch where the soldier finds his "bed of honor;" better have fed therewith the vultures of a foreign soil, than thus come back." No, better come back, and live here, mutilated, scourged, branded, a cripple, a pauper, a drunkard, and a felon; better darken the windows of the jail and blot the gallows with unusual shame, to teach us all that such is war, and such the results of every "famous victory," such the imperishable honors that it brings, and how the war-makers love the men they rule!
O Christian America! O New England, child of the Puritans! Cradled in the wilderness, thy swaddling garments stained with martyrs" blood, hearing in thy youth the warwhoop of the savage and thy mother"s sweet and soul-composing hymn:
"Hush, my child, lie still and slumber, Holy angels guard thy bed; Heavenly blessings, without number, Rest upon thine infant head:"
Come, New England, take the old banners of thy conquering host, the standards borne at Monterey, Palo Alto, Buena Vista, Vera Cruz, the "glorious stripes and stars" that waved over the walls of Churubusco, Contreras, Puebla, Mexico herself, flags blackened with battle and stiffened with blood, pierced by the lances and torn with the shot; bring them into thy churches, hang them up over altar and pulpit, and let little children, clad in white raiment and crowned with flowers, come and chant their lessons for the day:
"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see G.o.d.
"Blessed are the peace-makers, for they shall be called the children of G.o.d."
Then let the priest say, "Righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach unto any people. Blessed is the Lord my strength, which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight. Happy is that people that is in such a case. Yea, happy is that people whose G.o.d is the Lord, and Jesus Christ their Saviour."