Elements of Military Art and Science | Page 6

and since he has placed himself in a position which does not permit me safely to practice towards him the duties of peace, I have only to think of preventing the danger which menaces me; so that if I cannot do this without hurting him, he has to accuse himself only, since he has reduced me to this necessity." _De Jure Nat. et Gent_, lib. ii., ch. v., ��1. This same course of reasoning is also applied to the duties of a nation towards its enemy in respect to war.
"3d. But suppose this method fail. Why, then, let us suffer the evil."
This principle, if applied to its full extent, would, we believe, be subversive of all right, and soon place all power in the hands of the most evil and wicked men in the community. Reason with the nation that invades our soil, and tramples under foot our rights and liberties, and should it not desist, why, then, suffer the evil! Reason with the murderer, and if he do not desist, why, then, suffer him to murder our wives and our children! Reason with the robber and the defaulter, and if they will not listen, why, then, let them take our property! We cannot appeal to the courts, for if their decisions be not respected, they employ force to compel obedience to their mandates. But Dr. Wayland considers the law of benevolence to forbid the use of force between men. He forgets this, it is true, in speaking of our duties towards our fellow-men of the same society, and even allows us to punish the murderer with death; but towards the foreigner he requires a greater forbearance and benevolence than towards our neighbor; for if another nation send its armies to oppress, and rob, and murder us by the thousand, we have no right to employ physical force either to prevent or to punish them, though we may do so to prevent or punish a neighbor for an individual act of the same character. The greater the scale of crime, then, the less the necessity of resorting to physical force to prevent it!
"4th. But it may be asked, what is to prevent repeated and continued aggression? I answer, first, not instruments of destruction, but the moral principle which God has placed in the bosom of every man. I think that obedience to the law of God, on the part of the injured, is the surest preventive against the repetition of injury. I answer, secondly, suppose that acting in obedience to the law of benevolence will not prevent the repetition of injury, will acting on the principle of retaliation prevent it?" Again; "I believe aggression from a foreign nation to be the intimation from God that we are disobeying the law of benevolence, and that this is his mode of teaching nations their duty, in this respect, to each other. So that aggression seems to me in no manner to call for retaliation and injury, but rather to call for special kindness and good-will."
This argument, if such it can be called, is equally applicable to individual aggressions. We are bound to regard them as intimations of our want of benevolence, and to reward the aggressors for the intimations! Is it true, that in this world the wicked only are oppressed, and that the good are always the prospered and happy? Even suppose this true, and that I, as a sinful man, deserve God's anger, is this any reason why I should not resist the assassin, and seek to bring him to punishment? The whole of this argument of Dr. Wayland applies with much greater force to municipal courts than to war.
V. "Let us suppose a nation to abandon all means both of offence and of defence, to lay aside all power of inflicting injury, and to rely for self-preservation solely upon the justice of its own conduct, and the moral effect which such a course of conduct would produce upon the consciences of men. * * * * How would such a nation be protected from external attack, and entire subjugation? I answer, by adopting the law of benevolence, a nation would render such an event in the highest degree improbable. The causes of national war are, most commonly, the love of plunder and the love of glory. The first of these is rarely, if ever, sufficient to stimulate men to the ferocity necessary to war, unless when assisted by the second. And by adopting as the rule of our conduct the law of benevolence, all motive arising from the second cause is taken away. There is not a nation in Europe that could be led on to war against a harmless, just, forgiving, and defenceless people."
History teaches us that societies as well as individuals have been attacked again and again