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A PIONEER CHURCH—A Sermon preached in Pioneer Hall, February 7, 1869, by REV. H.
W. BROWN, Minister of the First Unitarian Church of Sacramento.
Let us congratulate one another, friends, upon a new year of
our church. Let us be thankful that the “ lines are fallen unto ”
us in such “pleasant places?’ We may feel at home in Pioneer
Hall, for we are a Pioneer Church.
We are organized upon a principle which is in advance of the
practice of churches in general; the principle of union in the
spirit of religion without any formal expression of belief. We
are a church without a creed. The principle itself is not a new
one. We are not the first church to organize upon this basis,
but we are among the first; we are of those who have caught
the sound of the evangel before the main body, and who go
forward to prepare the way. It is pioneer work to remove ob
structions, to prepare the way for others. We remove the creed
from the threshold of the temple of worship, where we feel that
it has too long been an obstruction to fellowship in the spirit.
This will be called negative work. Is it negative work when
the pioneer cuts down and digs away, that there may be free
entrance to fair fields and broad rivers, so that willing multi
tudes may settle in the rich domain? Here are the “green
pastures” and “still waters” of Beligion—of reverent adora
tion and trust and communion, of kindly sympathy and humane
activity—-and many are kept from entering in and dwelling
joyously in company with their brethren and friends, by the re
quirement of assent to doctrinal statements of belief. Por our
selves, and for others so far as they choose to avail themselves
of our efforts, we do away with the obstacle. We found our
church on the basis of the religious purpose. We say to all : Do
you wish to unite with men and women to worship God and to
serve men ? we welcome you to our fellowship; to full fellow
ship, with all the privileges which any of us enjoy. We do not
ask what your beliefs are. We shall try to have the truth
preached among us from week to week, and we think you will
�believe that when you hear it; will very likely find it just what
you already believe, though you may not have admitted it to
yourself, or acted upon it.
Be it understood, however, that in doing away with creed we
are not doing away with belief. We are not saying that we
have no belief as individuals or as a church; we are not saying
that we think belief of no consequence. We think the belief of
the individual of so much consequence that we will not ask him
to surrender it, to limit it, to trim it in any manner, in order to
avail himself of the benefit of our fellowship or to give us the
advantage of his company. We thus recognize, we thus help
men to feel, the importance and the responsibility of individual
conviction. And as a church we have beliefs, beliefs implied in
the very purpose on which we are founded. We are united for
the Worship of God and the Service of Men. The worship of
God implies belief in God. And although it is impossible for
any one to express his whole thought about God, and none can
give satisfactory expression to the thought of others, it would
not be difficult, probably, to make some general statement about
the Divine Being and Character in which we should all agree.
That God is One, with various manifestations in nature and in
humanity; that His Spirit is in our minds and consciences and
hearts, and may be communed with there so as to be the strength
and joy of our lives; that He is good, too good to create any
being that shall by any possibility come to suffer eternal tor
ment; that the best names we can give him are Light, and Life,
and Truth, and Righteousness, and Love, and Father—I sup
pose all of us believe this about God. Why should we not say
so in a formal statement, and make it a platform on which all
who join us shall stand ? Because the platform is already under
us and does not require to be laid down; and because the laying
it down would give to belief a prominence which we wish, in a
religious organization, to give to religious purpose. We want
to emphasize the religious purpose as the main thing in a church.'
A belief may be a dead thing, but a purpose is a live thing. And
so we ask not Do you believe in God ? but Do you want to
worship Him ? If you do, we know you believe in him.
And the purpose to serve Men implies belief in men; belief
that men are worth serving. We believe in men as spiritual
beings; and we want to serve them as such by ministering to
�[3]
their spiritual nature. To that end we have prayer, and sing
ing, and preaching, and try to have it of a spiritual sort, such
as will do spiritual service to those who join in it. We believe
in men as moral beings; and we try to serve them as such by
moral education, by appealing to the sense of Eight in them, by
urging them to cultivate the conscience, by applying the laws
of Justice to practical affairs, and by pointing out the way of
Duty. We believe in men as social beings, and we try to serve
them as such by cherishing the social sentiment, in its deeper
and its lighter forms; by proclaiming Brotherhood and acting it
out as far as we can, by sympathy and help for one another and
for all within our range, and even by providing amusement and
entertainment of an innocent kind. And wTe believe in men as
rational beings, and we try to serve them as such by addressing
their reason, not endeavoring to exercise religious dominion
over them or authority upon them, which would be like the
princes of the Gentiles, though done by those who would be
great among the Christians. We believe in men after this fash
ion j that they are not so good but they need to be better, and
not so bad but they'may become good by the help of God and
men. But we have no dogma about their “ Fall,” or about their
rise and progress, which one must agree to before he can take
hold with us to keep them up and on. And so we enquire not
Do you believe in the Depravity of men, or their Regeneration
but do you want to serve them ? If you do, you believe enough,
at least to begin with.
We apply no test of character as a condition of membership
in our church, but we do not thereby imply that character is of
little consequence. If there is anything we are agreed on, I
suppose it is that character is of first consequence; that it is
more than belief, more than action. Belief is what a man thinks?
action what a man does, character what a man is. One may be
saved by “faith,” if his faith be such as to transform his char
acter ; one may be saved by “ works,” if his works induce in
him the righteousness of heart which did not spring up till he
forsook his bad ways and began to do right ; faith or works may
thus lead to salvation, but character is salvation. We do not
make it a condition of fellowship in our church, however, be
cause of the impossibility of our judging it accurately. We
can’t undertake to divide men into saints and sinners. We
�[4]
think if men are very bad they will not feel much at home with
us until they change for the better; and we are very sure that
if they resolve to do that, and try to do it, we can put up with
them if they can put up with us; for we all need that change*
As an organization we stand simply on the ground of the reli
gious purpose. That is the thread on which we are all strung;
not for us to say who of us are precious stones, who only beads
of glass; not to be determined by any profession of faith or
performance of ceremonial, but by the Lord of the hosts of
men, in the day when He makes up His jewels.
What makes us a pioneer church is that we organize the re
ligious spirit in its two-fold relation toward God and toward
men, without the ordinary obstacles of fellowship. We believe
a great deal—a great deal more than we could put into any
creed; but if people want to know what it is, we ask them to
come and hear oui’ preaching, or to talk with us as individuals.
We lay great stress on character, but whether our character is
good or not, people will judge for themselves.
We feel that we are really organizing religion by the method
we adopt. It seems to us that to lay down tests such as are
employed in most of the churches is, as has been well said, to
organize not religion but the negation of religion, viz -: “ exclu
siveness, limitation, privilege.” The profession of belief in cer
tain doctrines unites those, doubtless, who agree in those doc
trines and in professing them, but it separates them from others;
marks them off as distinct: and' all that “ union” can mean in
a Church which insists on belief in these doctrines as a condi
tion of fellowship is a union of those who thus believe, with
separation from those who believe differently. And the inevi
table differences of opinion must forever prevent the union
which Christians are so much desiring to secure. Opinion is
divisive; theological opinion as much as any. It makes sects,
that is, portions cut off from a main body. Religion means
“binding together.” The religious spirit would bind together
all who share it, and the church which would organize that
spirit should welcome all in w'hom that spirit moves. It is true
that, practically, differences of theological opinion, when they
are great, will prevent men from working together in a religious
organization; that, in fact, the members of any church will
agree in the main, and those who do not believe as they do will
�[5]
remain apart from them. But this very fact makes it unneces
sary to enact any exclusion. The centrifugal force of opinion
is strong enough without our pushing one another away in the
name of religion. Differences of political opinion often prevent
men from worshipping together, but would it be wise to make
a man’s politics a test of church membership ? Is that a very
different matter? Not so different, when the fact is that what
is called political opinion is sometimes a moral judgment, far
more intimately connected with religion than a question of
mere speculative theology or religious history. So also differ
ences of social position, of wealth, or of general culture, will
work in religious bodies, and people will be brought in or kept
out more or less by facts of this nature; but would it be the
part of religion to insist on any special degree or rank in such
matters ? It cannot be said that these are unimportant; they
are of more consequence than theological notions ovei’ which
churches have sometimes quarreled to the death. There are
circumstances in which it is of far more consequence to us what
a man’s tastes, habits, manners arc, than what arc his religious
professions. It is for those who would organize religion not to
encourage any of these divisive-tendencies, but to unite in the
central purpose of religion. This holds them together and does
not cut them off from others. Others may not come to them,
but the door is not shut against any, and none will be or will
feel excluded. The Church likes to be figured as an ark, in
which alone is safety in the flood of divine retribution that
sweeps over the earth. Is it for those who see men struggling
in the waters to say to them : “ Come in hither I This is your
only chance; but before you can be taken aboard you must
believe as we do; must believe that this ark was made by a
different process from anything else in the world, and out of
different timber, grown by miracle and put together by miracle.’’
And if those in the ark do act thus, is it strange, that the strong
swimmers say irreverently : “Go along with your old ark;
there won’t be much of a shower I”—while the weak and
struggling feel that such offers have very little “ grace” in them.
Is it not the part of the Church to say, Welcome to such shelter
as we can give ! we will do all we can to save you. You want
to .come—that is enough. Such a church is not exclusive, but
reaches out its hands to all with a free invitation. It is not in
�[6]
an attitude of separation from other churches, on the one hand,
or from the multitude who are outside the churches on the
other. We may feel that we are with the other churches in
this city, not- against them; we stand for religion, as they do,
against irreligion; for morality, as they do, against vice and.
iniquity. If they shut us out by any test of belief, we do not
put up any barrier against them; there will never be more than
one wall between us—the one they erect. And, on the other
hand, we are with the multitudes of people who do not belong
to the churches. We are with ^those who do not and cannot
assent to creeds and ceremonies which have no truth or interest
for them, but who desire a fresh interpretation of the everlasting
gospel of Truth and Righteousness, of the Divine in Humanity,
of the Kingdom of God on Earth. We know, indeed, that
there are many outside the churches who do not care for this
gospel or any other; who are utterly indifferent to spiritual
growth and health, given over to sensual and wicked living.
We are with these, not to encourage them in their wrong but to
help them to the right; we are for them, to help and rescue
them, and we wish we could make them feel that if they have
any earnest desire to forsake evil courses, and to lead a better
life, they may find with us tender reception and sympathy,
encouragement and aid. Peace and Good Will to churched and
unchurched 1 these are in the principle of our organization. If
we Will live up to the principle we shall get religious union
embodied in our Church.
Is it a cold intellectualism, this religion we are undertaking to
organize? It means a piety so genuine that it can employ no
forms which are not the natural expression and furtherance of
its own spirit of devotion; it means a sympathy so deep and
tender that it will reach out after the lowly, though in order to
save them it must let go the hand and lose the company of the
high. It means devout aspiration, consecration, holiness of
heart and life; it means kindly feeling and helpful deed. It
means Love to God and to Man; it means “doing justly, and
loving mercy, and walking humbly with God;” it means “visit*
ing the fatherless and widows in their affliction and keeping one’s
self unspotted from the world.”
Is it not Christian ? Then so much the worse for Christianity,
For this is the divinest religion yet revealed to man. But we
�[7]
think it is the very sum and substance of the religion of Jesus of
glazareth, as it is also of the Hebrew Law and the Prophets.
Some may question the need of a church like ours, on the
ground that the free thought and the liberal opinions which are
recognized and entertained by us make their way of themselves,
without the aid of special organizations to promote them. There
would be force in this if free thought and liberal opinion were
the chief need of society, and the only or the main purpose of
our union. Society wants freedom of thought, will have it;
and does not ask any church to give it, having learned to get it
in spite of the Church and to regard the Church as an adversary
of it. But society needs also religious impulse and inspiration,
needs moral instruction and education, needs humane develop
ment. It is the office of a church to give these, but the churches
in general give them in connection with a creed and a discipline
which repel free-thinkers, liberal minds. Hence the need of a
church which will do its religious work without limiting freedom
of thought. And it is for the lack of such a church that many
people are outside of all religious and moral influence whatever,
and others, who will have these in some shape for themselves
and their children, feel their common sense, and their inalien
able right to liberty of thought, attacked Sunday after Sunday,
and see their children taught doctrines which will be a burden to
them in mature years. We are not undertaking to organize
freedom of thought; we believe that might do very well without
a church, might get along by itself, or by the agency of the
press, or by a system of lecturing. We are trying to organize
Religion, allowing freedom. We want to impart vigor to the
sense of the Divine in men; to educate the conscience, and to
stimulate the sentiment of humanity; and to dok it without
infringing in the least upon the natural and sacred rights of the
mind, and we feel that the need of doing this is great. There is
a demand for the religious pioneering which we propose to do.
People might get along somehow in the ways of the spirit, but
with stumbling and delay; we want to make the road easy and
inviting, to bring low the mountains and hills and to bring up
the valleys; “ to make straight in the desert a highway ” for
religious progress.
Some will tell us that we cannot succeed, that we cannot hold
together without a common profession, of belief, and distinctions
�[8]
between godly and ungodly among us. But jve think that a
union in the religious spirit will bind us more firmly than a
profession of faith, by as much as sympathy is more than agree
ment. There is no need of laying down a platform of theolog
ical opinion. A platform does not hold together the people who
are standing on it. What holds them together is the purpose
with which they stepped upon it. And as to distinction between
“ converted” and “ unconverted,” they are no more essential in
a religious society than the distinctions of noble and commoner,
patrician and plebeian, in civil society. Our forefathers were
told that their community would go to pieces because they left
out these things. But they thought not; they thought these
divisions were divisive, that partitions kept people apart, and
that the best hope of union was in having no upstairs and down
stairs, no parlor and kitchen, built into the national mansion,
but in living on the same floor and meeting in a common room.
Differences would come, no doubt; the less need of enforcing
them; better keep as clear of them as possible. Is there less
union, less strength of cohesion, in the United States than in
governments that recognize and sanction differences of rank and
quality ? Differences will exist in a church ; noble and villain ;
no criterion of professed religious experience will avail to
prevent them; the spiritual peerage is not pure in any of the
churches about us, and among those not admittted to it there
are many nobly born ; but a stronger union is probable where
no artificial division is wrought into the ecclesiastical constitu
tion.
Of course there is question of every experiment so long as
it is an experiment. Pioneering is work that calls for trust and
energy and endurance. The main question of our success is
whether we have it in us. There is going to be outward
growth enough in this city to ensure the stability of our organ
ization, if we can answer for its inward growth. We must
not be easily discouraged. We are trying to raise the religious
grade of this city, which some think is as low as the natural
level of the soil. We are a corporation to effect just that. We
want to to make healthful and clean and convenient the ways of
social and moral life for this community; to get rid of theo
logical sloughs, and to lift men out of the mud of sensuality.
It will cost us money and labor, and it will be hard to get all
♦
�[9]
we want of both, and it will take time. And to make a good
road we may have to be put to inconvenience, and the new way
for a while way seem not so pleasant as the old; and it may
have a bad odor, as of tar and asphaltum in the nostrils of some
of the community; and some of the work may be poorly done
and need to be done over again ; and those for whom we work
may be dissatisfied with our survey and our plans, and our
execution of them, and we rnay sometimes be dissatisfied
ourselves. But we are doing a good work and one which
the city will yet bless us for.
It is work we are put
into the world, into our generation, for.If we can realize
that, we shall do it cheerfully; shall not be surprised that
it grows upon us, but shall expect it to make more and
more demand upon us, and only desire that our ability and
our will may increase with our opportunities. We need some
thing more than belief in the ends we propose ; we need devo
tion to them; as in order to be a California Pioneei’ it was not
enough to believe in California, but to go there, and to go early.
If we are content to forget our own comfort and convenience
in consecration to the common good, we shall not be discour
aged, and we shall succeed.
When I say we are a pioneel’ church, I do not claim that we
are discoverers of any new or unknown country of the spirit.
We are merely taking possession of the region of religious
faith and humane work which has been heard of from the
earliest times, and where the great leaders of religion have al
ways pitched their tents. There may be truth which we have
not yet come up with even in our belief, to say nothing of our
practice. Let us always keep an open ear for that! But we
propose to camp on what seems to us the most advanced
ground; to settle down here into some sort of orderly living—to
become a religious community. There is a respectable number
of us already; we are not scattered so much as to be out of
hail of one another’s homes, and we want to make society. We
want to concentrate and organize our religious sentiment and
conviction, that they may be more efficient, may make better
way. And we invite and welcome the fellowship and assistance
of all, though we depend mainly on ourselves—on the Div ine
Spirit in us which leads into all Truth and Right if we only
follow.
��
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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A pioneer church: a sermon preached in Pioneer Hall, February 7 1869
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Brown, H.W.
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Place of publication: Sacramento
Collation: 9 p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. By Rev. H.W. Brown, minister of the First Unitarian Church of Sacramento. Printed by request.
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H.S. Crocker & Co.
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1869
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Unitarianism
Sermons
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Conway Tracts
Unitarianism
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619876693ffcff36f332e6dd3ddc8a2d
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Text
t
CHRISTIANITY A BATTLE,
NOT A DREAM.
A DISCOURSE BY MR. WENDELL PHILLIPS,
OS’
BOSTON,
At the Thirteenth Sunday Afternoon Meeting, at Horticultural Hall,
&
Boston, April 11>, 1869.
bonbon:
CHERRY & FLETCHER, 6, WARDROBE PLACE,
DOCTORS’ COMMONS, E.C.
1869.
��PREFACE.
It has been frequently remarked by many whose wisdom cannot
be doubted, that as Christianity exists one must make the most of
it. It is not for us to depict how it has passed through the earth
and been polluted. How we can make the most of it as it at present
exists is our task; and as a sample of an effort towards it I
beg to place before the public this present discourse of Mr. Wendell
Phillips.
W. F. C. S.
Lausanne, September, 1869.
��“CHRISTIANITY A BATTLE, NOT A DREAM.”
To tell the truth, the subject is one not very familiar to my
beaten path of thought, and I am present rather at the urgency
of the committee to take a share in the discussion of the topics
for which the doors were opened, than from any earnest wish of
my own. But still I should be ashamed to say, after having lived
thirty years of active life in a community stirred as ours has been
that I have not some suggestions to.offer on a topic so vital as the
one now before me. Every man who has lived thoughtfully
in the midst of the great issues that have been struggling for
attention and settlement, every man who has striven to rouse to
action the elemental forces of society and civilization which ought
to grapple with these problems, must have had his thoughts turned
often, constantly, to the nature of Christianity itself, and to the
place which it ought to hold, compared to that which it really
occupies, amid the great elements which are to mould our future.
There is a great deal of talk about Christianity as the mere re
flection of the morals and intellect of the passing age; as some
thing which may be made to take any form, assume any principle,
or direct itself against any point at the bidding of the spirit of the
current time. It is looked upon as an ephemeral result, not as
a permanent cause ; and when viewed as such, men very naturally
class it with the other religions of the world, which have all been
results, not causes—effects, not sources of action. As I look at
Christianity in its relation to absolute religion—religion, the
Science of duty to ourselves, to our fellows, and to God—as I look
at Christianity in reference to religion, I want to say at the outset
that it, for me, occupies an entirely distinct place, an entirely
�6
different level from any other of what arc called or have been
known as the religions of the world.
If you go to the East, for the last three thousand years you find
a religion the reflection of its civilization; the outgrowth of its
thought; steeped in its animal life ; dragged down by
its
animal temptations; rotted through with license, cruelty, and with
all that grows out of the abnormal relation of the body to the soul.
And the only distinctive element in this outburst of Hi n ring
religions, Buddha and Brahma too, the only redeeming point, is a
sort of exceptional intellectual life, which busied itself exclusively
with the future; which struggled to plan and shape life, and mould
it on the principle that to be like God you were to trample out all
human affection and interests, thought, duties, and relations; and
the moment you became utterly passionless, thoughtless, without
interest in aught external, you were God-like—absorbed into the
Infinite, and ready for the hereafter.
The only thing remarkable in these Asiatic religions is that
they were infinitely below the popular level of morality and intelli
gence, while the intellectual conception in them busied itself with
nothing but the future state; not in one single thought, or effort^
or plan, or method, with man as God places him on the surface of
this planet. And it was a religion so much the actual result of
the moral and intellectual life, so moonlike a reflection, that in due
time, after a century or two, society in Hindostán was infinitely
better than its religion. I know, of course, of the bright gems of
thought that glisten here and there on Hindoo sacred pages; inter
polated nobody can possibly say when; but, whether so or not, they
are exceptions to the broad, popular estimate of the religion of the
age. That was in itself so weak, so poor, so immoral, so degraded,
so animal, that any social system in Hindostán which had not been
better than its gods would have rotted out from inherent corruption,
I utterly and indignantly repudiate the supposition that in any
sense Christianity is to be grouped with the religious demonstra
tions of Asia.
If you cross the Straits and come to the fair humanities of I
ancient Greece, to the classic mythology which gave us the civiliza» I
tion of Greece, the same general truth obtains. The mythology
of the age was so literally and utterly a mere reflex of its earliest 1
�7
civilization, that the finest specimens of human life find no proto
type for the nobleness of Socrates or the integrity of Cato ? If
Athens and Rome had not been far better than Olympus, neither
empire would have survived long enough to have given us Phocion,
Demosthenes, or Cato.
Religion is the soul, of which society and civil polity are the body,
and when you bring forward the exceptional lives of thoughtful
men, living either in Greece or on the banks of the Ganges, as a
measure of the religion of their age and country, I reject it; for
I go out into the streets of both continents to ask what is the
broad result (grouping a dozen centuries together) of the great
religious force which always, in some form or other, underlies every
social development; and when I seek it either in Greece, or Asia,
or Mahomet, I find a civilization of caste, exclusively a civilization
of animal supremacy—a civilization in itself natural, not wholly
useless, but superficial, grovelling and short-lived.
In a world covered over with this religious experience, out of a
world lying in murky ignorance—except where one or two points
like Athens and some old cities of Asia towered out of it by an
intellectual life—all at once there started up a system which we
call Christianity; the outgrowth of the narrowest, and, as the
world supposed, the most degraded tribe of human beings that
occupied its surface. I am not going to touch on its doctrines,
because I do not believe that it has many doctrines. I do not
believe that out of the New Testament you can, by any torture of
ingenuity, make a creed. I do not believe that the New Testament
writers intended you should make a creed. The sneer of the infidel
is that you may get anything out of the New Testament. It is
like a napkin in the hands of a juggler. It can be made to assume
many shapes—church tower, rabbit’s head, baby’s cradle—but it is
a napkin still. When you torture the New Testament into
Calvinism, or Romanism, or Catholicism, or Universalism, or
Unitarianism, it is nothing but the New Testament after all.
There are certain great principles inherent in Christianity, as a
religious and an intellectual movement, that distinguish it from all
others, judging in two ways—either by the fair current of its
records, or by the fruit of its existence. There, are two ways of
judging Christianity: one to open its records, and the other to
�8
trace Europe and its history under the influence of Christianity.
I wish to call attention to two or three principles of Christianity
which are not included in any other religious system, and the first
is the principle of sacrifice. “ Bear ye one another’s burdens
is the cardinal principle that underlies Christianity. All other
religions allow that the strong have the right to use the weald
Like Darwin’s principle of philosophy, the best, the strongest, the
educated, the powerful, have the right to have the world to
themselves, and to absorb the less privileged in their enjoyable
career. Carlyle represents that element in modern literature.
Christianity ignores it in its central principle. Wealth, health,
and knowledge are a trust. “If any man be chief among you let
him be your servant.” If you know anything communicate it.
Whatever you hold it is not yours. See that you make your
self the servant of the weakness of your age.
God in his providence, to which Christ gave us the key, is th®
mover of the ages, and has always been dragging down the great
and lifting up the poor; and Christianity was the first testimony
of religion w'hich recognised the decree of Providence that the
greater is the servant of the lesser.
Again, Christianity endeavours to reform the world by ideas.
There is not such another attempt in the history of the race.
There is nowhere a single religious leader that ever said, “ I will re
model the world, and I will re-model it by thought.” • Christianity
not only trusts itself to the mind, to the supremacy of the soul, bull
it is aggressive on that line. It not only says, with every thought
ful man, the mind is stronger than the body, but the Saviour says,
“ Go out and. preach the gospel to every creature.” The great
agitator of the centuries is Jesus Christ of Jerusalem, who under
took to found his power on an idea, and at the same time
announce his faith and to teach his disciples “ This idea shall remould the world.” No other religion has attempted it; no other
religious leader has proclaimed any such purpose, plan, or faith.
Christianity has another element that distinguishes it from all
religions. It does not appeal to education; it does not appeal to
caste; it does not appeal to culture and the disciplined mind—in
this century or any other. To the poor the gospel is preached.
Christianity did not condescend to the lowest ignorance; it selected
�9
the lowest ignorance as the depositary of its trust. Some one has
said, 11 Christianity is the highest wisdom condescending to the
lowest ignorance.” That is an insufficient statement.
Christ
entrusted his gospel to the poor—to the common sense of the race
—to the instincts of human nature. He turned away from sanhe
drim and school; from Pharisee, who represented observance, and
Sadducee, who personated sceptical inquiry, and called to his side
the unlearned; planted the seeds of his empire in the masses; no
caste, no college, no ilinside” clique of adepts, and no “outside”
herd of dupes. Christ proclaims spiritual equality and brotherhood.
You see in the Bible that the Saviour was considered a babbler,
B disorganiser, a pestilent fellow, a stirrer-up of sedition. All the
names that have been bestowed on men that ever came to turn the
world upside down were heaped upon that leader of Christianity in
the streets of Jerusalem. If he should come to-day into these
streets as he stood up in the corners of the streets of Jerusalem
and arraigned the church and state of his day, he would be denied
and crucified exactly as he was in the streets of Jerusalem 1800
years ago. This is a most singular and unique characteristic of
Christianity. It did not affect the schools; did not ask the en
dorsement of the Academy of Plato; it went to the people; it
trusted the human race. It said, “ I am as immortal as man. I
accept human nature, and the evidence of my divinity will be that
every successive development of a fact of human nature will come
back here and find its key.” Christianity says, “I leave my record
with the instincts of the race. The accumulating evidence of my
divine mission shall be that nowhere can the race travel, under no
climate, in the midst of no circumstances can it develop anything,
of which I have not offered beforehand the explanation and the
key.”
The fourth element peculiar to Christianity is its ideal of woman.
In all civilization, as in every individual case—in all times, as well
as in all men—-this rule holds. The level of a man’s spiritual life,
and the spiritual life of an age, is exactly this—its ideal of a
woman. No matter where you test society, what is its intellectual
or moral development, the idea that it has held of woman is the
measure and the test of the progress it has made. The black
woman in the South holds in her hands to-day the social recon
�10
struction of half the Union. The black man of the South holds
its material and its industrial future. Its spiritual and moral
possibility lies in the place which woman shall compel her fellow- .
beings to accord her in their ideas of the future. So wherever
you go—into Asia or Greece—the idea that each religion held of
woman is a test of its absolute spiritual truth and life. Christianity
is the only religion that ever accorded to woman her true place in
the Providence of God. It was exceptional; it was antagonistic I
to the whole spirit of the age. The elements I have named ar©
those which distinguish Christianity.
Is Christianity an inspired faith or not? Shakespeare and
Plato tower above the intellectual level of their times like the
peaks of Teneriffe and Mont Blanc. We look at them, and it
seems impossible to measure the interval that separates them from
the intellectual development around them. But if this Jewish boy
in that era of the world, in Palestine, with the Ganges on one side
of him and the Olympus of Athens on the other, ever produced a
religion with these four elements, he towers so far above Shake
speare and Plato that the difference between Shakespeare and
Plato and their times in the comparison becomes an imperceptible
wrinkle on the surface of the earth. I think it a greater credulity
to believe that there ever was a man so much superior to Athene
and to England as this Jewish youth was, if he was a mere man,
than it is to believe that in the fulness of time a higher wisdom
than was ever vouchsafed to a human being undertook to tell the»
human race the secret by which it could lift itself to a higher plan®
of moral and intellectual existence. I have weighed Christianity
as the great vital and elemental force which underlies Europe, to ‘
which we are indebted for European civilization. I have en- '
deavoured to measure its strength, to estimate its permanence, to
analyse its elements; and if they ever came from the unassisted
brain of one uneducated Jew, while Shakespeare is' admirable, and
Plato is admirable, and Goethe is admirable, this Jewish boy take»
a higher level: he is marvellous, wonderful; he is in himself a
miracle. The miracles he wrought are nothing to the miracle he
was, if at that era and in that condition of the world he invented
Christianity. Whately says, “ To disbelieve is to believe.” I
cannot be so credulous as to believe that any mere man invented
�11
Christianity. Until you show me some loving heart that has felt
more profoundly, some strong brain that, even with the aid of his
example, has thought further, and added something important to
religion, I must still use my common sense and say, Ao man did
all this. I know Buddah’s protest, and what he is said to have
tried to do. To all that my answer is, India past and present. In
testing ideas and elemental forces, if you give them centuries to
work in, success is the only criterion. “By their fruits” is an in
spired rule, not yet half understood and appreciated.
Our religion was never at peace with its age. Ours is the only
faith whose first teacher and eleven out of the twelve original
disciples died martyrs to their ideas. There is no other faith
whose first teacher was not cherished and deified. The proof that
some mighty power took possession of this Jewish mind, and lifted
it above and flung it against its age, is that he himself and eleven
of his twelve disciples forfeited, to the age, their lives for the
message they brought.
I put aside all the tenets of the Sermon on the Mount—the
fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man; all the gleams which
the noblest intellects of the classic and Asiatic world had un
doubtedly of the truth. That was not it. A man who says that
Christianity is but the outgrowth of a human intellect, must ex
plain to me Europe as she stands to-day—the intelligence, morality
and civilization of Europe as compared with the Asiatic civiliza
tion which has died out. Asiatic civilization failed from no lack
of intellectual vigour or development. Tocqueville showed us that
all the social problems and questions that agitate Europe and
America to-day were debated to rags in Hindostan ages ago.
Every one knows that Saracen Spain outshone all the rest of
Europe for three or four centuries. The force wanting was a
spiritual one. Body and brain without soul, Asia rotted away.
From Confucius to Cicero there is light enough, but no heat.
If this is the essence of Christianity, what is our duty in view
of it? A large proportion of the men who discuss radical religion,
as well as othodox religionists, mistake the essence of Christianity
for speculation. We have an immense amount of speculation as
to the nature of God, the soul’s relation to God, the essence of the
soul, the inspiration of the scriptures, the nature of sin, and the
t
�12
characteristics of another state. . It seems to me that most of that
is dream and reverie. The marvel of the New Testament is that
when you read it through only about one line in foui' touches upon
any such problems. There is very little of it there. Christianity
did not attempt to teach us any of these metaphysics. The
glimpses it gave us of it were all accidental and indirect in passing
along. All through the New Testament it is not the future life
and the essence of the soul that are dwelt upon, it is the problems
that make up the society of to-day. Open your New Testament'
and you will be surprised to find the comparative, the relative,
amount that there is on one topic to what there is on the otherI think that while bishops were discussing the metaphysics of the
soul, and German theologians were dividing brains, Christianity
was writing its record by the pen of Beccaria, when he taught
Europe a better system of penal laws. I remember, of course, the
duty and value of prayer, the place devotion has, and the need all
human nature has for meditation and self-culture. John Augustus
kneeling at a Cathedral shrine would have been a Christian sight.
But John Augustus in the Courts, saving drunkards from the
shame and temptation and debasement of our jails, was a more
Christ-like one. Viewed broadly, and noting the distinctive
nature of Christianity, when Voltaire thundered across Europe in
defence of Calas, struggling for rational religion, he was nearer
to the heart of Christ than Jeremy Taylor when he wrote his
eloquent and most religious essay, “ Holy Living and Dying.”
Bating some human imperffection, trampling under foot his per
sonal vices, and remembering only his large service to his race,
when even that name of all names which the Christian has been
taught to hate—when Thomas Paine went into the other world he
was much more likely to be received with “Well done, good and
faithful servant,” than many a bishop who died under an English
mitre.
There are two classes of philanthropy : one alleviates and the
other cures. There is one class of philanthropy that undertakes
when a man commits an evil to help him out cf it. ■ There is
another class that endeavours to abolish the temptation. The
first is sentiment, the last is Christianity.
The religion of to-day has too many pulpits. Men say we have
�13
not churches enough. We have top many. Two hundred thousand
men in New York never enter a church. There is not room.
Thank God for that! If there are two hundred thousand Christian
men in New York that cannot get into church, all the better.
They do not need to enter. Christianity never intended the
pulpit in the guise in which we have it. In yonder college do they
keep boys for seventy years on their hands, lecturing to them on
science? When Agassiz has taught his pupils fully, he sends
them out to learn by practice. Of these fifty or sixty pulpits in
this city we don’t need more than ten or twenty. They will
accommodate all who should hear preaching. The rest should
be in the State Prison talking to the inmates; they should be in
North Street labouring there amongst the poor and depraved.
Their worship should be putting their gifts to use, not sitting
down and hearing for a hundredth time a repetition of arguments
against theft. There will never be any practical Christianity
until we cease to teach it, and let men begin to learn by practice.
You never saw a Quaker pauper, because the moment a member
begins to fail, the better influences surround and besiege him, help
him over the shallows, strengthen his purpose, watch his steps,
hold up the weary hands and feeble knees, and see to it that he
never falls so low as to be pauper. Break down these narrow
Quaker walls, and let your Christianity model a world on the finer
elements of that sect.
I would not have so many pulpits. “ I’m not going to inflict a
sermon on you,” says your generously considerate friend. What a
testimony! You should go to church when you absolutely need a
message. You should go as the old Christian did, who went to
pray and then off to his work. The existence of a poor class in
a Christian community is an evidence that it is not a Christian
community. There ought to be no permanently poor class in a
Christian community. “Bear ye one another’s burdens.” Who
shall so slander society as to say that there is not enough wealth
to lift up its poverty ? We never look at our duty in this respect.
Christianity goes round amid the institutions of the world and
stamps each as sin. Fashion cries no; wealth says it shall not
be; and churches work to prevent it. But by-and-by the whole
crashes down. Christianity marked slavery as sin one hundred
�14
years ago. You may go to England and find blue-books that
might be piled as high as Bunker’s Hill, which were written by in
telligent committees set to inquire whether it is safe to do right»
The principle of truth was there carried out, however, and cul
minated with Wilberforce as he carried up eight hundred thousand
broken fetters to God.
[Mr. Phillips here read an extract of an article published in one
of the most religious of the daily papers in 1861, in which it was
stated that the struggle between the North and the South might
go on with such bitterness that we should be obliged to emancipate
the slaves. The article said “the ordeal was one in which hypo
critical philanthropists and bigoted religionists might exult, but
from which genuine Christianity would pray most earnestly that
the nation might be saved.”]
Every man in political life now will say that he knew for years
that slavery was wrong, but he didn’t think it best to say so.
Christianity says, “ Whatever God tells you, don’t look back to
see if there is a man standing on your level who cannot see it;
walk forward and tell what God has told you.” Christianity does
not reside in metaphysics. You won’t find it in some of the most
brilliant articles of the Radical, or in the stern creed of Andover.
But you will find it in the Peace Society, the temperance organiza
tion, in prison discipline, in anti-slavery, in women’s rights, and
in the eight-hour movement. Some may smile at that, but the
man who recognizes the right of every labouring man, and shows
that he knows he has a soul, is nearer Christianity than he who
can discuss all the points of the Godhead, live he either at Concord
or anywhere else. But there is more real, essential Christianity
at Concord than sleeps under a score of steeples.
In my recent argument before the legislative committee on the
labour question I endeavoured to show that the working men
should have better opportunities to improve themselves physically,
morally, and spiritually, with the aid of more leisure, and thus
secure a better civilization ; but the only consideration that could
be expected to have weight with the committee was this: You
must show that a man can do as much work in eight as he can in
ten hours.
At New York, in a recent speech before an audience of three
�15
thousand people, I alluded to the Governor’s argument that
alcohol was “ food,” and had nutritive properties as well as beef.
Without consulting authorities, if alcohol was food, and any one
would prove to me that beef caused two-thirds of the pauperism
and crime in the community, then I demanded the prohibition of
beef. One-half of the audience started at the fanaticism, and even
the platform trembled at the audacity of such a claim. But
Paul, the ever blessed fanatic and agitator, once said, “ [f meat
rnaketh my brother to offend I will eat no flesh while the world
standeth.”
I believe in the regeneration of the world through Christianity,
and that we are in a transition state. Christianity is moving for
ward to fresh triumphs, but there never will be a union of thought.
You never can get the Methodist to stand side-by-side with the
Calvinist, and the conservative and the radical to read the New
Testament in the light of the same interpretation. It is a purpose
and an opportunity, not a creed, that will unite Christianity ; a
benevolent movement, not an intellectual effort, that will ever
make a seamless garment of the Christian church. If John Stuart
Mill, who rejects the four Gospels, shall agitate Europe, so that
working men shall be lifted from the pit they now occupy (a pit
which is worse than any hell Calvin ever imagined), then I would
say that Lord Shaftesbury is a dreamer, and John Stuart Mill the
apostolic successor of St.- Paul. “ By their fruits ye shall know
them,” said the Master. Wherever a chain is broken, wherever a
ray of light is admitted, wherever a noble purpose is struggling,
wherever an obstacle is removed, there is Christianity.
There may be mummies hidden in the churches—metaphysicians
dividing the truth according to the north or north-western side of
a hair; but they will never be crucified; never have the Pharisees’
and Sadducees’ feeling that their time is come; they will never
have the devils of their age asking to be sent into the swine. We
don’t know Jesus, and no man would know him if he came to-day.
We imagine that he was a respectable, sentimental, decorous,
moderate, careful, conservative element, who took a hall, and was
decently surrounded. He was the sedition of the streets. He
said to wealth, “ You’re robbery,” and Christendom stood aghast.
He said to Judah, “You are a tyranny.” He arraigned unjust
�16
power at its own feet. If a man does so now we send him to the
Coventry of public contempt, or the house of correction. But that
is where Christianity goes. That is the way it entered the world,
and that is the way it grapples the world to-day. As the old
Italian said in 1554, “ There has not a Christian died in his bed
for two hundred years.” There will never be a Christian die in his
bed in the sense in which he meant it. The distinctive representa
tive, the typical, advanced Christian of his age will never die in a
respectable bed, because the society of to-day, though growing out
of a Christian subsoil, struggles yet to defy its master.
I have endeavoured to show the wise men at the State House
that they were gravitating toward the despotism of incorporated
wealth. I showed them that in a republican community you could
not afford to have half the individuality of the masses taken awayj
because you would have no basis for our form of government to
rest upon. I did not dare to say to that Legislature, “ God gives to
you the keeping, annually, of so many hundred thousand souls, and
whether they are good voters or trustworthy citizens is a secondary
matter. You should make these streets safe for immortal souls to
grow up in.” And yet that Legislature is better than a church, for
it says there shall be no distinction of colour. It don’t know caste.
But when you go down to the old South church you find it has taken
a leaf out of Hindostan, and has black men in one place and white
men in another. This is church; the other is Christianity.
I have impressed this fact: Christianity is a divine force; it is
the force to which we owe Europe. It is the key that unlocks the
government, the society, the literature of Europe. It unfolds to you
the goal to which we are all hastening, but you must not seek for
it in the religious organizations. You must seek for it in repre
sentative and organized systems which undertake to hold its essence.
The church as a milestone shows how far morals have travelled up
to that moment. The moment it is found it is useless. It is like the
bulwarks of Holland, good when the waters are outside, but all the
worse when the waters are inside to keep them in. The pioneer
goes through the forest girdling the trees as he moves, and five
years after these trees are dead lumber. So Christianity goes
through society dooming now this institution and now that custom
as sinful,—soon they die. Look back forty years. Christianity
�17
branded slavery as sin. Wealth laughed scornfully at the fanati
cism. Fashion swept haughtily past in her pride. The State
thought to smother the protest by statutes. The church clasped
hands and blessed the plot. But a printer’s boy yielded himself to
the sublime inspiration; gave life to the martyrdom of the message;
and when his hand struck off three million of fetters, the church
said, “ Yes, I did it, for did I not always say, ‘There was no bond
in Christ Jesus?’” Yes, you did. But when to take that terrible
protest from your treasure-house and flare it in the face of an
■angry nation was grave peril and cruel sacrifice, you hid it! You
always had the truth; your only lack was life to believe and courage
to apply it. The question that lies beyond, and has for thirty
years, is the question of race. We lifted races on to a dead level,
and the church said, “Didn’t I tell you God hath made of one
blood all the nations of the earth?” And we all said: “Yes, you
did. The trouble was that when it was crucifixion to apply it you
could not see it.”
The thing that lies beyond is sex. Will you crush woman out
of her opportunities ? The church says “ Yes.” But the age travels
on, and by-and-by she will take her place side-by -side with man in
politics as she does in society, and then the church will say,
i4Didn’t I tell you so ? There is neither male nor female in Christ.”
Thon we shall say: “Yes you did: but when it was vulgar and
unpopular and isolated to apply it, you were not there.” And
beyond that lies the darkened chamber of the labourer, who only rises
f» toil and lies down to rest. It is lighted by no hope, mellowed by no
comfort; looks into gardens it created, and up to wealth which it
has garnered, and has no pleasure thence; looks down into its
cradle—there is no hope; and Stuart Mill says to the church,
“ Come and claim for labour its great share in civilization and its
products;” the bench of bishops say, “Let us have a charity
school;” Episcopacy says, “We will print a primer;” the dissent
ing interest says, “We will have cheap soup-houses;” Lord
Shaftesbury says, “We will have May-day pastimes;” and gaunt
labour says, “I don’t ask pity, I ask for justice. In the name of
the Christian brotherhood I ask for justice.” And the church
quietly hides itself behind its prayer-book, and the great vital
force underneath bears us onward, till by-and-by through th,e ballot,
�18
by the power of selfish interest, by the combination of necessity,
labour will clutch its rights, and the church will say, “ So, I did it!”
You have no right to luxuriate. If you are Christian men you
should sell your sword and garments, go into your neighbor’s house
and start a public opinion and rouse and educate the masses.
One soul with an idea out-weighs ninety-nine men moved only by
interest. Though they are powerful obstacles in our pathway
they will be permeated by the idea we advocate, as was Caesar’s
palace by the weeds nurtured by an Italian summer. It was
supposed that nothing less than an earthquake that would shake
the seven hills could disturb the solid walls; but the tiny weeds of
an Italian summer struck root between them and tossed the huge
blocks of granite into shapeless ruins. So must inevitably our
ideas—the only living forces—for a while overawed by marble, and
gold, and iron, and organization—heave all to ruin and rebuild
on a finer model.
Cherry & Fletcher, Printers, 6, Wardrobe Place, Doctors’ Commons E.C.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Christianity a battle, not a dream: a discourse
Creator
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Phillips, Wendell
Description
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 18 p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Delivered at the Sunday afternoon meeting at Horticultural Hall, Boston, April 11,1869.
Publisher
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Cherry & Fletcher
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1869
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G5298
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Christianity
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CONTEMPORARY WARS.
(1853-1866.)
STATISTICAL RESEARCHES RESPECTING THE LOSS OF
MEN AND MONEY INVOLVED IN THEM.
BY
PAUL LEROY BEAULIEU.
LAURÉAT DE L’INSTITUT.
From the French Edition issued in the “ Peace Library ” of the Paris
“ International League of Peace.”
TRANSLATED AND REPUBLISHED BY THE
LONDON PEACE.
SOCIETY,
19, NEW BROAD STREET, E.C.
1869.
PRICE FOURPENCE.
�LONDON :
R. BARRETT AND SONS, PRINTERS
MARK LANE.
�PREFACE.
The London Peace Society has been engaged for
more than fifty years in endeavouring to create a public
opinion in this and other countries against War and
warlike armaments, and in favour of settling inter
national differences by Arbitration instead of an appeal
to the sword. In the United States there has been a
similar association in existence for about the same
period. But in Europe the English Peace Society has,
during the larger part of that time, been the only
organised body working for that object. Of late, how
ever, there has been a very earnest movement in the
same direction on the Continent, which has given rise
to several societies who are labouring in various ways
for substantially the same ends. One of the most im
portant of these is the International League of Peace,
not to be confounded with another association, with a
somewhat similar title, which originated in the Geneva
Congress of 1867.
The League was founded mainly by the indefatigable
exertions of M. Frederic Passy, and numbers among its
supporters many distinguished persons, not only in
France, but in Germany, Italy, Belgium, and other
continental countries. Among other modes of operation
B
�2
PREFACE.
it is issuing from the press, under the general title of
Bibliothèque de la Paix, a series of small volumes,
admirably adapted for popular instruction. Eight or
nine such volumes have been already published. One
of the most valuable of these is Les Guerres Contem
poraines, by M. Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, a translation of
which is here presented to the English reader. It is, as
will be seen, a work of great labour and research, and so
careful has the author been not to exaggerate, that he
has in several instances very much understated the
cost in blood and money of the wars in which Europe
has been engaged within the last sixteen years. These
pages must surely be regarded as presenting a melan
choly illustration of the civilisation and Christianity of
the nineteenth century.
�CONTEMPORARY AVARS.
The important legislative debates which for some weeks
have kept the country in a state of suspicion and uneasi
ness, and imbued the public mind with the most painful
apprehensions, have imparted to all the circumstances of
contemporary wars a prominent reality and interest.
Questions of military statistics, which were previously only
interesting to a few persons, have suddenly acquired., in the
estimation of all, an incontestable importance.
Hence we do not shrink from presenting to our readers
a work bristling with figures and facts. We have deter
mined to indicate, with the utmost possible exactness, the
material losses, both of money and of men, involved in the
great wars which have afflicted mankind from 1853 to 1866,
and which constitute, to use the graphic expression of one
of our Deputies, the bill of cost of each war.
The ground upon which we are about to enter has not
been thoroughly explored hitherto. The material losses
comprise the losses of men and money—the losses of men
are enumerated in the official statistics, and the losses of
money are set forth in the respective budgets.
A minute exactness is often difficult to attain. There is
an abundance of official documents respecting the loss of men,
but they are sometimes contradictory ; the greater part of
them are issued too soon after the war, and this precipitancy
is a cause of much inaccuracy. As regards the two great
wars in the Crimea and in the United ¡States, and also as to
the Schleswig War, so far at least as Prussia is concerned, we
have been enabled to attain complete precision. For these
wars have been described in large and comprehensive histo
ries, in which the losses have been studied, enumerated, and
classified, systematically and scientifically. The official re
�4
ports of the Crimean War presented to the British Parlia
ment, the remarkable book of Dr. Chenu, the various memo
rials composing “ the Medical and Chirurgical History of the
American Rebellion,” the very recent publication by Dr.
La?ffleur on the “ Schleswig Campaign,” are works of scien
tific exactness. Unfortunately the documents respecting
other wars neither possess similar value nor authority.
As regards finances, we have also met with some embar
rassing difficulties. There is a means of calculating financial
losses, which is in vogue with our statesmen, and which has
met with general favour—it is to add together the various
loans contracted on account of war, and to take the sum of
these different loans for the amount of the expenses of the
war. Nothing is more simple, but nothing is less exact.
In fact, it often happens that sums of money borrowed in
view of a war are only partially expended upon such war.
Thus, the loan contracted in 1859 by France was not
entirely absorbed by the Italian War, and the considerable
portion which was not required by the war was diverted by
a special law to works of public utility. Further, it often
happens that the sum of the loans is very far from being
equivalent to the sum of the expenses of a war. It is neces
sary to take cognisance of the revival of old imposts, or of
the establishment of new taxes, of the use of extraordinary
resources, and of important sums which may have been pro
cured by the reduction of civil expenses, or bv the transfer
of accounts. Thus, the expenses of England for the Crimean
War were four times greater than the loans which she con
tracted during that struggle.
The only rational means of arriving at moderate precision
is to study carefully the war budgets during the contest,
and to compare these with those of the preceding period of
peace. In order to do this, we must know what the budgets
are. But there are States which have none, or, rather,
which had none. Thus, the expenses of Russia during the
Crimean War will always be difficult to calculate, notwith
standing the able researches of MM. Leon Faucher and
Wolowski. It also happens that, certain wars being very
recent, we do not possess their complete budgets, or returns,
of expenditure. In some countries these returns take a long
time in their completion. We know that it was only in the
�5
session of 1867 that the French Legislative body voted the
law to sanction the financial returns of 1863.
And even when we have been enabled to determine with
precision the total expenses of war to the belligerent
countries, we are still far from the knowledge of all the
expenses, even the public ones, which the war has involved.
We must also study the budgets of neutral nations, for
war in our day has this particular feature, that it strikes a
blow at the finances even of neutral nations, and forces
them into an attitude of anxiety, which involves large
armaments. Again, in some countries, we must extend our
researches still further. Any one who should only estimate
as the expenses of the Northern States of America during
the Secession War, the expense they incurred as members of
the Union, without taking account of those incurred by the
separate states and districts, as such, in their preliminary
outlay upon the volunteers, and their equipment of every
kind, must acknowledge that he has not arrived at the total,
and that his estimate would be incomplete. And this is
not all. There are some countries, both primitive and
advanced, where the initiative efforts of individuals are on a
large scale, and where the private contributions towards war
are a very important accompaniment of the public expense.
The gifts furnished to the Czar by the Russian aristocracv,
and all that English and American patriotism so largely
contributed as offerings, equipments, or supplies, should
also be taken account of. As regards Russia, or England,
these private contributions mount up to a hundred million
francs ; and as regards America, to a thousand millions.
And at length, when we have made all these calculations,
shall we then have accomplished our task ? By no means !
All the private losses, the ravage of the lands, the spoiling
of crops; in case of siege or maritime war, the ruin of
cities and the destruction of shipping ; all these losses,
impossible to be estimated, must be always kept in view,
although they cannot be calculated. And even this is not
the whole. Eor by the side of these losses, which we
may term positive ones, and which consist in the material
destruction of acquired wealth, we must take account of the
losses which we may term negative, and which are involved
in the stagnation of business, the dulness of commerce,
�6
and the stoppage of industry. All these ruinous effects,
which the curse of war accumulates, escape our statistics;
but they are not the least part of that curse.
The Crimean War.
Loss of Life.
The Crimean War is the most murderous of those Euro
pean wars of which the calamities have been scientifically
calculated with some degree of precision.
In the estimate of the loss of men, we shall chiefly take
for our guide the report of Dr. Chenu to the Army Board
of Health. This valuable document possesses the double
merit of being official and scientific; it emanates, in fact,
from the Ministry of War, and it obtained from the Aca
demy of Sciences the grand prize for Statistics.
The French army had to struggle against three great
dangers—the cholera, the enemy’s fire, and the scurvy. In
the month of September, 1854, our army had not yet seen
the enemy, but it had already lost 8,084 men, chiefly through
cholera.—(Dr. Chenu, p. 622.) Throughout the campaign
disease carried off four times as many victims as the Russian
fire. Here is the exact state of the losses of the French
army as given by Dr. Chenu :—
Received into
Ambulances or
Hospitals.
Various diseases and cholera, from
April 1 to Sep. 20, 1854 ... ... 18,073
Ambulances in the Crimea and
Hospitals at a distance from
Constantinople .......................... 221,225
Hospitals at Constantinople.......... 162,029
Killed by the enemy, ormissing...
—
Died without entering ambulances
or hospitals....................................
—
Loss of the ¿JèmiWante ;—
1. Troops on board .............
—
2. Marines.............................
—
Coast infirmary and naval hos
pitals .......................................... 34,817
Killed
or
Dead.
...
8,084
...
...
•••
29,095
27,281
10,240
•••
4,342
•••
•••
394
308
...
846
�7
Killed
or
Dead.
Received into
Ambulances or
Hospitals.
Died in France in consequence of
diseases and wounds contracted
during the war, up to 31st Dec.,
1857 ........................................
Total
—
... 436,144
...
15,025
95,615
Thus, according to Dr. Chenu’s calculation, which cannot
be refuted, France lost 95,615 men in the Crimean War;
the number of men whom she had sent to the East at differ
ent periods of the struggle form a total of 309,268 ; hence
we see that the number of dead are, to those sent out,
nearly in the proportion of 1 to 3. It is interesting to in
vestigate the causes of this mortality. The preceding table
indicates that only 10,240 men were killed by the enemy;
the number of those who sunk in consequence of their
wounds was not much greater; there remains, then, about
75,000 men who died of cholera, of scurvy, or of other dis
eases. We have seen that the cholera carried off, during
the first four months of the expedition, on Turkish territory,
8,084 men ; and, according to the estimate of M. Jacquot,
the mortality attributable to scurvy comprehended one-third
of the total loss. The 20,000 men who died on the field of
battle, or in consequence of their wounds, had at least
obtained a speedy death, accompanied by innumerable glo
rious associations. But these 75,000 victims of cholera, of
typhus, and of hospital corruption, were obliged to undergo
all the delays, all the sufferings and miseries of a death of
unmitigated horror.
We are bound to make this distinction between the dis
eased and the wounded, for the amount of the calamities of
war can only be really understood when we take a correct
account of the sufferings of those unnoticed multitudes
slowly and needlessly consumed by disease.
If 95,615 Frenchmen were carried off* by death, are we to
believe that this is the limit of our losses ? Are we to
believe that the 214,000 soldiers who escaped death in this
disastrous expedition, returned to France in the same con
dition in which they left it ? Are we to believe that those
30,000 wounded men, whose wounds were not mortal, those
�8
10,000 cholera patients who were discharged from the
Turkish hospitals, and all those unfortunate beings tainted
and emaciated by scurvy, dysentery, and many other fright
ful diseases, brought back to France, to agriculture, to in
dustry, or to national service, the strength of which they
had been deprived ? Are we to believe that amongst the
214,000 survivors, who have spent so many days in hospitals,
there are not a great proportion—a quarter, at the lowest
estimate, probably a third, and perhaps a half—whose health
will always remain enfeebled, shattered, and prone to re
lapse ? What an enormous and incalculable loss of strength !
Here follow the losses of the English army :—
Received into
Ambulances or
Hospitals.
Wounded................................. ... 18,283
Died in hospitals in consequence of
wounds.................................
Killed on the field of battle ...
—
Fever patients and otherwise
diseased
......... ’.............. . ... 144,410
—
Died in hospital ................ .........
Died at sea or elsewhere
. ...
—
Total
.................. 162,693
Killed
or
Dead.
—
1,846
2,756
..
—
16,298
1,282
...
22,182
The effective force first despatched was 97,804 men ;
hence the mortality was about one-fourth. The immense
superiority of the sanitary service and of the general ma
nagement during the second part of the campaign, explains
why the mortality was relatively less in the English than in
the French army.
The aggregate losses of Piedmont, out of an effective
force of 12,000 men, were, according to Dr. Chenu—
Killed by the enemy................................................
Died in consequence of wounds
.........................
Died of various diseases in the Crimea..................
Died in the hospitals of the Bosphorus..................
Died subsequently in Piedmont .........................
Total
...........................
12
16
1,720
446
1
2,194
Here, again, is a mortality of 18 per cent., although the
�9
Piedmontese army, as is implied by the return of the killed,
took no active part in the siege.
The losses of the Turks and Russians can only be conjecturally ascertained. Dr. Chenu estimates at 10,000 the
number of Turks who perished by the fire of the enemy
before Sebastopol, and during the bloody campaign of Wal
lachia and of the Danube: he places at 25,000 the number
of Turks who died of disease.
Ä3 to the Russians, he believes that 30,000 must have
been killed on the battle-fields of Turkey and the Crimea:
he computes at 600,000 the number of Russian soldiers who
died of disease and fatigue. This computation may, at first
glance, appear exaggerated, but a little reflection shows
that it is founded upon legitimate reasoning. In the first
place it is necessary to take notice of the considerable levies
called out in Russia during the war. Instead of taking for
soldiers 7 serfs out of every thousand, as had been the prac
tice, there were in 1854 two levies, each ot 12 serfs per
thousand. It was the same in 1865. Thus, in these two
years there were raised 48 serfs per thousand instead of 14,
which was the normal number ; that is to say, there were
withdrawn from tillage three and a half times as many men
as in preceding years. In an empire so vast as Russia,
conscriptions, which in two years take 5 per cent, of the
number of serfs, furnish an enormous effective force, and
indicate at the same time the magnitude of the losses.
It must be remembered that the greatest part of these
recruits, in order to reach Sebastopol from the provinces,
whether central, northern, eastern, or western, had to march
three, four, or five hundred leagues across impoverished
districts and where roads are few. Account must also be
taken of the experience of Russia in preceding wars. One
of the most distinguished major officers of our time, the
Baron de Moltke, has written a remarkable monograph of
the war -with Turkey in 1828-29 (“ Der Russische Türkische
Feldzug in der Europäischen Türkei, 1828-29, dargestellt
durch Freiherr von Moltke”).
In six months, says Baron Moltke, from May, 1828, to
February, 1829, the Russian army, of which the effective
force did not exceed 100,000 men, numbered in ambulances
and hospitals 210,108 cases of disease, which was an
�30
average of two illnesses per man within six months, whilst
in the French army in the Crimea, during two years, there
were only 150 cases per 100 men. Major Moltke adds that
during the first campaign alone the Kussian army lost the
half of its effective force. In May, 1829, 1,000 men per
week entered the hospitals ; in July 40,000 men, nearly half
of the effective force, were in hospital; in five months from
March to July, 1829, 28,746 died of disease! The mor
tality increased during the following months, and Major
Moltke estimates at 60,000 the number of .Russians who
died of disease during this short campaign, out of an effec
tive force amounting to 100,000 men ! He adds that only
15,000 soldiers were able to recross the Pruth and that
the Kussian army was almost annihilated by disease.
In the absence of the precise statistics, which are not
obtainable, relative to the Kussian losses in the war of
1853-56, we have thought it appropriate to refer to the
above statistics borrowed from a standard work by one of
the most able and esteemed writers of the day. They will
furnish a base for comparison and justify the calculation
given by Dr. Chenu.
These enormous losses are usual in the Kussian armies.
Those of the Polish campaign in 1831, or of the Hungarian
campaign in 1849, were relatively quite as great. It is
said that the army of the Caucasus loses 20,000 men per
year, and it is estimated that the Kussian losses in the
Caucasus since the beginning of the contest with the Cir
cassian tribes, has been nearly 500,000 men !—{Quarterly
lie view, March 1854.) According to the admission of an
enthusiastic partisan of Kussia, Baron d’Haxthausen, half
the recruits formerly died of exhaustion, disease, and
debility, and this mortality is probably still nearly one
third. All these statements, borrowed from one of the
most valuable military monographs of our time, the book of
Baron Moltke, and from a work pervaded by Russomania,
that of Baron d’Haxthausen, are sufficient to warrant the
estimate of Dr. Chenu, that 630,000 Russians were cut off
by the Crimean War.
He then gives us the following general table of the losses
sustained by the whole of the armies brought into the field
during the war (Chenu, p. 617) :—
�11
Year.
Killed.
Died of Wound s
or Disease.
Total.
French Army...
1854-56 . . 10,240 85,375 95,615
English Army...
19,427 22,182
55
• . 2,755
Piedmontese Army 1855-56
12
2,182
2,194
Turkish Army... 1853-56 . . 10,000 25,000 35,000
Russian Army...
. 30,000 600,000 630,000
>>
Total Deaths ..........
53,007 731,984 784,991
Hence the Eastern War must have devoured nearly eight
hundred thousand men 1
Loss or Money in the Crimean War.
1. The Allies.—The loss of capital in the Crimean War
was not less enormous than the loss of life.
England had at the head of her finances when the war
broke out, a celebrated man whose reputation has increased
subsequently—Mr. Gladstone.
This financial economist
wished to meet the expenses of the war by increased tax
ation ; and taxes were actually imposed to an incredible
extent; but it, nevertheless, became necessary to have
recourse to a loan; just as in Erance where our financiers
had pronounced in favour of a loan, it was not the less
necessary, eventually, to have recourse to taxation, so
greatly did the costs of the war exceed all anticipation.
The following is the abstract of the English budgets from
1853 to 1857
Civil Service.
Army.
Navy.
1853 ............ £7,044,321 ... £9,685,079 ... £6,640,596
1854 ............ 7,638,650 ... 12,397,273 ... 12,182,769
1855 ............ 8,435,832 ... 29,377,349 ... 19,014,708
1856 ............ 8,392,622 ... 25,049,825 ... 16,013,995
1857 ............ 9,839,325 ... 15,107,249 ... 10,390,000
The budget of 1853 may be considered the normal budget
of the time of peace ; it is, however, greater than most
preceding budgets. If we add to it the four war budgets
from 1854, the year in which the war began, to 1857,
the year in which the last expenses were incurred, we find
a total of £81,931,690! Four budgets of army expenses
equal to that of 1853 would only amount to £38,740,316.
Hence, in this department alone, the Eastern War cost
�12
England £43,191,380. The same operation with the naval
department proves that the addition here is £31,039,088.
The extra charge for the two united services gives a sum
total of £74,230,468, or 1,855,761,700 francs: the total
expense which, the Eastern Expedition imposed upon
England !
To furnish these extraordinary costs, and to procure this
£71,230,468, England made unprecedented efforts. Her
taxation was increased in an incredible proportion. The
following are examples of this great increase. The tax on
brandy which had been 7s. lOd. in England, 3s. 8d. in Scot
land, and only 2s. 8d. in Ireland, was increased by succes
sive stages to 8s. in the three kingdoms ; it was then more
than double in Scotland and more than triple in Ireland.
The tax on malt had been from 2s. and 2s. 7d., according to
quality; from May 8, 1854, to July 5, 1856, during the
requirements of the war, it was raised to 3s. Id., and even
tually to 4s. This was an increase of 60 per cent.
The increase bore with special force upon the Income
Tax. The history of this tax is a curious one. It was
created by Pitt to meet the demands of the Avar against
Napoleon. It was abolished in 1816, re-established in 1S42
for three years, prolonged for a similar period from 1845 to
1848, imposed for one year ouly in 1851 and in 1852, and
authorised for seven years in 1853. The Act of 1853,
which legalised its prolongation, extended it to Ireland,
which had always been exempt from it. By the same Act,
the exemption from the tax enjoyed by incomes below £150
was limited to incomes below £100. But incomes of from
£100 to £150 were only to pay 5d. instead of 7d. in the
pound. The EasternWar brought about, after April Sth, 1854,
the doubliug of these taxes. The next year a halfpenny more
in the pound was added to incomes of from £100 to £150,
and 2d. for all others, so that the tax stood at Is. 4d. and
ll^d. These augmentations ceased in 1857, when there
was a return to the former taxation of 5d. and 7d.
Although these augmentations of taxation had raised the
revenue from 50 millions sterling, the average for each of
the ten years, from 1843 to 1853, to the enormous sum of
63 millions in 1855, 68 millions in 1856, and 66 millions in
1857 ; although the year 1853 had left a considerable
�13
surplus, it became necessary to have recourse to a loan, and
to augment that debt which there had been so many efforts
to reduce.
Crushing taxes, an augmented national debt, and exces
sive floating liabilities—such was the harvest reaped by
England from the Crimean War, which demanded for the
British army and navy an increased expenditure of more
than 1,855 million francs ! (£74,000,000).
France had to make sacrifices almost as great as her ally.
This may be judged of by the following table of her total
expenses, both ordinary and extraordinary, from 1850 to
1856
1850 ...... 1,472,637,238 francs
1851 ...... 1,461,329,644 „
1852
1,513,103.997 „
1853
1,547,597,009 „
1854
1,988,078,160 „
1855
2,399,217,840 „
1856
2,195,751,787 „
We see that the advance is frightful. Let us examine it
in detail. We may presume, as a fair supposition, that the
provisional budgets of the army and navy for 1854 repre
sent the normal expenses of these two departments in time
of peace. All that exceeds the extent of these budgets,
whether in the year 1854 or the following years, we may
attribute to the Eastern War.
According to the provisional budget of 1854, the expenses
of the army were to be 308,386,046 francs, and those of the
navy 116,476,001 francs. According to the budget of
1854, sanctioned by the law of the 3rd of June, 1857, the
expenses of the army were raised to 567,245,687 francs,
and those of the navy to 175,088,126 francs, in
addition to 2,797,301 francs for extraordinary expenses.
For the year 1855, according to the special budget, sanc
tioned by the law of the 6th of May, 1858, the expenses of
the army were raised to 865,607,477 francs, and those of
the navy to 212,677,474 francs, in addition to 68,821,S04
francs for extraordinary expenses. In that year, 1855, the
united expense of the two departments of army and navy
amounted to the enormous figure of 1,147 million francs I
In 1856, according to the special budget, sanctioned July
�6th, 1860, the expenses of the army were 693,153,176
francs, and those of the navy 220,163,567 francs, besides
5,555,146 francs for extraordinary expenses — in all,
918,870,889 francs. In 1857, the year in which the last
payments for the war were made, the expenses of the army
department still reached 410,919,408 francs, and those of
the navy 138,962,467 francs, besides 4,862,431 francs for
extraordinary expenses, or 100 millions more than these
budgets had required during the peace which preceded the
Crimean War.
From these statistics, and reckoning as normal taxation
the military and naval expenses of the provisional budget
of 1854, sanctioned June 10th, 1853, we find that the
Eastern War forced upon France more than 1,660 millions
of extraordinary outlay. We do not, however, conceal that
this sum is greater than that which is avowed in the minis
terial account of the Eastern War; but we feel that we
ought to adhere to the figures just given, inasmuch as they
result from an attentive examination of facts, and we
submit them in full confidence to all critics. The method
which we have pursued in obtaining them is as simple as it
is natural. The result must be beyond the reach of
objection.
Nearly the whole of these expenses were covered by
loans, but it was nevertheless necessary to have recourse to
taxation. The duty upon spirits was raised from 34 francs
the hectolitre to 50 francs : from this source alone a gain of
30 millions was anticipated. The tax upon railway fares
was similarly increased, and was expected to produce
6 millions. The freight of goods forwarded at express speed
was tithed: this would bring in 1,800,000 francs. Subse
quently the second general tax of one-tenth was imposed,
and which, as is well known, continued long after the war.
This last tax was calculated to increase the revenue by
52 million francs.
Thus taxes were created by the war, which lasted longer
than the war. The Treasury was burdened with a per
manent charge for the interest of loans. After the special
budget of 1853, authorised by the law of June 25th, 1856, the
interest of the debt only absorbed 374,484,506 francs 74 cen
times ; in the special budget of 1856 the interest required
�15
71,709,380 francs additional. The floating debt, which in
1853 was 614,980,562 francs, became 895,281,625 francs in
1857. The deficiencies and reimbursements, which were
98 millions in 1853, amounted to 110 millions in 1854,
121 millions in 1855, 128 millions in 1856; the expenses
of administration and of the collection of revenue, which
were only 151 millions in 1853, amounted to 164 millions
in 1854, and to 179 millions in 1855. Whilst expenses
were thus augmenting, receipts remained stationary ; thus
the product of indirect taxes was just the same in 1854 as
in 1853. The worst financial evil of the war, in addition to
an increase of 1,660 millions in immediate expenses, was the
permanently high amount of the army and navy budgets
during the subsequent period of peace. These two depart
ments have since involved much greater expenses than
previously. It is thus in all wars: they first produce a
sharp attack of disease, more or less dangerous, though
temporary ; but they always leave behind them a chronic
disarrangement, which occasions permanent disorders and
an habitual condition of anxiety.
Piedmont affords a proof of this. In the special budget
of 1856, which M. Lanza presented to the legislature in
Januarv, 1859, the extraordinary expenses of the kingdom
of Sardinia, on account of the Eastern War, were reported
as follows :—
Army.
Navy.
Total.
Actual payments in 1855... 19,790,741 2,416,467 22,207,208
Actual payments in 1856... 22,654,659 4,897,180 27,551,839
Expenses reported..............
2,500,928
645,415
3,146,343
Demands recognised, but}
not liquidated up to the 1
2,196
.........
2,196
end of 1856..................... 3
Total...... (francs) 44,948,524 7,959,062 52,907,586
Thus this little sub-Alpine nation had spent nearly
53 millions for the Eastern War in addition to the ordinary
expenses of its army and navy. Further, in 1855 and 1856
it contracted two war-loans, one of £2,000,000, and the
other of 30 million francs. It was already marching with
rapid strides along that perilous path of loans which was
destined to involve it in the perplexities in which enlarged,
but young, Italy now finds itself.
�16
Turkey.—It is to be wished that we could ascertain the
share contributed by Turkey to the expenditure of the allies;
but here certainty and precision fail us. M. Engène Poujade
made a calculation, in 1857, of the amount of the Turkish
debt, including the loans contracted during the Eastern
War, the paper money, bearing interest or otherwise, the
old and new bonds, the old and new arsenal debts, and the
various other debts, returned or not returned, after the war.
The total of these amounts he estimated to be at least
705 million francs.—{Annual Report of the Public Credit,
1st year, 265-66.) It is difficult to ascertain exactly how
much of this sum should be attributed to the Crimean
War; but if we reflect upon the expenses which must have
been involved in the autumn and winter campaign in
Wallachia and in the Asiatic campaign, the maintenance of
troops at Sebastopol, an estimate of 400 millions as the
Turkish share in the expenses of the war will be evidently
considerably below the real amount.
Then we have as a general total—
1,855 million francs for England ;
1,660 million „ for France ;
400 million „ for Turkey ;
53 million „ for Piedmont.
In other words, the Eastern Expedition cost the allies
3,9G8 million francs (or £158,720,000) !
2. Russia.—Let us now endeavour to determine, with the
utmost attainable precision, the costs of Russia in conse
quence of this war. “ It is difficult to fix the exact amount of
the Russian public debt,” wrote M. Maurice Block ; “ the
Russian official return respecting it appears to be compiled
w ith so little attention to clearness that those who seek to
receive information from it find its statistics mutually
inconsistent.”—(Puissance Comparée des divers Etats de
TEurope.) Recent works have thrown more light on this
obscure subject, which can be really investigated, provided
sufficient discrimination is exercised. The statements pub
lished three years ago by M. Wolowski in the Revue des
Peux RLondes, further corrected by the definite information
furnished by M. Horn in the “ Year-book of Finances,” and
the anticipatory calculations of M. Leon Faucher at the
�17
beginning of the war, have combined greatly to simplify the
difficulties of this question.
The amount of the Russian consolidated debt, previous to
the commencement of the difficulties with the Porte, was
336,219,412 silver roubles, or 1,513 million francs. In 1857
this debt had reached 522 millions of silver roubles, or
185,785,588 roubles more than it was before the war, that
is to say, 743,142,352 francs. The amount of bills of credit
and paper money before the war did not much exceed 300
million roubles ; at the end of 1854 it was 356 millions ;
in 1855 it was 509 millions; in 1856, 689 millions; in
1857, the year of settlement, it attained 735 million
roubles, or 2,940 million francs. But this was not all the
cost of the war. The Russian Government recalled 100
millions which it had lent to other nations in 1847, and
of which 50 millions were in the French funds. It diverted
from their destination a large portion of the funds intended
to guarantee the repayment of bills of credit. These funds
amounted, in March, 1854, to nearly 160 million silver
roubles ; in the month of September they were only
146,500,000 roubles. They continually decreased during
the war until they fell to about 100 million roubles.
We must also take into account the voluntary contribu
tions to the Russian Government. The clergy, at the
beginning of 1854, offered 80 million francs ; other volun
tary contributions were shown by M. Leon Faucher to be
about 100 million francs. If we suppose, which is probable,
that during the remaining period of the war these voluntary
gifts were doubled, that is to say, making, with a sum of
180 millions contributed bv the clergy, an amount, according
to M. Leon Faucher, of 360 millions, we shall arrive at a
total of 3,183 million francs (£127,000,000). We must
further take cognisance of the increase of the principal
taxes (for instance, by a ukase of December 1, 1854, the
duty on salt was raised from 28 kopecs to 44, and all the
other indirect taxes shared the same fate). Neither must
we lose sight of contributions in kind, which, in a country
like Russia, must be very considerable. It must be remem
bered that requisitions for provender, &c., were made on a
grand scale in that immense empire, then traversed every
where by thousands of men who were marching to the
o
�18
Crimea, even from the most distant provinces. The requi
sitions made by the Russians in Wallachia alone are
estimated by M. Ubicini at 50 million francs. If all these
things are taken into account it will be evident that Russia
did not spend less than 4,000 million francs on the Crimean
War (£160,000,000) !
Further Losses involved by the Crimean War.
1, Austria.—We have not yet done with the extra
ordinary expenses which the Crimean War imposed upon
the European powers. Even neutrality is sometimes costly.
Austria affords an instance of this. The following are the
militarv expenses of Austria for the three years 1855, ’56,
and ’57
1855.
1856.
1857.
Ordinary expenses ...114,320,715 flor. 109,695,558 106,890,019
Extraord. expenses ...101,720,117 „ 14,138,279 11,130,634
The ordinary expenses of the ministry of war for 1857
still continued higher than those expenses were previously
to the Turko-Russian conflict. We may, however, take
this sum of 107 million florins as the normal rate of
military expenses in time of peace ; we then perceive that
the additional expense which the Crimean War imposed
upon Austria amounted to 137,129,000 florins, or about
343 million francs (£13,720,000). It is known that, during
the Eastern War, Austria contracted three great national
loans (so called) which were professedly needed to liberate
the state from its old obligations to the bank, but the
greater part of which was otherwise appropriated, and,
notably, towards the extraordinary expenses called for by
the uncertain neutrality which the nation foresaw would
have to be maintained during the struggle.
2. Prussia, Sweden, fyc.—The same war, and the possible
complications which it might involve, determined the
Prussian Government to demand of the chambers, in 1854,
an extraordinary loan of 30 million thalers (112,500,000
francs) for the ministry of war. At the same time various
taxes were increased. It is, however, to be specially noticed
that the Prussian Government had the wisdom only to
expend a portion of the loan on armaments.
�19
Sweden and Denmark also voted special loans, and the
Germanic Confederation made similar preparations.
If we add these expenses to the 343 millions expended by
Austria, it must be admitted that, without exaggeration,
the total expenditure of the neutral powers amounted to
500 million francs (£20,000,000), which, with the 4,000
million francs expended by the four allies, and the similar
4,000 million francs which the war must have entailed
upon Russia, gives a total of 8,500 million francs, or
£340,000,000!
Additional Losses oe Russia.
But is even this the whole loss ? Certainly not. That
which a war costs to the public finances of a country, or
that which figures in the budget, only represents a small
portion of the losses imposed upon the national property,
such as the suspension of industry, the ruin of commerce,
the unsettlement of all financial prospects, the bankruptcies,
the enforced idleness—these are exceedingly serious evils.
Any one who supposes that the Eastern War only cost
Russia 4,000 million francs, can have no idea of the immense
loss of capital which this war occasioned. Never, since the
great Continental Blockade, has a nation been placed under
the pressure of a struggle so formidable to all its financial
and commercial interests. Its ports being blockaded, per
mitted neither exportation nor importation; its ships were
rotting, at anchor, behind the fortifications. After the
month of March, 1854, not a single Russian flag was to be
seen in the ports of France or of Great Britain, and those
which had been delayed by wnnter were sold to escape the
risk of seizure.—fBlackivood's Magazine, April 1, 1854.)
The trading vessels which allowed themselves to be over
taken in the Baltic, in the Black Sea, and even in the Sea
of Azov (where they appeared to be protected by the fleet)
had been destroyed. At how much are we to estimate the
value of these ships and their cargoes ? And how can we
ascertain the value of the injuries and of the loss of interest
of capital involved by the rotting of so many vessels in har
bour ? Even neutral ships did not enjoy full liberty of
arrival and departure, if loaded with Russian cargoes, as
�22
which burdened the Turkish people ? And, lastly, was it not
the case that both France and England were specially incon
venienced by being prevented from having recourse to Russia
for provisions to supply the deficiency of their harvests ?
Except in Russia, the harvests were at that period smaller
than usual throughout Europe. If peace had continued,
Russia could have easily supplied her neighbours with 40
million bushels during the two years (stated by M. de
Molinari, in the Journal des Economistes). But her crops
were shut up at Odessa by the allied fleets, which, in order
to injure the Russians, starved their own countries. The
Tory reviews announced that, for a few shillings more per
bushel, a ready supply of wheat could be obtained from the
far-west of America.—(Blackwood's Magazine, April 1,
1854.) But “a few shillings more per bushel” are suffi
cient to substitute scarcity for abundance.
Once more, is it not certain that France and England
injured themselves permanently by ruining Russia ? The
amount of business that can be carried on with a nation,
just as with an individual, is in proportion to its resources.
Everything which impoverishes a nation also injures those
who do business with that nation. It is foolish to ruin
him who buys from us, or who sells to us, for by so doing
we deprive him of the means of purchase or production.
In fact it was quite as much to the detriment of English
and French industry, as to that of Russian commerce, that
our cruisers blockaded the Baltic ports. And the fleet
which closed the harbours of the Black Sea were no less
mischievous to the hungry populations of England and
France than to the Russian corn-growers.
Summary.
We have now endeavoured to ascertain the accumulated
losses which were caused by that Crimean War, which was
so thoughtlessly entered upon. Eight thousand Jive hun
dred million francs (340 million pounds sterling') is the
acknowledged burden imposed by this war upon the public
finances of Europe. But it is absolutely impossible to
calculate the sum of those indirect losses which we have
alluded to, or of a multitude of other losses which have not
�23
come under our notice; it would be presumptuous even to
attempt an approximate estimate of these.
THE WAR IN ITALY (1859).
Respecting the losses of the Italian War, we do not
possess any such comprehensive works as those which have
afforded such valuable aid in our reviews of the Crimean
Expedition. Dr. Chenu is now preparing a work on this
subject, and, pending its publication, we are limited to a
critical study of various official papers which, in too many
cases, bear indications of haste and confusion. We shall
take for our chief guide the paper read by Baron Larrey to
the Academy of Medicine, with numerous corrections from
subsequent statistics, furnished either by distinguished
statisticians and surgeons, or derived from recent minis
terial documents.
The general estimate which has been arrived at as to the
total losses in the Italian War, including the number of
persons killed, wounded, and missing in the three armies,
is as follows, viz. 38,650 Austrians, 17,775 Frenchmen,
6,575 Sardinians ; total, 63,000. These results have been
obtained by the researches of one of our most distinguished
military statisticians, M. Boudin, editor of the “Journals of
Medicine and Military Surgery.” This general amount of the
losses is, however, only estimated at 61,978, according to
the official dispatches collected under the direction of
Col. Saget, the head of the historical and statistical depart
ment of the Ministry of War. The discrepancy between
these two estimates is only 1,022 ; and it should be remarked
that in Colonel Saget's papers no account has been taken of
a considerable number of missing and wounded men whose
recovery has not been notified to the hospitals.
The greatest confusion is indicated in some of these
official returns. At Magenta, for example, certain official
dispatches return the number of killed and wounded at only
3,223 ; subsequent dispatches raise the number to 4,535,
including, it is true, the missing, most of whom were even
tually found amongst the dead. It is the same as regards
�24
Solferino, where the first calculation of the killed and
wounded in the French army was 8,530, an amount which was
increased in later documents to 11,670 private soldiers, and
720 officers in addition. In such cases the larger and more
recent returns are the more correct.
“ The statistics of the dead,” says Dr. Larrey, “ appear to be
more difficult to ascertain than those of the wounded. Whilst
giving, in the first place, from the official returns, a total of 8,084
men as killed on the field of battle alone, in the armies of
France, Sardinia, and Austria, those statistics include, so far
as the French army is concerned, the number of persons who,
throughout the campaign, died of wounds or of disease. But
how large a number died subsequently, and how many, who
were reported as missing, may have been drowned in rivers or
have perished in some other way ! ”—Larrey, page 61.
During the campaign itself, disease exercised but little
influence on our army; but during the subsequent occu
pation of Italy and the return to France it made many
victims.
The mortality then caused 11 appears to have
exceeded, in the French army, the number of men killed on
the field of battle.”—{Larrey, page 62.)
“ We are
dropping our men at all the hospitals along the route ! ”
exclaimed a regimental doctor, on the return of the army.
A publication, emanating from the General Statistical
Board of France, gives us the following information re
specting the deaths in the French army in 1859 :—
In
France.
In
Algeria.
Died on the field of battle
or in ambulances..........
32
54
Died in hospitals .......... 5,835 2,361
112
24
Suicides .........................
In
Italy.
In
Rome.
Total.
5,872 0 5,868
4,360 84 12,640
167
31 0
Totals
5,979 2,439 10,263 84 18,675
The 10,263 soldiers who died in Italy were, certainly,
not the only victims of that war; to these must be added
the number of those who, after the campaign, entered the
French hospitals to sink under the wounds and diseases
received during the expedition; and these must have been
very numerous, if we receive the statements of Dr. Larrey.
And, if we follow the plan adopted by all military statis
ticians, by Dr. Chenu, Dr. Laeffleur, and by the authors of
the English reports on the Eastern War, we ought also to
�25
add the number of those who, in the year following the
close of the campaign, perished from its consequences. We
cannot, then, hesitate to admit that the Italian War cost
the lives of at least 15,000 Frenchmen.
Then, as to the other combatants, we must bear in mind
that, for several reasons, such as the greater precision of
our weapons, the larger calibre of our projectiles, and the
disorder inseparable from defeat, the mortality from wounds
must have been incalculably greater in the Austrian army
than in the French. The deaths from disease must also
have been far more numerous in the enemy’s camp than in
ours, from the more excessive fatigue of the troops and the
deficiency of provisions. After the battle of Solferino the
overcrowded hospitals of Verona were swept by typhus and
contagious corruption.—(Larrey, page 57.) Turning our
attention to the Italian army we find, from the observations
of Dr. Cazalas, that, from several causes, there was com
paratively a much greater mortality from wouuds amongst
their troops than in the French army.
Considering all these circumstances, we may legitimately
conclude that, inasmuch as the number of our troops killed
by the fire of the enemy and by disease was 15,000, the
total loss of life in the three armies from those causes, and
from deaths through fatigue and privation, must have
amounted to 45 or 50 thousand !
Loss of Money by the Italian War.
From losses of life we turn to losses of money. "We shall
not here meet with those formidable lines of figures which
encountered us in our investigation of the Crimean War.
But we shall enter into certain details relative to the
disastrous expedients, to which an empire in extremity was
obliged to have recourse, in order to meet the ruinous
expenses in which it had been involved by its unwar
rantable pride. We shall analyse closely those burdensome
contrivances which the evil genius of Austrian finance
suggested to her. We shall see the abyss of paper-money
and of national deficit open before us and become deeper
and deeper, and shall perceive that the war in Lombardv
was, both as regards Austria and Italy, if not the first and
only cause, at any rate the principal source, of the economic
�26
and financial confusion which continues to arrest the com
mercial and industrial progress of two great nations, and
which still deprives them of the spirit of enterprise, and
condemns them to inaction and wretchedness. We shall
also witness the counter-stroke of war upon the neutral
Powers ; we shall watch loans and extraordinary credits
drawing successively within their deadly coil all the German
States, and the contagion of armaments and foolish military
expenditure spreading itself even amongst those whose
situation should render them safe from any fear of war.
France.—So far as France is concerned, the debts autho
rised at first, by the Budget Law, for the Ministry of War,
in 1859, amounted to 337,447,500 francs. Successive im
perial decrees added the following supplementary debts :—
Francs.
Decree of July 2, 1859
„
July 14, „
„
Aug. 17, „
99
„
„
99
99
Dec. 11, „
Feb. 18,1860
850,000
131,360,000
24,470,000
23,500,000
26 380,000
9,380,000
Total
215,940,000
From this there must be deducted the debts an
nulled by the decrees of Feb. 18 and 28, 1860
30,122,000
Balance of debts sanctioned by decrees ...
... 185,818,000
Two former debts, authorised by special laws
March 31 and June 4, 1859, amounted to ... 90,158,691
This gives, with the Budget, a total of ...
To this must be added for closed accounts
276,018,691
613,466,191
7,350,475
Making the Army Budget of 1859 amount to ...
620,816,666
This amount was never before surpassed, except in two
instances, those of 1855 and 1856; when in the first case
the expenses of the army budget rose to 865 millions, and
in the second to 693 millions. The total expenses in the
navy budget of 1859 were 213,800,000 francs, and those
for Algeria and the Colonies 39,600,000. This is 92 mil
lions more than in the preceding years of peace. The
�27
Ministry of War, on its part, had required 283 millions
more than the normal amount in time of peace.
We are thus enabled to estimate the expenses of France
for the Italian War at 375.^ millions (£15,020,000). It is
evident that the loan of 500 millions was far from being
absorbed. The special budget of public works, voted
June 26, 1860, authorised the application, to great works
of general utility, “ of the funds of the loan then remaining
unabsorbed.”
Austria.—Thisltalian War imposed still greater sacrifices
upon Austria. On the very day of the crossing of the Ticino
(April 29) the Vienna Gazette announced to the Austrian
people that a decree, dated April 11, had authorised the
Bank of Vienna to refuse specie payments for its notes and
to enforce its paper currency. The Bank repaid this favour
by a loan of 134 million florins (£13,400,000) on the
security of a public debt of 200 million florins to be con
tracted on the first suitable occasion. But this was
merely an initiative measure, as a commencement of the
business.
The impossibility of having immediate recourse to a
public loan necessitated the levying of heavy duties. The
accumulation of taxation was pushed to its utmost limits
and extended to every source of revenue. The decrees in
the month of May embraced every province. Hungary
which had hitherto been exempted from taxes on wine
and butcher’s meat, was now assessed for these articles.
Throughout the empire the taxes on articles of consumption
were increased 20 per cent. In the economy of nations
as in that of individuals, in proportion as the development
of general wealth is diminished, the greater is the extent
to which the expenses of consumption, strictly so termed
(the consumption of food), encroach upon the total income
of individuals or communities. These excessive taxes upon
butcher’s meat, corn, wine, and beer, weigh much more
heavily on the people of Austria than they would on the
populations of France or England. The duty upon salt,
largely increased since 1850, was again raised by the decree
of May 7. The poorer classes of Austria were already
paying an annual average of 33 million florins upon salt;
they were henceforth required to pay 38 million florins
(£3,400,000).
�28
The decrees of May 7, which so rigorously taxed articles
of consumption, also extended to business matters, and in
creased the charges on all fees, stamps, entries, and regis
tration. The increase varied from 15 to 40 per cent., and
this at a time when the stagnation of business and the
depreciations and changes of currency already rendered
transactions so difficult and hazardous.
A decree of May 13 equally increased the direct taxation,
not only for the whole continuance of the war, but also
during “ the extraordinary state of affairs brought about by
the events of the war.” The tax on cultivated land, already
ranging from 12 to 16 per cent., was augmented onesixth, as was also the duty on rentals. The tax on country
residences, or class-tax, was raised one-half. The indus
trial taxation, laying burdens upon manufacturers, traders,
and artisans, and also the income-tax, were increased
one-fifth. What suffering and misery were thus laid upon
the people for the presumed honour of the House of
Hapsburg !
But nothing equalled the grievance of paper-money and
the sufferings springing from this source. It has been
appropriately remarked that the depreciation of paper
money appears to be subject to a law analogous to that
which regulates the rapid descent of a mass of rock falling
from a mountain. It proceeds according to a geometrical
progression. The paper of the United States, during the
¡Secession War, was maintained for a long time at a loss of
a fifth or a fourth. Then it rapidly descended to a depre
ciation of one-half, and still more rapidly to a depreciation
of two-thirds. If the South had been less exhausted and
could have continued the war one year longer, the loss
upon “ greenbacks” would probably have been five-sixths.
—(Michael Chevalier in the Revue des Deux Mondes, of
June 1, 1866.) Austria, in 1859, was in a similar position.
She was compelled to procure effective resources ; in other
words—gold and silver.
On the 25th of May, 1859,
she forced on the Lombard and Venetian people a specie
loan of 75 millions. The city of Venice could only pay the
first instalment by increasing taxation on income and in
dustrial occupations 85 per cent, and by adding several
additional kreutzers (halfpence) to the already extreme
�29
burden of the tax on rentals. Every imaginable expedient
teas had recourse to, to gain possession of all the gold and
silver in the, empire. The State, which only paid in paper,
demanded by a decree of the 29th of April that the custom
house charges should only be paid in specie. This was
the ruin of the foreign trade. The merchant, who was
already paying an exchange rate of from 30 to 50 per
cent, upon the price of goods bought abroad, now had
to pay a similar rate upon the specie required for fees at
the custom-house. The last of these ruinous decrees was
to involve bankruptcy. The State was irresistibly borne
on to it. On the 11th of June, a decree suspended the
payment of metallic currency throughout the period during
which the extraordinary circumstances, involved by the war,
should continue. It was indeed time that the Peace of
Villafranca should be conceded.
On the return of peace the Bank was, more than ever,
unable to resume payments in specie. With a specie total of
79 millionflorins, it had circulated notesfor 453 millions! The
augmentations of taxation, terrible as they were, were main
tained indefinitely by the decree of December 1S59. The
army budget had become immoderately swelled. It was
106 million florins in 1858. In 1859 it rose to 292 millions,
this was an increase of 186 million florins (£19,200,000).
But this was only to meet the expenses of 1859. The army
budget of 1860 shows 138 millions of ordinary, and 36
millions of extraordinary, expenses—in all more than 174
millions; consequently it exceeds by 68 million florins the
army budget of 1858. The budget of 1861, on the contrary,
manifestly approaches the budget of 1858, which may be
considered the normal budget of the army department in
time of peace. The special expenses of Austria for the
Italian War are therefore 186 million florins spent in 1859,
and in addition 68 millions which were not paid till 1860—
a total of 254 million florins (or about £26,000,000).
But these figures afford no correct idea of the burdens of
the population. The interruptions of trade and industry,
the taxable resources devoured by the treasury, the variations
of currency, the disadvantages of exchange—all these
disasters were to become chronic maladies for Austria. Such
was the cost of a false plea of honour! To estimate the
�32
been raised to nearly 1,000 millions, and notwithstanding,
also, all the increased taxation, there resulted, as in Austria,
a considerable deficit. According to the report presented
by M. Galeotti, on behalf of the commission which had been
appointed to consider a demand for the authorisation of a
new loan of 150 millions in 18G0, the financial account of
1859 had left a total deficit of 104,399,956 francs. The
war of 1859 had cost Piedmont 255 million francs, in
addition to the increase of 10 per cent, upon all taxation,
and irrespective of the incalculable evils of paper-money.
France spent 375| millions (£15,000,000); Piedmont,
255 millions (£10,200,000); and Austria, 650 millions
(£26,000,000) ;
making a total of l,280i millions
(£51,200,000). But this is by no means the sum of the
expenses occasioned by that war. We must also take into
account the outlay of Germany upon special armaments.
Germany.—It is well known that the war of 1859 aroused
a great excitement in Germany, that suddenly old animosities
were revived, and that a convulsion of anger agitated all the
Germanic populations throughout the territory of the Con
federation. Hence originated extensive warlike preparations
which necessitated supplementary credits and loans.
In Prussia, the law of May 21st, 1859, which provided
for the possibly necessary contingency of calling out the
army during the course of the year, authorised the Minister
of Finance to increase, to the extent of 25 per cent., the
income tax, the land tax, and the corn and timber taxes.
The Cabinet Council of June 14th, which ordered the
calling-out of six battalions, was immediately followed by
the above increase of taxation, which continued long after
the end of the war. A second law, also passed on the 21st
of May, authorised the government to incur every expense
which might be rendered necessary by the “ Kriegsbereitschaft ” (readiness for war). According to this permission,
the government might borrow money to the extent of
40 million thalers (£6,000,000). A royal order, of May
26th, immediately prescribed the negotiation of a loan of
30 million thalers (£4,500,000).
The expenses of the smaller German States were, in pro
portion, much greater than those of Prussia. In the Grand
Duchy of Baden, the special military expenses, in conse
�33
quence of the “ Marschbereitschaft,” amounted to 4,257,000
florins (£364,400). This was provided for by the appro
priation of money raised for the construction of railways,
the completion of which was accordingly postponed. On
the 7th of June, the Chambers of Hesse Darmstadt
unanimously voted a loan of 4 million florins (£333,333).
Electoral Hesse had voted a loan of 700,000 thalers
(£105,000), which was exhausted by the end of June,
1859, and the government then demanded a fresh loan of
1,300,000 thalers (£171,000). Wurtemberg raised by loan
7 million florins (£583,333). In Hanover, the special
military expenses amounted to ll| million francs. In
Saxony, subsidies were voted of 5,636,725 thalers (£845,508).
In Bavaria, the loans for special armaments reached to
80 million francs. Hence, for these seven secondary States,
we have an expense of 152 million francs. If to this we
add the expenses of Prussia and those of the other smaller
States, respecting which latter we have not been able to
procure positive information, the costs of the three belli
gerent Powers are found to be 1,280 million francs, and the
total expenses of both belligerents and neutrals 1,500 million
francs (£60,000,000).
We have then, to sum up, a cost of 60 million pounds
sterling imposed on the finances of Central Europe; heavv
taxes, temporarily levied at first, but ultimately rendered
permanent by the course of events; the augmentation of
war-budgets which never completely returned to their pre
vious level; the commercial and industrial disorganisation
of Italy and Austria—these constitute the penalty paid by
Europe for that very short war, which, by the exercise of a
little good feeling on the part of the government at Vienna,
might have been so easily avoided.
THE AMERICAN WAR.
Of all the instances of the squandering of human life
caused by war, this is the most frightful. In four years the
North called to arms 2,656,000 men. To stem this tide or
manhood rolled against her, the South opposed a dyke, long
D
�34
insuperable, of 1,100,000 human breasts. And before the
South could be conquered these 1,100,000 soldiers, many of
whom were youths of sixteen or old men of sixty, were to
be violently swept aside, and more than half of them were
to sink under the force of the struggle.
This gigantic strife involved a carnage previously unheard
of, and which should obtain the attention of philanthropists
and be recorded by a faithful historian. We have before us
a remarkable work, the Report, prepared for general circu
lation, by Major-General Joseph K. Barnes, surgeon-general
of the United States army. (Report on the Extent and
Nature of the Materials available for the Preparation of a
Medical and Surgical History of the Rebellion^)
This
medical and surgical history is not yet completed, but the
published materials furnish most valuable information.
The monthly reports issued from rather more than one
half of the regiments in the field, during the first year, give
17,496 cases of wounds by fire-arms. The monthly reports
issued from three-fourths of the regiments, during the year
ending June 30th, 1S63, present 55,974 cases of wounds.
The lists of wounded persons carried off the battle-fields in
1861 and 1865 include more than 114,000 names. But we
are informed that these returns still await completion by
additions from the reports of general hospitals, where many
wounded persons were received whose names had neither
been registered by the hospital clerks on the battle-fields
nor by the regimental surgeons. There should also be
added the names of those who were killed during the
conflicts. There would thus be given a total of 221,000
wounded, without reckoning those killed on the field. This
enormous amount of wounded far surpasses the total of
similar cases in all the armies engaged in the Crimean War.
To understand clearly the gigantic and unprecedented
features of this American War, it is necessary to enter into
special details, and to compare the respective number of
cases of particular injuries or important operations in the
Union army with those in the French and English armies in
the Crimea. If we take, for instance, fractures of the femur
by fire-arms, we find that in the French army in the Crimea
there were 459 injuries of this description and 194 in the
English army, whilst more than 5,000 similar cases were
registered in the United States army. If we take some
�35
important operation, as the point of comparison, for example
the amputation of the upper portion of the humerus, the
Crimean reports mention 16 of these amputations in the
English and 42 in the French army, whilst in the American
army we iind reported 575 operations of this nature. (Recueil
de JUedecin et de Chirurgie Militaire, vol. xvii. pp. 390,
391.) Such details are characteristic, and indicate the extent
and horror of the massacre.
If we pass on from wounds to diseases, we find a result
more satisfactory to humanity. Two distinguishing features
of the American War are the considerable comparative
increase in the number of victims under the enemy’s fire,
and a similarly great diminution in the number of persons
visited by diseases. This demonstrates that the means of
destruction have made gigantic progress, but also that
superior measures for the restoration and maintenance of
health are being extensively adopted. During the first year
of the war, with an effective force of 290,936 men, 14,183
died of disease. In the second year, with an effective of
644,508 men, the number of deaths from disease was 42,010.
During the whole continuance of the war about 97,000 men,
in the Northern armies, were killbd under fire, and 184,000
died of disease; in all 281,000 men.
The losses of the South were much greater; but on this
subject we do not possess any scientific work. In the fol
lowing statistics furnished to us, the number of dead is not
distinguished from that of the wounded:—
Alabama ........... ...
Arkansas........... ...
Florida............... ...
G eorgia ........... ...
Louisiana........... ...
Mississippi ....... ...
Missouri ........... ...
North Carolina ...
South Carolina ...
Maryland........... ...
Tennessee........... ...
Texas ............... ...
Virginia ........... ...
Enlisted.
Killed or Maimed.
120,000 ... ........... 70,000
50,000 ... ........... 30,000
17,000 ... ........... 10,000
131,000 ... ........... 76,000
60,000 ... ........... 34,000
78,000 ... ........... 45,000
40,000 ... ........... 24,000
140,000 ...
65,000 ... ........... 40,000
40,000 ... ........... 24,000
60,000 ... ........... 34,000
93,000 ... ........... 53,000
180,000 ... ........... 105,000
Total....... , 1,074,000 ... ........... 630,000
�36
We have here a total of 630,000 killed or maimed out of
1,074,000 enlisted, or GO per cent.! If, now, we compare
these losses with the total amount of the white population
in the South, we see that they form more than 10 per cent.,
or 20 per cent, of the male population.
It may be said, then, that the American War swept off
nearly all the youth of the Southern States; and this is no
metaphor, but a literally true statement.
If to these 630,000 men, lost to the South, we add the
2Sl,000 who were killed in the Northern armies, we have a
total of more than 900 thousand men. But it must not be
overlooked that, in the return of 630,000 men, many maimed
are included. If we consider that the immense majority of
the Southern losses were occasioned by disease and fatigue,
by the poor constitution of the army which embraced youths
of sixteen and elderly men of sixty, and by the almost total
absence of rest for want of reinforcements, we may estimate
that four-fifths of these 630,000 men as killed and onefifth as maimed, we shall then obtain, in the two armies,
a total of nearly 800 thousand dead! *
Financial Losses.
The financial losses were still more unprecedented. “ The
North expended upon this war 14,000 million francs,” says
M. Vigo Roussillon (Puissance Militaire des Etats-Unis,
since the Secession War.)
He states further that it
cost the South nearly as much, and that altogether the
civil war entailed upon the United States of America
more than 25,000 million francs (£1,000,000,000) in actual
military expenses, and fully double this sum if account is
taken of the loss of productive power and the value of the
property and crops destroyed.
It is our opinion that M. Vigo Roussillon and the public
generally form too low an estimate of the actual expenses of
this war. To say that the American War cost the Northern
States 14,000 million francs (£560,000,000) is to mistake the
amount of the debt contracted for the actual sum of the
costs. We have previously protested against this defective
mode of calculation, which takes no account of the taxation,
the increase in which was enormous during the years of the
Vids Note at the end of this work.
�Secession War. The very exceptional nature of this high
taxation is indicated by the fact that, on the return of peace,
it was found practicable to pay off an extraordinary pro
portion of the debt. The following are, in round figures, the
budgets of the army and navy, from I860 to 18G6 :—
1860- 61 ..........
35 million dollars
1861- 62 .......... 437
„
„
1862- 63 .......... 662
„
1863- 64 .......... 776 „
1864- 65 .......... 1,153
„
„
1865- 66 .......... 327
„
„
{Moniteur of Nov. 3, /866.)
The budget for the army and navy had already required,
in 1860-61, a sum much greater than those of previous years,
which had never exceeded 25 million dollars. We may, how
ever, take the sum of 35 millions, reached in 1860-61, as the
normal amount for the army and navy budgets in time of
peace, and may assume that, if the struggle had not broken
out, this sum would not have been surpassed in the sub
sequent annual expenditures. The total amount of the five
military budgets from 1861 to 1866 w’ould then have been
175 million dollars. But its actual amount, on the other
hand, was 3,355 million dollars, that is, 3,180 million dollars
for extraordinary war expenses.
Now 3,180 million dollars are about 17,000 million francs
(£636,000,000). Thus a very simple calculation has fur
nished us with an estimate of extraordinary war expenses
surpassing, by about 2,000 millions, the amount of the
American debt.
But to these 17,000 millions must be added the amount
of voluntary contributions. According to the Aeiü York
Herald and Dr. Evans, these contributions exceeded,
at the commencement of 1862, 1,000 million francs.
According to M. Elyse Bed us, they had reached 1,144
millions by the 1st of March, 1864. The Sanitary Com
mission and auxiliary or similar societies spent 120 millions
in drugs, maintenance, clothing, and hospital expenses. We
thus obtain the amount of 18,264 millions, which is fully
conceded, and from which there is nothing to abate.
But we have not yet reached the complete amount. We
should add the expenses of states, counties and districts, in
armaments and in bounties to volunteers. The bounties
�38
were very considerable; they amounted to 2,000 dollars
(10,700 francs) per head, certainly the half of which was
paid by the states, districts or counties. M. Vigo Roussillon
gives us the total of these payments to the army, from
July 1, I860. This sum is only 5,145,000,195 francs,
which would only be 1,938 francs per head per each
volunteer. It must surely be admitted that the states,
districts, or counties furnished a sum at least equivalent.
The expenses of the North would amount to 23,500 millions !
{940 million pounds sterling /) As to the expenses of the
South, it is impossible to estimate them.
We venture
to say that the whole of the circulating, or portable, capital
in the rebel States was almost entirely absorbed by the war;
and as to representing statistically an amount which can in
no wise be calculated, we shall not have the presumption to
attempt it.
And how shall we estimate, even approximately, the
indirect losses and ruin ? To say nothing of the immense
number of estates in the richest parts of the Union, in
Virginia, Tennessee and Missouri, constantly traversed and
ravaged, for four years, by innumerable armies; to say
nothing of three million labourers transformed into soldiers
and so depriving agriculture, and other industry, of their
powerful co-operation ; all the crops destroyed; all the
plantations neglected for want of workers ; all the manu
factories closed for want of capital and security ; all the rich
stocks of cotton, for which Europe teas so anxious, devoured
by flames; these incalculable losses we pass by because we
cannot compute their value.
But there is a further loss which does not evade calcula
tion. In consequence of the war, wbat became of that
superb mercantile navy which constituted the glory of the
United States ? To how many millions did the Northern
losses from privateers amount? The injury caused to
Northern commerce by the Alabama alone, in her short
career, is estimated at 80 million francs (£3,200,000).
How many fine ships and rich cargoes became the prey of
Southern corsairs, which, being unable to bring them into
-European ports, burnt them in mid-ocean! Then, again,
what general confusion ensued in all the commercial relations
of the United States, and what a high rate of insurance !
The Northern States were obliged to sell to England,
�39
at a loss, the greater part of their ships, and to denationalise
their mercantile navy.
From 1858 to 1860, the average number of vessels sold by
the Americans to the English was 40, measuring altogether
16,000 tons ; in 1861, it was no longer 40, but 126, and of
a tonnage of 76,000 ; in 1862 it was 135 ; in 1863 it was
320, of 252,579 tonnage. The statistics are wanting for the
years 1864 and 1865, which were the most terrible years for
the commerce of the Union. In 1860, two-thirds of the
exports of the United States were conveyed in American
vessels; in 1863, two-thirds icere conveyed in foreign ships ;
(Langel, “ Les Corsaires Confédérés,” Revue des DeuxAIondes,
July 1, 1864). We have quoted this particular statement
because it presents some exact figures. But it is a matter
of merely secondary importance amid the immense exhibition
of the sufferings, ruin and catastrophe which afflicted the
United States during those four years.
European Losses
by the
American War.
And they were by no means the only sufferers who were
involved : the manufacturing population of Lancashire, of
Alsace and the Lower Seine, were also deeply affected by
the war. This fearful Cotton Crisis, with its disasters
and reactionary effects, that for several years disturbed
Europe, is a wound that must be probed, in connection with
the influence of the American War. The following explana
tion of the subject is given by M. Pouyer-Quertier in his
report on the proposal to the Legislature for the authorisa
tion of a loan of 5 million francs in aid of the localities
affected by the depression of the cotton-industry :—
“ The cotton-industry is one of the principal employments in the
world. Taking Europe only, the imports and labour connected
with this manufacture, within the last few years, have been of the
value of at least 4,000 million francs per annum (£ 160,000,000)
viz. 2,000 millions for England, 800 millions for France, and
1,200 millions for the remainder of the Continent. Of this amount
the raw material (of which four-fifths were derived from the United
States) represents a value of 1,200 millions ; the dyes, grease,
oils, machinery, &c. make up 800 millions, whilst the wages paid
(in Europe) for labour at this branch of industry are about 2,000
millions (of francs).
“ From these summary statistics it may be easily compre
hended how much trouble must have been occasioned in the
�40
cotton-manufacturing countries by the scarcity of the indispen
sable material. England, which is, unquestionably, the greatest
consumer of raw cotton, was the first to diminish the regular
course of its manufacture. From the month of August, 1861,
this industry began to fall off in Lancashire. The American
War having broken out in the spring of 1861, and the blockade of
the Southern ports having been almost immediately made
effectual, the price of cotton rose rapidly. In consequence of
this sudden rise in the raw material, the hours of labour were
further shortened in the manufactories ; and from the month of
July, 1862, nearly all the factories in Great Britain were working
on short time. From that date to the 31st of December, 1862,
the pressure continued to increase, and hence extreme distress
spread throughout the cotton districts.
“ In France the supply of the raw material on hand was com
paratively much greater. Hence a serious diminution of labour
did not commence in Normandy until about August or Septem
ber, 1862, and in the Eastern manufacturing district of France
not until December.
“ In 1860 Europe had attained a weekly consumption of 90,000
bales of cotton, and it was estimated that new sources of produc
tion ■would raise the amount to at least 100,000 bales per week
in 1861, the period when the American War broke out. The
actual stock on hand for all Europe was then only 360,000 bales
of American cotton. For two years the value of American
cotton had been from 70 to 80 francs per 50 kilogrammes. At
the beginning of September, 1862, it had reached 350 and even
360 francs. In November it sunk to 275, but again rose in
December to 300 francs.”—(Moniteur, January 27, 1863.)
We have quoted the above from the words of an eminent
manufacturer; they are, however, open to criticism, and
doubtless contain some exaggerated statements on certain
points, especially as to the reduction of wages in the cotton
working districts of France and of Europe generally.
But the distress occasioned in the Old World by the
American War is not the less immeasurable, as the following
statistics will show:—
“ The imports of cotton into England, for the year 1863,
cost three millions of pounds sterling more than those of
1861, although not amounting, even as to quantity alone, to
one-half the ordinary value of the latter.’’—(Journal des Economistes, January, 1864, p. 118.) There were, it is true,
additional supplies of cotton from India and Egypt, but
of a very inferior quality to that produced in America.
�41
This very necessity of having recourse to Egypt and India
created much embarrassment in European countries. “The
heavy purchases of cotton from countries which hitherto had
only exported it in small quantities, and which' had con
sequently not acquired the habit of a corresponding con
sumption of European products, occasioned in 1863 large
exportations of specie, from which the Continent has been
suffering, especially during the last three months. The
Bank of England, which began the year with a rate of
interest of 3 per cent., reached 8 per cent, in December.”—
(Journal des Economistes, p. 119, January, 1S64.)
Thus it is evident that a great war can import a multitude
of disturbances into our industrial and financial progress.
The year 1863 was a specially terrible time to pass through.
“ This winter,” wrote the Journal des Economistes, in
January, 1864, “will, happily, not be so difficult to undergo
as that of 1863. Calculations, which appear to be correct,
have shown that the average value of the French cotton
manufactures is 530 million francs f £21,200,000), of which
a fifth part, or 106 millions, represents wages, and that
there will only be half the amount of work done this year,
that is to say, that our operatives will lose about 53 million
francs. The importation of cotton has increased in the past
year about 50 per cent., and it will follow that the loss of
wages will be diminished one third. But the loss will be
actually much less, because a considerable number of
operatives have taken themselves to the manufactures
of woollen and linen and hemp, which have profited by the
rise in cotton.”
The calculations of M. Paul Boiteau appear to be more
correct than those of M. Pouyer-Quertier. But a loss
of 53 millions in wages, at an average rate of 3 francs
per day, or 1,000 francs per annum, implies 53,000 opera
tives without the means of existence. Even if this loss and
this number be reduced one half, and if we consider that
the French manufactories only furnish about the fifth part
of all the cotton fabrics of Europe, it will follow that at
least 100,000 of the working population of Europe were, in
consequence of the American War, left almost continually,
for nearly three years, without employment, and that three
or four times as many had to suffer a considerable diminu-
�42
tion of wages. How many deaths must have been occasioned
by this terrible “ holiday ! ” But such is war. Its nature is so
homicidal that it slays thousands of victims even at thousands
of leagues distance from the battle-fields !
But, again, if America overthrew our industry by ceasing
to furnish us with the raw material, she gave us further
trouble by no longer buying our manufactured produce.
“ It is evident that a customer so exhausted can only be a
poor customer to us, and that, when the war is over, the
effects of the past cannot immediately disappear. Hence it
appears from the Customs Returns that French exports to
foreign parts, especially as regards silk and woollen goods,
have undergone an important and significant diminution.”
(Journal des Economistes, vol. xlvii. p. 306.) The operatives
of Saint Etienne were scarcely in a better condition than
those of Mulhouse and Rouen on the conclusion of that
war.
It would be in vain to adduce a multitude of additional
statistics ; they would not enable us to estimate all the
calamities of the war. And yet, says M. Horn, “ 4,000
million francs (£160,000,000) would have sufficed to abolish
slavery by purchasing every slave at the general average
rate of 1,000 francs (£40) each, taking young and old, men
and women, the infants and the aged, uniformly.” What
economy this would have been! But, as was remarked by
M. Michael Chevalier, to have exercised this wise and self
denying foresight, America should have possessed, in the
crisis of 1861, men as great as those who directed the crisis
of the last century,—a Franklin in the North and a Wash
ington in the South. Yet even this should not have been
necessary. For a truly-informed and virtuous people knows
how to act, irrespectively of its great men, and will adopt
useful and right measures from the prompting of its own
intelligence and virtue.
THE SCHLESWIG- AND GERMAN WARS.
(1864—1866.)
The very recent occurrence of the two wars of 1864 and
1866 presents an unfavourable condition for judging with
accuracy respecting even their material results. In par
�43
ticular, we have no precise information as to the financial
expenditure involved. For the European governments have
not acquired the prompt and practical business habits of the
government at Washington, thanks to whose despatch the
financial situation of the Union is as readily ascertainable
as that of a large loan association.
We possess a valuable and quite recent work upon the
human losses in the Danish War (General 'Report on the
Medical Service in the Campaign against Renmark, by Dr.
Laeffleur, Physician in Chief to the Prussian Army). This
book, which has just been issued, has afforded us useful
information.
On the 1st of February, 1864, the allied army crossed
the Eyder ■ it was then composed of 60,000 men, of whom
one-third were Austrians and the remainder Prussians.
The Austrian contingent was not increased throughout the
campaign ; the Prussian force, on the contrary, was raised to
63,000 men. Out of this considerable force the following
losses in the Prussian army took place :—
Killed in action, or died of wounds ... 738 men
Died of diseases or various accidents ... 310 .,
Total ... 1,048
The number of dead in the Prussian army is therefore
only 1-j per cent, of the effective. This very small propor
tion of deaths is very surprising ; and yet the engagements
were very sanguinary, relatively much more so than even
those of the Crimean War; and, in proportion to the num
bers engaged, the assault of Duppel was as terrible as that
of the Malakoff. There were returned, in the Prussian
army—
At Missunde (February 2)
206 wounded, 59 dead
At Duppel (April 17 and 18) 1,780
,,
550 „
At Alsen
...
...
351
„
104 ,,
And what is most striking in this campaign is the very
small number of those who died from disease. There were
only 26,717 diseased, of whom only 310 died. This low
rate of mortality is chiefly owing, as Dr. Laeffleur acknow
ledges, to the philanthropic efforts of private associations
for the assistance of the soldiers.
It is more difficult to ascertain correctly the losses of the
Danish army. But it is certain that, for various reasons,
�44
and, amongst others, on account of the inferiority of its
armaments, it suffered much more than the Prussians. We
may fairly estimate the Danish losses, under fire, at double
those of the Prussian army, or about 1,500 men.
The Danish army was much more severely visited by
disease than its adversary. On this point we cau borrow
some exact details from Dr. Laeffleur. There were 31,575
cases of disease ; typhus made considerable ravages, and the
losses of the Danes from disease were 756 men, or much
more than double the Prussian losses from the same cause.
The Austrian losses must have been very inconsiderable ;
for, being less numerous than the Prussians, they took a
smaller part in the action.
To sum up,—the Prussians lost l,04S men; the Danes
certainly lost more than double as many, and the total loss,
including that of the Austrians, must have been about 3,500
men.
The financial losses are more difficult to ascertain. As
regards Austria and Prussia they were covered by the in
demnities of the war. The Danish budgets are not before
us, but we have, at least, the state of their debt before and
after the war;—
Before the War.
Rixdalers.
Ordinary debt of the Danish monarchy ... 98,261,793
Special debt of the kingdom
...
...
1,289,780
Holstein debt
...
...
...
...
666,000
Total
... 100,217,573
The debt of the kingdom, on the 31st of March, 1865, was
132,110,802 rixdalers; so that the war cost Denmark at
least 30 million rixdalers. To this must be added the war
indemnities paid by the Duchies and the share of the Duchies
in the debt of the monarchy previous to the war. We
thus obtain an approximate amount of 180 million francs
(£7,200,000). 180 million francs and 3,500 men are a
terrible loss of capital and of human life ; and the more so,
when it was so easy to have retained for industry and useful
labour all this money and all those vigorous limbs.
�45
THE WAR BETWEEN PRUSSIA AND AUSTRIA
IN 1SG6.
We now come to the great war of 1866. The statistics
relating to its loss of life are found to vary, particularly as
regards Prussia. An early official statement, dated Decem
ber, 1866, has been greatly exceeded by the most recent
returns from the Statistical Board of Berlin. It is probable
that even the latter do not afford exact statistics, and that
when Dr. Laeffleur prepares, as we hope he will do, a work
on the campaign in Bohemia, similar to that which he has
just published on the Schleswig campaign, it will be seen
that the amount of loss has been even greater than is
already admitted.
The number of wounded men in the Prussian army is,
according to the first report, 15,554; but according to the
later ones, 16,177. The first returns only indicate 2,910
killed; the corrective dispatches place the number of the
dead, within forty-eight hours, at 2,931 ; and of those who
sank afterwards in consequence of their wounds, at 1,519—
a total of 4,450. The first returns are silent as to diseases,
but the later ones announce 6,427 deaths from typhus and
other diseases. This makes in all, 10,877. It is evident,
from this illustration, that the corrective returns give higher
numbers than the provisional reports, and that still further
additions may be expected when the finally-corrected reports
are issued.
As regards Austria, we are still dependent upon the
merely provisional reports. The 13th annual report of the
Statistical Commission of Vienna, contains a series of
authentic results which indicate the strength and the losses
of the Austrian army during the war against Prussia. The
returns are merely based on the state of the army at the
end of August, 1866, from which it is evident that they
must be very defective and much lower in amount than
the reality. For who will tell us how many men have died
of their wounds since the month of August 1866 ? All
military statisticians, as for example, Dr. Chenu,Dr. Lseffleur,
�46
and the English author of the Reports on the Crimean War,
prolong their investigations for at least eighteen months
after the commencement of peace. Further, the Austrian
returns appear to take no account of the number of the
sick and diseased.
The Austrian army, at the beginning of the struggle, was
composed of 646,636 men, of whom 407,223 were then
arrived at the two great scenes of conflict. The total
number of avowed losses is 10,994 killed, 29,304 wounded,
and 43,743 missing. We are assuredly far from the truth
here ; and we do not hesitate to say that the number of
killed must have been double. Out of these 29,304 who
were still living in the month of August, 1866, experience
authorises us to assume that several thousands, at least four
or five thousand, must have died subsequently from their
wounds. We have seen, from Dr. Chenu’s Report on the
Crimean War, that those who died in France, in conse
quence of injuries received during the expedition, amounted
to 15,000 in the eighteen months after the war. Similarly,
those who died in Austria, either in hospitals or at home,
during the period of eighteen months after this contest,
must have been very numerous.
Further, there is not the least allusion, in the Austrian
returns, to diseases, which, amongst the Prussians, carried
off more than 6,000. It is not likely that the losses of
the Austrians, under this head, were less considerable ; their
fatigues were as great, their diet was inferior rather than
otherwise, and the thorough demoralisation of the Austrian
troops was a powerful auxiliary to epidemics. We have,
then, still to await a complete work on the losses of Austria
in 1866, and a revision which will be at the same time a
supplementary addition to the present insufficient returns.
It is, at least, certain that such rectifying statistics will
raise the total losses of the Austrian army to 20 or 25
thousand men.
We have not accurate accounts of the losses of the Ger
manic Confederation, properly so termed. We have only
before us the Saxon returns published almost immediately
after the war ; and they present indications of the greatest
confusion. We have no statistics respecting the Bavarians
and Hanoverians, although they were engaged in bloody
�47
encounters. We may, without any exaggeration, admit an
amount of 3,000 killed from the smaller states.
A supplement to the Florence Gazette, quoted by the
Moniteur, of July 9, 1866, contains the following calculation
of the Italian losses at Custozza: — 951 killed, 2,909
wounded, 4,252 prisoners. The number of dead only in
cludes those who expired in the first few days after the
battle. It must, therefore, be considerably augmented—
almost doubled, in fact—to include those who died from
their wounds in the year following the battle. For the day’s
conflict at Lissa, the Nazione claims to have received infor
mation of a total loss, to the Italians, of 743 killed, and 155
wounded.—(jbloniteur of July 29, 1866.)
We have no
details of the losses of the Volunteers, which must have
been extensive. We may calculate at 3,000, at least, the
number of Italians who perished from the enemy’s fire at
Custozza, at Lissa, and in Garibaldi’s campaign. Notwith
standing the short duration of the war, this estimate of
mortality should evidently be doubled, if we are to take
account of the deaths occasioned by disease, fatigue, poor
food, and all other sufferings, physical or moral.
To sum up—the number of Prussians killed or dead was
about 11,000 ; we consider the probable amount of Austrian
losses as varying from 20 to 25 thousand; those of the
smaller states of the Confederation at from 3 to 4 thousand ;
and those of the Italians as nearly 6,000. This makes a
total of from 40 to 45 thousand killed or dead. We believe
that this amount is not exaggerated, and we hope that a
systematic and scientific history of this war will furnish us,
in two or three years, with the exact figures, which may be
greater than ours, but which will certainly not be less.
Financial Losses oe the Wab.
The financial losses of the war are difficult to ascertain
with rigorous exactness; they are certainly not liquidated,
and we cannot obtain the true amount.
Austria, as early as November 23,1865, had negotiated a
loan at Paris. It was not a war loan, but was applied to
reimburse the advances of the National Bank. Immediately
the war broke out, in the early part of the month of May,
recourse was had to various expedients. The Government,
�48
issued notes of from 1 to 5 florins, for forced currency:
this issue reached the amount of 150 million florins. A law
passed July 7 authorised the minister to obtain a further
200 million florins, either by a voluntary loan or by an in
creased issue of Government notes. The Bank of Vienna
advanced, temporarily, 60 millions in bank-notes. An imperial
decree of the 25th of August authorised the Minister of
Finance to issue 50 million florins in 5 per cent, bonds and
90 millions in Government notes. This was the completion
of the 200 millions which the law of July 7 permitted. In
addition to these resources, the Government had intended,
early in June, to impose on Venetia a forced loan of 12
million florins. This made a total of 362 million florins
which it had sought to obtain. We cannot believe that
this enormous sum, which amounts to nearly 900 million
francs (£36,000,000), was wholly absorbed by the war. It
appears doubtful whether the forced Venetian loan was ever
obtained; and out of the 150 million florins levied in addi
tion to the previous costs of the war, we believe that only a
portion can have been absorbed by its special demands.
Nevertheless, the expenses of Austria, for this war, may be
estimated at 600 millions, at least, without reckoning
the indemnity which she had to pay to Prussia.
The expenses of the latter country are much more diffi
cult to calculate. The cash balance, or reserved fund, of
Prussia, amounted, before the war, to 21 million thalers.
After the beginning of May, these resources being absorbed,
the Government began to have recourse to various expe
dients. For what was the creation of the mercantile loan
Bank but a Treasury expedient ? This bank was authorised
to issue 25 million thalers in paper money (Darlehnskassensclieine'), which were rendered a compulsory currency, at
par, in all public banks. Then again, throughout the war,
the Prussian troops subsisted upon the enemy. And after
the war, the contributions imposed upon the vanquished
amounted to nearly 200 million francs (£8,000,000). In
the Legislature, on the 13th of August, 1866, the Minister
of Finance made a demand for extraordinary loans to the
extent of not less than 60 million thalers (£9,000.000). Of
this amount, however, 21 million thalers were devoted to
liquidate outstanding balances, and another portion was not
�49
expended. But, altogether, the expenses of this war, to
Prussia alone, must have amounted to 400 million francs
(£16,000,000). (Vide Moniteur, Sept. 3, I860.) Of this
sum, nearly one half was reimbursed by the contributions of
the conquered States.
As to Italy's share of expenditure on this war, it com
menced on the 1st of May, 1866, by the decree of an enforced
paper currency, and by a loan of 250 millions from the
National Bank. In pursuance of a decree, dated June 28,
1866, she imposed a general tax upon all moveable property,
a source of many subsequent difficulties. Finally, she had
recourse to a compulsory loan of 350 millions. Although
the total amount of these resources, which exceeded 600
millions, was not absorbed by the expenses of the war, there
is no doubt but that the latter reached at least 400 million
francs (£16,000,000).
We are unable to state accurately how much was the cost
of this war to Hanover, the Hessian States, Wurtemberg,
Saxony, &c. ; but when we remember that in 1859 the
special expenses of these secondary States, as set forth in
their respective budgets, were 152 million francs for the
seven principal States alone, although they did not then fire
a single gun, and were merely put into a condition of readi
ness for war (ffiriegsbereitschaft), it is difficult to believe
that the smaller States can have spent less, during the war
of 1866, than 250 million francs (£10,000,000), at any rate,
and without including the indemnities paid to Prussia.
The sum of the official and immediate expenses of the
war of 1866, may be therefore reckoned at about 1,650
million francs (£66,000,000) for the respective governments
in Germany and Italy.
But in this war, as in every other, the expenses indicated
in the public budgets, were the less considerable ones.
What a commercial and financial catastrophe was produced
in Italy by this inopportune war, with its triple plague of
paper money, forced loans, and the vexatious and inequitable
tax on moveable property ! It was a deadly blow from
which she will, probably, take twenty years to recover.
There had been debates on economy and it appeared that
some effectual steps would be taken in that direction, just
before the war broke out which demanded an unsparing inE
�50
crease of expenditure. How can young Italy struggle
successfully with the pernicious consequences of the ab
sorption of its circulating capital by the forced loan, the
annihilation of legitimate profits by the tax upon moveable
property and the losses and unsettlement of currency in
volved by the paper money ? These losses were especially
disastrous to a country whose imports had, for several years,
far exceeded its exports, and which was now to suffer, in its
foreign commercial transactions, the very heavy expenses of
a disadvantageous and exceedingly variable rate of exchange.
Austria was placed in a similar situation. She was truly
in a pitiable state. She had barely got over one crisis,
and was but beginning to remove the evils occasioned by
that crisis, when she voluntarily plunged herself into another
similar one. In 1858 she had just terminated the com
pulsory currency which had been so disastrous to her for
ten years. In 1859 she re-established it. In 1866 she was
repaying the advances made by the bank and there was a
prospect of the second termination of the forced currency,
when she threw herself, of her own free will, into new
dangers. By her mistakes and faults she became the prey
of paper money, continually increased taxation, commercial
disorganisation and industrial stagnation.
And even Prussia, so powerful and prosperous, had to
suffer, for six weeks, a suspension of all business. At the
beginning of the month of May, 20,000 of the working men
of Berlin found themselves out of employment, and, on the
declaration of war, mechanics, professors, bankers, labourers
and traders were all taken away from their usual avocations.
The Government proclaimed a universal holiday, as it were,
for two months throughout the kingdom, on account of the
war. During this time workshops and schools were closed
or empty. Thus we have the spectacle of a great nation
dead to labour and study for two months ! What an arrest
of civilisation ! In the public catastrophe how many indi
vidual and obscure or unnoticed calamities were involved 1
Failures took place to an incredible extent: they occurred
in Berlin at the rate of twenty or twenty-five per day, or
about the usual weekly number in ordinary times.
The smaller German States, roused abruptly from their
peaceful and industrious life, also expiated, by many losses,
�51
the general folly. All the public works which were being
so energetically pushed forward were checked. Thus Baden
had just contracted a loan for her railways ; the war absorbed
it. A similar exigency had already occurred in that State
in 1859. All the other minor States which, except in the
moment of delirium in 1859, had only contracted peace
loans were now compelled to rush into war-loans. To these
burdens must be added the various military requisitions,
ravages and arbitrary contributions, the six million florins
which General Vogel do Falkenstein extorted from Frank
fort, and the 25 million florins which General Manteufel also
extorted from the same city the very next day. We must
also remember the condition of Bohemia, desolated, laid
waste, and almost ruined by the quartering and conflicts of
600,000 men.
The blow struck in Germany influenced all Europe.
This unforeseen catastrophe, this sudden folly which had
overspread the centre of Europe, affected, by contagion, the
adjacent countries. In every direction men thought of
nothing but new rifles, strange guns, huge or small, and
gigantic armies. It was deemed necessary to have new
conscription-laws, new loans and new taxes. Countries
which had just been reducing their armies now only thought
of increasing them as much as possible.
In short, this German crisis raised the war-budgets of
every European nation. It inscribed 1,650 million francs
(£66,000,000) on the budgets of the belligerents alone;
it resulted in 45,000 deaths, in the ruin of Austria and
Italy, and in the universal and permanent increase of burdens
and public anxieties. Such is the balance-sheet of the
campaign in Bohemia!
Whence comes it that even two years after this war our
industry is languishing and our commerce suffering ?
Whence comes it that our money capital remains idle in
our banks, instead of supporting our manufactures and
creating new enterprises ? It is because war, even when
dead, leaves its spectre behind it, which long continues to
terrify the people afresh and to make them apprehensive of
further misfortunes.
�52
DISTANT EXPEDITIONS.
We now come to those disastrous Expeditions which have
involved so heavy an expense to the European Powers, and
especially to France. Unfortunately here statistics fail us,
especially as respects the losses of human life. We shall
hardly venture even any conjectural estimate. We shall
content ourselves with a mere reference to the great distance
of the scenes of conflict in China, Cochin China, Mexico,
and St. Domingo; the variations of climate, the yellow fever,
typhus and marsh fever, the fatigues of a war of incessant
skirmishes, the obstinate resistance of the enemy in Mexico
and Cochin China, the insufficiency of communication, of
hygienic assistance, and, at times, even of provisions. We
leave it to the reader to form, in view of these disadvan
tageous circumstances, a more or less accurate idea of the
number of victims which these deplorable Expeditions must
have swept off.
Although we are enabled to form a less vague conception
of the financial losses involved, an exact result is not attain
able. The expenses of most of these Expeditions are not yet
liquidated. The Legislative Assembly voted, as recently as
1867, the settlement of the accounts of 1S63. The accounts
of 1864, 1865, and 1866 are not yet known with precision.
Another difficulty in these calculations is that the expenses
of distant Expeditions are returned in the several budgets
under different headings, and are sometimes confounded
with expenses of another description. A state of very great
confusion characterises all these matters, and the time for
putting an end to it does not appear to have yet arrived.
These exceptional expenses have eventually become so
habitual that they have passed from the extraordinary into
the ordinary budgets. A proof of this is afforded by the
publication of the accounts accompanying the law of assess
ment for the expenses and receipts of the year 1863, pre
sented to the Legislative Assembly, May 6, 1S62, by M.
Vuitry, as Commissioner. The ordinary Navy Budget bore
an increase of 18,773,501 francs (£750,940) over the prec eding one ; and M. Vuitry accounted for this increase in
the following manner:—“tFor several years in succession
the various budgets, each copying the preceding one, repeated
�53
the same number of ships as being requisite for the reception
of marines, namely, 152 ships for a force of about 26,000 men,
although different circumstances had obliged the Department
of Naval Affairs either to form new stations or to increase the
capacity of some of the existing ones. Consequently, special
loans were needed to meet these expenses, which, although
appearing to be merely casual and temporary at first, even
tually partook of a normal and permanent character. The
ordinary budget used to provide for 152 armed vessels; in
1859 the number of these was 300, of which, however, 123
were required for the Italian Army and for the Indo-Chinese
Expedition. In 1860 the number of effective war-ships was
raised to 275—77 of which were for the Indo-Chinese and
Syrian Expeditions. In 1861 the number would probably
be nearly the same. Under these circumstances, the Govern
ment had found it expedient carefully to determine what
proportion of the special armaments of preceding years
should henceforth be regarded as indispensable for maintain
ing the service of our naval stations, whose number and im
portance have increased in consequence of the new establish
ments of the kind being formed in distant seas by the French
nation.”—(JZbm’tewr, March 12, 1862.)
These distant Expeditions had, in fact, terribly augmented
our Naval Budget. In 1857 it was only 121,S65,000 francs
(£1,872,600) ; in 1859, without reckoning Algiers and the
colonies, it rose to 213,800,000 francs (£8,552,000) ; and
in 1861 (as admitted in the Exchequer Bill of June 8,
1864), it required more than 230 millions (£9,200,000).
Thus the Navy Budget had increased, in consequence of
distant Expeditions, about 100 millions (£4,000,000), and
this augmentation had almost come to be regarded as a per
manent one. The Army Budget also suffered from the
influence of these Expeditions. In 1861, a year of peace,
it demanded (as is admitted in the Exchequer Bill of June
8, 1864) 400,975,814 francs, an excess of 55 millions over
the anticipated amount of 345 millions (£13,800,000).
Hence one of the most vexatious results of these far-off
wars has been the immeasurable expansion of our ordinary
budgets.
The supplementary loans will cease with the
Expeditions themselves, but the augmentation of the Army
and Navy Budgets, caused by these wars, has been declared
by Government to be normal and permanent; and it has, in
�54
point of fact, been subsequently so recognised as being
normal and permanent.
As to the total expenses of these Expeditions, M. Larrabure estimated them, even four years ago, as already
amounting to 270 millions (£10,800,000) for the Mexican
and Cochin China Expeditions only. In a Legislative dis
cussion at the same period, M. Calley Saint Paul calculated
at 450 millions (£18,000,000) the costs of the wars in China,
Cochin China, Mexico, and Japan. M. Vuitry (Government
Commissioner), in reply, admitted expenses of 17 millions
for the Syrian Expedition, 11 millions for that to the Kabyles
(in North Africa), and 166 millions for that to China and
Cochin China; and at the time of the Treaty of Miramar,
the French Government announced that it had spent 270
millions in Mexico. However, it has subsequently retracted
this statement as an over-estimate.
According to the Report of M. du Mirai on the Budget
of 1868 the expenses of the Mexican Expedition were as
follow
Army.
Francs.
Year.
1861
1862
1863
1864
1865
1866
1867
..
..
..
..
..
..
..
Total ...
27,119,000
72,012,000
51,732,000
29,342,000
41,792,000
9,993,000
Navy.
Francs.
.
. ..
. ..
. ..
. ..
. ..
. ..
Finance.
Francs.
3,200,000
35,902,000
24,606,000
15,667,000
10,583,000
13,798,000
13,117,000
..
.
..
379,000 .. .
.. 1,001,000 . .
.. 1,675,000 .
.. 1,480,000 . .
.. 9,567,000 .. .
..
200,000 . .
Totals.
Francs.
3,200,000
63.400,000
97,619,000
69,074,000
41,405,000
65,157,000
23,310,000
231,990,000 . .. 116,873,000 .. 14,302,000 .. . 363,165,000
(£9,279,GOO) . . (£4,674,920) .. (£572,080) .. .(£14,527,000)
According to another table, extracted from the same
Report, the receipts, more or less available, during the
Expedition, consisting of repavments and Mexican bonds,
amounted to 61,975,000 francs (£2,479,000); whence the
excess of expenditure would be 301 million francs
(£12,040,000).
. It is needless to remark that this official return is exces
sively below the actual cost. M. Berrver offers to prove
that the Expedition has absorbed 600 millions (£24,000,000),
but this is impossible. However, inasmuch as the Govern
ment itself avowed an actual expenditure of 270 millions
at the time of the Convention of Miramar, that is to say,
when the war was not half completed, it is difficult to con-
�55
elude otherwise than that the further expenses, after allowing
fordeductions and repayments, must have swelled this amount
to at least 400 millions (£16,000,000).
As regards the Expeditions to China, Cochin China, and
the Lebanon, we cannot estimate them at less than 300
millions (£12,000,000). This sum represents, almost
exactly, the unforeseen augmentations of our Army and
Navy Budgets in the years of peace, 1860, 1861, and 1862,
when the Mexican Expedition had, as yet, cost but little.
As we are aware, the Expedition to Cochin China still con
tinues, and forms a constant increase of our budget.
If we add to these officially recognised expenses the
losses of capital diverted from productive employment
sunk, without return, in Mexican loans, it will be found
that these distant Expeditions have cost France at least a
thousand million francs (£40,000,000), in addition to the
permanent increase which they have imposed upon our naval
establishments.
SUMMARY OF LOSSES BY RECENT WARS.
I.—Loss or Human Life.
Number of men wrho were slain on the field of battle, or
who died through wounds and disease:—
Killed by War.
Crimean War ...
Italian War (1859)
War of Schleswig Holstein
American Civil War—
Northern Army
Southern Army
War of 1866, between Prussia,
Austria, and Italy...
Distant Expeditions and various
wars, Mexico, Cochin China,
Morocco, St. Domingo, Para
guay, &c..................................
Total
784,991
45,000
3,500
281,000 1 #
519,000 j
45,000
65,000
1,743,491
Understated—vide Note at the end of this work.
�56
Hebe is a total of about 1,750,000 men swept off
BY WAB FBOM CIVILISED NATIONS BETWEEN 1853 AND
THAT IS TO SAY, IN THE SPACE OF 14 YEABS.
1866,
This is a number equal to the whole male population of
Holland. It is also a number equal to that of all the work
ing men employed by the industrial or commercial classes in
France. (Audiganne, “ Les Ouvriers d' a present]' page
405.) And yet this immense amount of human life, strength,
and intelligence, has been devoured by war in the eecent
14 yeabs of this century, so distinguished by its civilisation,
industry, and popular liberty !
SUMMARY OF THE FINANCIAL LOSSES BY RECENT
WARS.
Crimean War, 1853-4 ...
American Civil "War,
1861-5—
The North ...
The South
Italian "War, 1859
War of Schleswig Hol
stein, 1864
War of 1866, between
Prussia, Austria, and
Italy
Distant Expeditions to
Mexico,
Cochin
China, &c....
Total
340 million pounds sterling.
940 million
460 million
60 million
n
99
7 million
J,
99
66 million
99
99
J?
99
40 million
... 1,913 MILLION POUNDS
99
STEELING !
Even these are only the immediate and positive expenses
of the wars ; and some of the struggles are not yet ended.
Complete returns cannot be obtained respecting the expenses
of Spain in the Expedition to Cochin China, nor of those of
Peru, Chili, and St. Domingo. We are not in possession
of the costs of recent conflicts between the Republics of
South America and Spain, or of the still continuing war
between Brazil, La Plata, and Paraguay—a persistent and
furiously devastating struggle. Nor have we full returns
�57
from Mexico as to its war for independence against France.
And yet, irrespective of all these unfurnished expenses, we
have accounted for the frightful amount of nearly 48,000
million francs (or £1,913,000,000), which, if employed in
works of peace, would have entirely transformed the social
and financial condition of civilised nations. But the evil
genius of War has devoured the whole of it in fourteen years,
IN OBDEE TO SWEEP FROM THE EACE OF THE EARTH NEARLY
1,800,000 MEN.
NOTE.
A gentleman at New York, after reading “ Contemporary
Wars,” has written to Mr. Henry Richard, M.P., London, to say
that M. Beaulieu’s work greatly understates the losses of life and
property caused by the late Civil War in his country. He says :—
“ M. Beaulieu’s work is an able one, and generally correct ;
but, instead of 281,000 men killed in the Northern armies, the
total loss is known to be 1,100,000 by all causes up to 1867
inclusive.
“ By the census of 1860 the whole property of the United States
(exclusive of slaves) was valued at 14,183 million dollars, and
the loss of capital during the war (also exclusive of slaves) is
known to be over 5,000 millions, or fully one-fifth of the whole
property of the country in 1860. We look upon the present
prosperity, therefore, as merely fictitious, and destined to a
tremendous collapse, which is only a question of time.”
The same writer complains of the terrible amount of vice and
immorality occasioned by the habits formed during the war,
and forwards the following statement on the subject, extracted
from the New York Journal of Commerce, one of the highest
class newspapers in the United States :—
“ The ‘ Moral ’ Effect
of the late
Civil War
in
America.
“The prevalence of bold, wanton crime throughout all parts of
the country cannot be denied. It is not this city or the large
centres of population generally that are chiefly infected, although
some, for selfish purposes, encourage this idea. Many causes
have conspired to produce this outcropping of evil, but the chief
cause, beyond question, is the demoralisation produced by the war.
Some enthusiastic writers and orators claimed that the conflict
would be like “ a purifyingfurnace, ” from which the nation would
emerge cleansed and sanctified, like gold from the crucible. We
�58
pointed to all history in refutation of this theory, and urged the
adoption of every possible means to mitigate the evils that must
inevitably follow and grow out of the long and bitter contest.
Recklessness of life—disregard of the rights of person and pro
perty—the disposition to take by strategy, and still more by the
strong arm, any coveted good—a contempt for laws, so often
violated or silent in the presence of armed force—a sense of the
might of physical power in the presence of restraints purely
moral—familiarity with deeds of blood, rapine, and cruelty,
deadening the conscience and blunting all the finer sensibilities
of the soul—these and many kindred associations suggest them
selves to every careful observer who studies the demoralising
effect of war upon the nation at large. They are peculiar to no
age or race, and they operate on man as man in every com
munity and by every fireside. There is probably as great a ratio
of difference between the past and present condition of the most
moral and virtuous community in the country in the debasing
effect of the war, as between the criminal classes, once partially
restrained, but now rendered more brutal, daring, passionate, and
reckless, as the result of this national experience. We might
safely appeal to individual consciousness to sustain this assertion,
if men were willing to examine and judge themselves impartially;
but its truth is capable of demonstration.”
R. BARRETT AND SONS, PRINTERS, MARK LANE.
/A
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Contemporary wars (1853-1866): statistical researches respecting the loss of men and money involved in them
Creator
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Beaulieu, Paul Leroy
Description
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 58 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. From the French edition issued in the 'Peace Library' of the Paris 'International League of Peace'. Printed by R. Barrett and Sons, Mark Lane, London.
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London Peace Society
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1869
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G5394
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War
Pacifism
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Contemporary wars (1853-1866): statistical researches respecting the loss of men and money involved in them), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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Conway Tracts
Peace
War
War Casualties
War-Economic Aspects
-
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4ea4e181940dbf3d2a38f0a7c59b4ced
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Architecture and Place
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Humanist Library and Archives
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2016
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A collection of digitised items from the Humanist Library and Archives telling the story of buildings and spaces occupied by the Conway Hall Ethical Society (formerly the South Place Ethical Society). Also includes several born digital items.
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Architecture
Conway Hall (London, England)
South Place Chapel, Finsbury
Mansford, Frederick Herbert (1871-1946)
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English
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Dublin Core
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Counterpart lease of 17, 18, 19 and 20 Lambs Conduit Passage, 31 July 1869
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Counterpart lease of 17,18,19,20 Lambs Conduit Passage, (31 July 1869).</p>
<ul><li>(1) John Henry Strickland of Wye House, Buxton, Derbs, esq, a person of unsound mind, by Frances Strickland of Apperley Court, Glos, spinster, the committee of his estate</li>
<li>(2) William Howse of 38 Gloucester St, Queen Square, St George Bloomsbury, Middx, plumber</li>
</ul><p>Pursuant to an order of Masters in Lunacy (as per endorsement of 29 July 1869), and in consideration of costs of (2) in substantially repairing the premises, (1)-(2) 4 messuages, nos. 17, 18, 19 and 20 Lambs Conduit Passage.</p>
<p>Term: 21 years from 24 June 1866</p>
<p>Rent: for 1st quarter a peppercorn; for subsequent 3 quarters to 24 June 1867 £27 10s per quarter; for remainder of term £116 pa.</p>
<p>(2) covenants to insure premises for at least £2000.</p>
<p>Includes floor plan of premises showing internal details and detailed schedule of landlord's fixtures and furniture in each property by rooms.</p>
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Unknown
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1869
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Leases
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SPES/3/1/1/18
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image/jpeg
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Text
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English
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<p>Licenced for digitisation by the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/guidance/copyright-orphan-works" target="_blank">Intellectual Property Office</a> under Orphan Works Licence <a href="https://www.orphanworkslicensing.service.gov.uk/view-register/details?owlsNumber=OWLS000075-6" target="_blank">OWLS000075-6</a>.</p>
Lamb's Conduit Passage, Holborn
Strickland, Frances
Strickland, John Henry
-
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f8af8bca94907db5b6aad682468182e6
PDF Text
Text
VERSUS
REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT.
Translated FROM THE ORIGINAL SWISS pamphlets bÿ
EUGENE OSWALD.
t
CHERRY & FLETCHER, 6, WARDROBE PLACÉ,
DOCTORS’ GOMMONS, E.C.
1869.
*
��PREFACE.
It is with the permission of one of the originators of this project,
Karl Biirkli of Zurich, that I take the liberty of laying this matter
before the English public. It is a subject well worthy of attention,
as it has both historical precedence and the advantage of being now
practically in existence in several cantons of Switzerland, and open
to the inspection of the curious, who may desire to investigate more
closely its rejuvenescence, and to those who may doubt the merits of
its real practical working. I therefore, without further comment,
place it before the English public.
W. F. COWELL STEPNEY.
The translator wishes to add that, while fully aware of the im
portance of the matter stated in these pages, and thinking it desirable
that they should become subject for inquiry and discussion, he does
not undertake a joint responsibility for all the views expressed.
E. 0.
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�DIRECT LEGISLATION BY THE PEOPLE,
VERSUS
REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT.
The experience of the last twenty years has entirely cured the
working classes of Europe of the idea that Imperial Democracy
and Imperial Socialism, that is, the dictatorship of a single person,
are capable or even willing to do anything for the social education
of the working masses. There have been merely apparent reforms,
dust thrown in the eyes of the people, while in reality the workman
is more than ever a victim of taxation and food for powder. Since
the coup d’etat of Bonaparte, the belief has, with great astuteness,
been spread among the working classes that political or state
reforms had nothing to do with social reforms, and that therefore
the working man should not occupy his attention with politics, but
solely with the improvement of his social position. The ruling
classes know only too well by experience what a great advantage
they derive from political forms favourable to themselves, and that
so long as the working population allows itself to be led without
volition in political matters, and has no direct influence upon legis
lation, it will not devise a form of government favourable to the
interests of labour. Socialism, even of the most radical kind, is a
mere bugbear, without any danger, because the political fulcrum is
wanting to its social lever, wherewith it may lift from off its hinges
the old form of society, with its poverty of the masses and its in
dividual wealth. Social reform is condemned to remain in a state
of theory until the right means are found to put it into practice,
and these means can be no other than, above all, to bring about
a governmental reform of such a nature that the laws shall hence
forth be made by the voice of all the citizens, and no longer accord
ing to the wishes of the privileged few.
French workmen are thoroughly wearied of the so-called Im
perial Democracy of Napoleon, they wish for a social democratic
republic. The workmen of Northern Germany are so satiated with
the imperialism, the cavalier dictatorship of Von Schweitzer, that
�6
they turn aside with disgust from this misleader of the people, and
go over with bag and baggage to the camp of the International
Working Men’s Association, where waves the banner of the right
of self-government, of social democracy, of a Confederate Republic
of Europe, and round which the workmen of Southern Germany,
of Austria, of Italy, and of Spain, begin likewise to rally in ever
increasing numbers.
But how is this socially democratic State to be organized ? This
is the all-important question for the workman. The International
Working Men’s Union should be perfectly clear and united upon
the point as to which kind of republic it prefers, so that in the
event of the breaking out of a revolution the working classes may
everywhere know what to do.
The political movement in Switzerland during the last two
years, chiefly in the canton of Zurich, is perhaps only a symptom,
a prelude to the great and deeply penetrating movement which is
about to agitate European politics. The bourgeois republic, or
Representative Democracy, is on the point of dying out in Switzer
land, for it has been found insufficient to combat the injurious
influences of the Jesuitism, as it were, of the great capital. It has
neither the strength nor the will to solve the social question, and
Pure Democracy now steps forward, by which the people take a
direct part in the legislation, and can therefore transform it in
accordance with their social requirements.
The idea of direct legislation through the people must be largely
spread among the working multitudes of Europe, in order that at
the forthcoming crisis of monarchy it shall pass into flesh and
blood, and shall create on a large scale, throughout the whole of
Europe, political institutions of the same kind as those which
already exist in Switzerland.
Representative government is everywhere the same. The work
men of Paris remember only too well how in the days of June,
1848, those middle-class representatives endeavoured to solve the
social problem with grapeshot; and, quite recently, the miners in
Belgium have found out that their constitutionalists, too, know of
no other means than powder and shot. Nay, even in the repre
sentative democracy of Zurich, there existed for more than twenty
years severe laws against the coalition of workmen, and against
the social and democratic press. So long as the workmen allow
the laws of the State to be manufactured and forced upon them by
those who live by using up the workman, so long will the laws be
unfavourable to the toiling masses, and favourable to the masters
only. When did a monarch ever make laws in the interest of his
people, and against the interest of his dynasty? First comes
himself, his interest, his dynasty, and the welfare of the tools who
support him in working the commonwealth for his own benefit;
�7
and it is only at last, when all these worthies have had their fill,
that the much-squeezed people are thought of at all, and then too
often stones are offered to them instead of bread. There are, in
deed, so-called Christian monarchs, who, like good-natured riders,
stroke or pat the neck of the creature panting under their weight;
-but that the heavily burdened animals, ridden to soreness, would
best be helped if the master and all his train would dismount, is a
thing which never occurs to the one above until the one below
throws him off.
In the same manner an aristocracy can make excellent laws for
themselves, but not for the people. Has the aristocracy of Eng
land, perhaps the cleverest body of the kind in existence, ever done
anything in the interest of the working man?
*
No! if they have
retained their position until now, it is only because they have not
shown over-much obstinacy in strenuously opposing reforms that
had become absolutely necessary. But, again, the legislators of the
representative state, although elected by the people, are not capable
of making good laws for the working classes, but yet are able to
make excellent laws for their own class, the middle class. And
why? Because, as experience teaches us, the majority of every
representative body consists of capitalists and their creatures, and
members of the middle classes, hostile to social progress. And
even as the slaveholder is, by his very nature, incapable of making
laws in the interest of his slaves, so the representative, being a
capitalist, is incapable of ever1 framing laws in the interest of the
workman. Representative democracy, though it be, comparatively
speaking, a far better form of government than a monarchy or an
aristocracy, is therefore not that political form within which the
world of workers can attain its proper place and social questions
can be solved. It might be more so, if working men, and especi
ally the peasantry, were always to send to the national council the
most intelligent of their own class only; but, unfortunately, the
experience of every country shows that this is done only in ex
*Note by the Translator.—Common fairness seems to require some
modification of, or exception to, the negative rule which the form of the
question implies. For instance, every workman living in or near London
enjoys the privilege of proceeding in the morning and evening by rail to and
from his work at a greatly reduced rate. The legal enactment which forces
the railway companies to make this reduction was originated in the House
of Lords. Earl Derby was the mover, and after speeches by Lord Stanley of
Alderly, Ellenborough, Grey, and Shaftesbury, the clause was agreed to by
the Upper House, on April 22, 1864.— Vide Hansard, Vol. 174, pH,488. The
House of Commons, with about a hundred railway directors among its
members, had to adopt it. Nor should individual exertions of many members
of the aristocracy be forgotten, such as Lord Ashley, now Shaftesbury’s
successful efforts in the carrying of the ten hours’ bill. One need not share in
the party views of the actors to recognize such acts.
�8
ceptional cases. As a rule, the people elect only members of the
so-called higher orders, because the pernicious prejudice, an out
come of monarchical periods, leads men to believe that Intellect
alone can produce good laws, and consequently highly educated
people are all that is wanted, while, in reality, Interest is the de
terminative cause in matters of legislation. Add to this, that the
salary of a member of a legislative body, and the travelling expenses
paid to him, are systematically fixed so low that for a member of
the working classes it is even economically impossible to fulfil the
functions of a representative.
The experience of democracy further teaches us that a people
can be far more easily misled when there is a question of persons
(such as elections for national or municipal councils) than where
there is a question of things (for instance, voting on laws); and
this for the simple reason that it is immeasurably more difficult
to probe the heart and character of a person than to go to the
bottom of a thing, that is, the meaning and intention of a law;
because it is far more easy to judge whether a certain law is made
in the interest of the working classes, than whether a councillor
will always speak and vote in the interest of the people.
Thus the touchstone by which true gold is to be distinguished
from false is this. In a true, pure democracy, or popular republic,
the people do not deal with persons only (elections of councillors)
but also, and indeed above all, with things (laws.) In false repre
sentative democracy or a middle-class republic, the people are only
allowed to occupy themselves with persons (election of councillors)
who proceed to make laws, and do so according to their own
pleasure, profit, and prejudice. What the middle-class democrats
want is that they alone are to govern the people, for the benefit of
the few. What the social democrats want is that the people should
govern themselves, for the advantage of all, by taking legislation
into their own hands and attending to it themselves, instead of
allowing others to attend to it for them—that is, they want self
help to the fullest extent, and therefore in the domain of politics
as well as elsewhere.
The history of the world abundantly proves that the law is only
a written expression of the interest of the lawgiver. To express
the matter somewhat prosaically, one may say that the spirit of
the law lies in the stomach of the lawgiver; the quintessence of
laws is determined by the legislator’s money-bag. This is all the
more true when not only an individual, but a whole class is in
question; not the dominion of one man, but the dominion of a
class. Never yet has the misusing class emancipated the misused
one, or spontaneously issued laws favourable to the latter. Only
when the misused class have become masters in the state, and have
taken legislation into their own hands, have the laws been made
�9
in their interest, that is, in the general interest, and then only
could that class develope itself according to its social needs. But
what applies to the third estate, the bourgeoisie, or middle-class,
is only the more sure, when there is a question of the working
class, of the whole people. Like as the chemical germ, the inner
impelling power of a plant requires, in order to prosper, certain
physical peculiarities, that is, external circumstances, such as a
favourable soil and climate, just so do the inner—and, so to speak,
chemical—impulses of society, or social ideas, require, in order to
unfold according to their nature, and to germinate in practical
life, a peculiar physical form of political life, that is, favourable
political circumstances. And these are the social and democratic
laws which never could have been made by princes or clergy (who
already possess Heaven here below) but can be made only by the
working classes, who longingly wish for such a social transforma
tion, an existence, worthy of man, in this world. No saviour will
ever redeem the people; they must redeem themselves. Thence
proceeds the universal stirring of the nations of Europe towards
emancipation. As a plant confined in a dark vault grows towards
an air-hole, to get within reach of sunlight, so the working world
of Europe struggles to escape from the close, dreary, and dull air
of monarchy to the brightness of democracy. When once in a
state of freedom, the people will be sure to grope its way instinct
ively into social redemption, feeling as it does every day its
sufferings, which, however, are giving it the necessary impulse to
make itself acquainted with the cause of the evil, and its remedy.
In a real democracy—wherein direct legislation gives into its
hands the instrument of perpetual motion, and the path for constant
peaceful revolution lies open before it—the people will create new
forms and laws, not according to preconceived social theories, but
according to real wants, as they make themselves practically felt,
and it will make its will prevail, as in Switzerland, by a stroke of the
pen, and no longer by firearms and bloody revolutions, as in
despotic states.
The fear which has been expressed lest the ideal conquests of
mankind should, in the social-democratic State, be less attended to
and less promoted than in monarchical or representative forms of
the commonwealth, is an idle one; for history proves that the
freer a nation is the more willing it is to bring sacrifices to the
cause of human culture, because it perceives that it is not the
spirit-crushing, sterile faith, but only the spirit-raising, fertile
science that can redeem the world. Nay, direct legislation by the
people is of all political forms the one which is most favourable to
the advancement of the education of the people, for every one has
an interest in his fellow man, who has co-operated in the making
of the laws, giving his vote with conscious knowledge ; and above
�10
all the so-called well-educated folks—to whom direct legislation by
the people appears in the fancied shape of a ruin of all culture, of
a modern irruption of barbarians—will have the greatest interest
in the matter, and will readily lend a hand to giving the masses
their schooling gratuitously, and, moreover, of as good a kind as
possible, and so making the higher institutions of learning
accessible to every one that is capable. Besides, direct legislation
is in itself a mighty engine of culture, seeing that the people are
impelled, by their most immediate interests, to get information,
lest they be, after all, bamboozled and misused by the men of socalled higher culture—which really is mis-culture—and their
lawyer-like subtleties. Strangely enough these very men—the socalled well educated, who think direct legislation incapable of
fostering the ideal wealth of mankind, and who, therefore, point at
it as a retrogression—these very men, we say, cannot sufficiently
admire the ancient Greeks as the principal supporters of civiliza
tion in antiquity, and seem not to recollect that those who had
made the greatest strides among the Greeks were the Athenians,
who had direct legislation through the people, that is, through the
free citizens, and that it was just this political form which contri
buted most essentially to the development of the Attic spirit; for
with the suppression of this political form, with the dominion of
strangers, the great minds disappeared.
*
The ancient Germans,
too, had direct legislation by the people in an organization similar
to that which has been preserved through the course of many
centuries in the “ Lands-gememden ” of the Forest cantons. The
Germans did homage to the political principle that every man is to
be a legislator, a military defender of the country, and a judge.
Is it not strange that the Romans, so well versed in legislation,
in war, and in the administration of justice, could put all the
nations of the old world under the yoke except just this nation of
Germans, though politically so disunited? And why? For this
reason—that a popular legislation, a popular army, and a popular
administration of justice had become flesh and blood in them, and
had produced men, against whose unalloyed strength the omni
potence of Rome was shattered. Unfortunately in the course of
time those Germans became silly enough to prefer the Roman
Trinity (God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost) to the German
Trinity (legislator, soldier, and judge in the one person); and
they will be punished with scorpions by priests and Cæsars until
they re-establish the ancient Germanic institutions : legislation
by the people, the army of the people, and the administration of
* Half suppressed sigh by the Translator.—The Athenians gave no vote
to the immense majority of their working men, who were slaves; and it was
democracy that killed Socrates, whom the aristocrats had left in peace.
�11
justice by the people. The ancient democracy which, by monarchi
cal senselessness and ecclesiastical belief, has been torn away from
the people, must, by sense and science, be re-conquered and further
developed in the spirit of our age. Every one must again become
a legislator, soldier, and judge. He must periodically and in his
own person exercise the rights and practise the duties appertain
ing to those dignities. Here no division of labour, no substitution
of another person, is possible, if we would not fall into servitude.
If the people renounces the right to decide in the last resort on
laws, if it hands over this duty to one man or to a few men, then
these will soon arrogate to themselves the privilege of making the
laws only for themselves and against the general good. If the
people abandons the defence of its rights and its country to a
number of individuals, specially trained and set apart for this pur
pose, it creates a standing army—the most terrible tool in the
hands of the governors, which is used against its right and its
freedom whenever the civilian sheep become restive under the
monarchical shears. If the people leaves the right and the duty
to pronounce guilty or not guilty to permanent officials in the
place of the judge, it runs the risk of a bureaucracy and lawyerdem
springing up and growing, which judges us according to Heaven
knows what kind of outlandish—say Roman—law, but surely not
according to that law which has its basis in the convictions of the
people as to what is right.
Little Switzerland, penned in between mighty monarchies whose
population is a hundred times larger, has, notwithstanding all per
nicious monarchical influences, notwithstanding the miasma of the
theory of right divine, still preserved to herself, during centuries,
the old Teutonic health, the ever true principles of those Germans,
before whom Rome, the enslaver of nations, trembled; at least she
has preserved them in part, and especially with respect to the
arming of the people. Because the Swiss, a recognized defender
of his country, always had arms in his home—that is, had the
armed right of voting; because the Swiss never would hear of a
standing army; therefore has his republic been preserved; therefore
could the popular spirit, whenever it was aroused, easily make a
path for itself between intervening obstacles.
At present the plan of direct legislation by the people makes
way for itself with all that weight which a modern idea can re
ceive by the historical recollection of things as they were in
Germanic antiquity and in the heroic ages of the old Confederacy,
when the people were asked, and their sanction or rejection re
quired, even in the larger cantons, with respect to such important
questions as the making of peace and war, the establishment of
the religious reformation, the imposition of taxes and the like.
Already this direct legislation has legal existence in the larger
�12
cantons of the German portion of Switzerland, in Berne, Thurgovia,
the Grisons, but above all in Zurich, in which latter canton it is
laid down in the constitution in the most complete and purest
form. Already the movement has begun, which strives to extend
even to federal legislation this direct legislation by the people, and
to do this in such a form as will admit of its exercise by the people
of even the largest states.
Already the French Constitution of 1793, which bears in its
preamble the ever memorable Declaration of the Rights of Man,
laid down the principle of direct legislation by the people, though
in a form less developed than the one in which we have it before us
now-a-days. It does so in the form of the so-called veto, a certain
number of voters having to raise an objection, previous to a general
vote being taken with respect to a proposed law. Article 53 of
the French Constitution of 1793 says:—
“The legislative body proposes laws” {propose des lois.)
Art. 58. The bill is published and sent to all the municipalities
{communes) of the republic, under the title of proposed law {loi
proposée.')
Art. 59. If, forty days having elapsed from sending out the
bill, no objections have been offered, in the half of the depart
ments plus one, by one tenth of the primary assemblies regularly
convoked, the bill has been accepted, and becomes law.
Art. 60. If such objections have been raised, the legislative
body has to convoke the primary assemblies (for the purpose of
voting on the acceptance or the rejection of the law.)
Unfortunately, this Constitution could never be practically
worked, the weight of the difficulties with which the young Re
public had to struggle, both at home and abroad, not permitting
a peaceful development. But, as in general in the life of nations
a good idea never gets lost, and no step towards improvement is
made quite in vain, these ideas of 1793 slumbered on in the depths
of the heart of the French people. And when the second Republic
arose out of the revolution of February, 1848, and the social
democrat Rittingh arisen, of Cologne, in the years 1850 and 1851,
scattered among the people the idea of Direct Legislation by the
People, an idea whose further development and realisation he has
made the aim of his life, these thoughts at once kindled, and a
mighty movement was produced in men’s minds against the re
presentative state; a movement which could not have failed to
bear good fruit, had not the beautiful blossom been nipped in the
bud by the blasting coup d'état of Bonaparte, the so-called saviour
of society. For it is the fate of Cæsarism that the grass withers
wherever its foot falls. Out of that desert of reaction the seed
was wafted to the only remaining republican oasis, the soil of
Switzerland, where in the healthy life of the people it has gradu
�13
ally struck deep roots. Now that Cajsarism is decaying, and a
new breath of spring is pervading the nations, the seed that has
been sown is shooting up everywhere from the soil, fresh and
healthy, like a real crop of thought, and the idea of Direct Legis
lation by the People, germinating so long, takes practical shape in
the form of a political institution.
Of course direct legislation cannot be exercised in larger com
monwealths in the same mode in which it was once practised in the
public square at Athens, in the oak forests of ancient Germany,
and is still carried out in those cantons of Switzerland which
possess the “landsgemeinde.” The essence, that is, the participa
tion in the making of the laws, must continue, only,,the form in
which the participation takes place must disappear, and give way
to quite a different one, because the circumstances have become
different, have become enlarged, and will no longer allow the whole
people to assemble in one spot for the purpose of consultation.
Our century, however, with its magnificent inventions, has, among
other things, prepared and rendered possible democracy on a large
scale, by nearly annihilating distance, so that an extensive body of
people are so connected by steam and telegraph as to allow the
existence and movement of any single limb to be at once felt
everywhere, and to be received into the consciousness of all the
members. Therefore the old form, though venerable on account
of its antiquity, must be given up. ■
The show of hands of the “ landsgemeinde,” that is, open voting,
must now, when every one can write, be replaced by secret voting,
(the ballot,) in the municipalities, by means of electoral urns,
which, on the day appointed for voting, stand open for every
citizen to throw in his voting paper at such time as may be con
venient to him. By this plan the influence of capital, with its
improper suggestions by employers, whereby open voting is but too
frequently impaired, is completely put an end to. The workman,
under a system of secret voting, will be able to give a much freeer
expression to his wishes than if he is subject to intimidation, which
is too frequently the case with a system of open voting, where he
has often to pay by social disadvantages (loss of work, &c.) for the
free utterance of his political convictions.
The consultatibn in the “landsgemeinde” will now, when every
one can read, be replaced by printed explanations, to be given with
the bills, by discussion in the newspapers, and by free meetings
whenever the importance of the proposed laws call for such de
liberation.
The faculty of bringing a motion before the “landsgemeinde”
in the old cantons, will, in more extensive commonwealths, be
provided for by a differently organized popular initiative (right of
the people to make proposals.) It is proposed, with this aim, that
�14
any fraction of the people, say one tenth or one twentieth, as the
Constitution may determine, should be able, by a committee to be
elected for the purpose, to formulate its desire in the shape of a
bill, and ultimately to bring it before the whole people for decision
by popular vote.
Direct legislation by the people consists then in two essential
elements: the one of impulse and initiative, the other of deter
mination and decision. Whence we obtain :—
1. The Right of the people to propose laws; also to be called
Popular Initiative.
2. The popular vote on the laws, also called Referendum.
Between these two elements the functions of a regular organic
body are exercised by the Council, which is, indeed, no longer to
be a legislative body, but merely a law-proposing one, that is,
simply, a giver of counsel, which counsel the people may adopt or
not.
The Council is thus exposed to a cross fire which is calculated
to keep it from going to sleep. If the Council propose bad laws
(if they are guilty of sins of commission) these laws will be re
jected by the popular vote, or Referendum. If the Council do not
wish to propose good laws (if they are guilty of sins of omission)
the Popular Initiative steps in, making its own proposals.
Taking as an instance the canton of Zurich, the Popular Initiative
can manifest itself in two ways:—
1. If the thirteenth part of the people—in Zurich 5,000 initiants
out of 65,000 possessors of votes—make a proposal, it must be
submitted to the vote of the whole people.
2. If a single individual makes a proposal which is approved of
by one third of the Council, such proposal must likewise be voted
upon by the people.
Thus there are, in the canton of Zurich, three parties equally
entitled to bring proposals before the people for its vote, viz.:—
1. Five thousand initiants.
2. Any individual gaining the assent of the Council of the
canton.
3. The cantonal Council itself (consisting of about 220 members.)
Only the Council is the ordinary organ; the two others are
extraordinary organs, whose activity begins only when the ordinary
one proves inert.
In order to render this matter still more plain, we here insert
those articles of the Constitution of Zurich which deal with the
Popular Initiative and the Referendum. The Constitution begins
with these words :—
“ The people of the canton of Zurich give themselves, in virtue
�15
of their sovereign right to determine their own destinies, the
following constitution;” and in Chapter iii., Legislation and Re
presentation of the People, we read as follows:—
“Art. 28.
“ The people, with the co-operation of the Cantonal Council,
exercise the powers of legislation.
“ A.—Right of the people to make proposals.
“ Art. 29.
“ The right of making proposals which those entitled to vote
possess (Initiative) comprises the demand of the passing, repeal, or
alteration of a law, or of any such resolution as is not, by the
terms of the Constitution, expressly reserved to the competency of
the Cantonal Council. Demands of this kind may be made either
in the form of simply calling attention to the matter in question,
or by offering the details of a bill; and in either case motives are
to be adduced for the alteration proposed.
“ If a single individual or a constituted authority makes such
a demand, and it is supported by one third of the members of
the Cantonal Council, the question must be laid before the
people for decision. The right of personally advocating in the
Cantonal Council the alteration proposed is granted to the indi
vidual having made the demand, or to the deputy of the constituted
authority moving in the matter, provided that twenty-five members
of the Cantonal Council support the request of this personal
advocacy of the motion.
“ If five thousand persons, having the right to vote, make a de
mand of the kind aforesaid; or if a number of municipal meetings,
in which at least five thousand persons entitled to vote have pro
nounced in favour of such a demand, the decision of the people is
to be equally taken, unless the Cantonal Council have previously
responded to the demand. Any demand of this kind, having been
handed in early enough, the matter is to be placed before the
people for their decision, at the latest, at the second subsequent
regular taking of votes.
11 The demand or bill has in every case to be submitted, before
the vote, to the Cantonal Council, for them to give an opinion in
the form of a resolution.
“ In any case in which a bill proceeding from popular initiative
is submitted to the vote, the Cantonal Council, besides giving its
opinion, may place before the people a modified bill for decision
between the two.
�16
“ B.—Popular Vote.
“Art. 30.
“Twice every year, in spring and in autumn, the vote of the
people takes place on the legislatory acts of the Cantonal Council
(Referendum). In urgent cases the Council can order an extra
ordinary taking of votes.
“ There are to be submitted to the popular vote:
“ 1. All alterations of the constitution, laws, and concordats.
“ 2. Those resolutions of the Cantonal Council which that
Council is not competent to pass definitely (vide Art. 31).
“3. Any resolutions which the Council may wish to put to the
popular vote.
“ The Cantonal Council is entitled on submitting a law of reso
lution, to order-—beside the Vote on the totality of the proposal—•
exceptionally a vote on single points of it.
“ The vote takes place by means of the ballot boxes in the
municipalities. Participation in it is a citizen’s duty, binding on all.
“ The vote can only be by affirmation or negation.
“The absolute majority of affirming or negativing votes is
*
decisive.
“ The Cantonal Council is not entitled to give provisional validity
to any laws or resolutions requiring the popular vote, previous to
such vote being taken.
“ All proposals to be submitted to the popular vote are to be
published and handed to the voters at least thirty days before the
taking of the vote.
“ C.—Cantonal Council.
“Art. 31.
“ The competency of the Cantonal Council extends to
. “1. The discussion and resolution of all questions which are
to be submitted to the popular vote.
“2..........................
“3..........................
“4. The control of the entire administration of the country, and
of the action of the courts of law.
“ 5. The final decision on new expenses, occurring but once and
for a definite purpose, such expenses not to go beyond 250,000
francs; as well as on annually recurring expenses less than the
amount of 20,000 francs.
* That is, one-half of all the votes given, plus one, in contradistinction to
a vote by a two-thirds’ majority; or to a majority which, as being com
pared with the absolute majority, is only the largest of several minorities,-“
Translator.
�17
“ 6. The fixing of the annual estimates of ways ancl means, and
of expenses, in accordance with existing laws and resolutions. . .
“ 7. The audit of public accounts..................... ”
We should not like to affirm that the above articles have in
every case hit the mark exactly, and that they could be considered
as an infallible scheme, so to speak. Variety of individual views
will here and there find shortcomings. Yet these articles, as a
first serious attempt at realizing the idea, deserve in so far every
attention, as they offer a new form of commonwealth—a form pro
ceeding from the discussions and votes of an entire people, a form
wherein the community may grow and unfold itself, without let or
hindrance, according to its progressive wants.
We are firmly convinced that direct legislation by the people,
through the institutions of the popular initiative and the popular
vote on laws, can and must be introduced into the largest states ;
and that without these political institutions the social questions
cannot be solved.
The section of Zurich therefore think themselves not only justi
fied in bringing the idea of direct legislation through the people
before the forum of the Industrial Working Men’s Association,
but they consider themselves even under an obligation to do so,
convinced as they are that this idea—like the ever memorable
Declaration of the Rights of Men—will make its way round the orb
of the earth, as being the most effective means of realizing those
social rights.
The section therefore move the following resolution :—
“ The Congress of the International Workmen’s League at
Basle, considering that the law is the written expression of the in
terest of the legislator; that, in legislating, the interest of the
community is naturally to be decisive ; that experience shows
representative bodies to represent capital rather than labour, and
laws, therefore, to be made as a rule at the expense of the working
multitudes and in favour of capital ; that only by direct participa
tion in legislation that politico-social consciousness, which is the
first condition for solving the social questions, can efficiently pene
trate the people ; resolves :
il That it be the chief aim of the working classes to strive
towards the realization of the social and democratic republic, in
which legislation is exercised directly through the people.”
Everything for the people, and everything through the people !
By order of the section of Zurich,
The Reporter,
Zurich, August, 1869.
KARL BÜRKLI.
B
�18
THE CONSTITUTIONAL COMMISSION TO THE
ZURICH PEOPLE.
Fellow Citizens:—Four numerously attended popular meetings,
followed by a petition of 28,000 citizens, having, towards the
close of the year 1867, demanded the revision of the Constitution,
the same was decided upon on the twenty-sixth of January, 1868,
by the people of the canton of Zurich, by the great majority of
50,786 votes; and, at the same time, by 47,864 votes, the subject
was placed in the hands of a Constitutional Commission. After
long and thorough consultations, such as were demanded by the
great importance of the task, we now herewith lay before you the
result of our labours for acceptance or rejection. As our trans
actions from the beginning were public ; and, as they from time to
time were accompanied and supported by the active collaboration
of circles more or less extended, we can waive for the present
an explanation of particulars, and confine ourselves to giving pro
minence to the most essential points in which the project differs
from existing institutions.
Whilst, with the exception of decisions concerning constitutional
changes, the people have hitherto exercised their right of voting,
and of approbation or rejection, only upon questions of law, hence
forth all financial transactions, of more than ordinary importance,
shall appertain to the people; and, moreover, the right is to be
accorded to each citizen to introduce propositions for laws and
decrees, which, if they are supported by five thousand valid votes,
or, on the other hand, by a third of the members of the Council
of the canton, must be submitted to the decision of the people. At
the same time, the Executive Council is to proceed from the direct
choice of the people, to whom also a more direct influence is to be
conceded in church and school, by the abolition of all life appoint
ments, with all due respect to the vested rights of the actual oc
cupiers of the same.
This decided step, which leads from a representative state to a
comprehensive rule of the people, is advocated by us in the con
fidence of the matured intelligence of the people, and of the pre
dominance of the powers for good within it. And, for the same
reason, we do not hesitate to add here a series of propositions
which are demanded by the progressive ideas of our age, concern
ing humanity and human rights, viz., abolition of capital punish
ment, and of the penalty of chains, abrogation of imprisonment for
�19
debt, and of the degrading consequences of unmerited insolvency,
obligation of the State to make adequate compensation to those
innocently condemned and those illegally arrested, the lessening of
the term of minority, so as to enable persons to embark, at an
earlier age, in pecuniary transactions, extension and security of
the right of settlement, and facilitation of the right of civil
marriage.
Starting from the conviction that only by a more elevated
culture those forces can be awakened and maintained which a
people needs in order to govern itself, and to deveiope its ex
ternal and internal well-being, we have in the project laid down
conditions which aim at a seasonable extension of our common
school-system, conditions whose execution is reserved to the law,
and thus again to the examination and decision of the people.
A series of other articles of our project repose upon the endea
vour by a more just division of public burdens, according to the
measure of the actual capacity of bearing taxation, by an increase
in the means of communication, by protection to health, and by
support to be given towards the independence of the workman, to
exalt the productive powers of the country, and thereby the material
welfare of its citizens. The indirect salt tax is to be materially
lessened, and compulsory instruction in the common schools gra
tuitously imparted. The first military equipment of militia men to
be undertaken by the State. The State is to contribute in a more
comprehensive manner, and with an enhanced regard to the in
dividual wants of the municipalities, to the burdens of the poor and
to the expenses of road-making.
On the other hand, those prin
ciples of taxation of income from labour, which have been current
since the political regeneration, dating from the year 1830, are
henceforth to be extended, within equitable and suitable limits,
to incomes derived from property; and thereby, as well as by the
introduction of a moderate “ active-citizen ” tax, and a tax upon
inheritance, but particularly by a more correct assessment, which
justice demands with increasing urgency, means for the remission
of burdens and for the liquidation of the new expenditure of the
State may be gained.
A Cantonal Bank, long desired by the people, and long promised
by the leaders of former political movements, will be conducive to
the increase and consolidation of credit, whilst changes in the
manner of election and payment of notaries, in conjunction with a
contemplated re-organization of the notary system, are calculated
to facilitate and surround with suitable guarantees the transfer of
landed property.
As to the municipal government, the project aims at securing
the progress already attained by the law of the year 1866, and
with due consideration of existing relationships and modes of proB 2
�20
ceeding, handed down from of old, to open the door for further
development.
As to the administration of justice, the Constitution limits
itself—as the filling up of the outlines appears to be better left to
special laws—to the exposition of a few general propositions,
amongst which we particularly call attention to the demand that
regulations be made for a more speedy and cheap method of deal
ing with cases in both civil and criminal proceedings in courts of
law, with a view to the greatest possible security of justice being done.
Dear fellow-citizens:—We lay before you the constitutional
project as an entirety, to be decided upon by a simple vote, Yes or
No! because, by the Decree of the People, of the 26th January,
1868 we received an injunction for a total revision, and for that
reason must wish that a decision be come to upon our work as a
whole ; and further, because the taking of a vote upon each article
or upon each chapter would be connected with a chain of difficulties,
which might postpone ad infinitum the very desirable final decision ;
and again, because even if voting by portions were to take place,
yet another vote of the people would still be required to give to
the Constitution validity in its entirety.
We know, indeed, full well, that various shortcomings may be
found in the project, and that it cannot satisfy all expectations;
but we believe ourselves entitled to express the conviction that
within it are laid down the conditions for a decided progress,
such as our people themselves have demanded.
. It is for you, therefore, to decide whether our work responds to
the spirit and the will of the great popular movement, which gave
rise to it, and whether it subserves the welfare of the country.
May each one, therefore, on stepping forward to perform the
grave act of voting, as a good citizen of the republic, raise himself
above his individual interests, and dwrell on that only which tends
to the advantage of the community. And, if it should please the
people of Zurich to accept the proposed Constitution, may the
result be that each citizen, finding himself invested with more
extended rights than heretofore, shall also become conscious of
higher duties to be performed.
If our people in good faith take upon themselves these duties
and hold fast to them, then, we confidently hope, will the principle
of the rule of the people be approved and develope itself, and tend
to the furtherance of the honour, the strength, and the welfare of
our country.
In the name of the Constitutional Council,
Dr. T. SULZER, President.
L. FORRER, First Secretary.
Zurich, March 31st, I860.
�21
CONSTITUTION OF THE CONFEDERATE CANTON
OF ZURICH.
The people of the canton of Zurich give themselves, in virtue of
their sovereign right to determine their own destinies, the follow
ing constitution:—
I.—Political Principles.
Art. 1.
The political power resides in the totality of the people. It is
exercised directly by the “ active ” citizens, and indirectly by the
constituted authorities and public functionaries.
Art. 2.
All citizens are equal before the law, and enjoy the same politi
cal rights, unless in cases where this constitution itself institutes
an exception.
Art. 3.
The utterance of opinion by speech and writing, the right of
association and meeting, are guaranteed. The exercise of these
rights suffers no other limitations but those which may flow from
common rights.
In actions of libel the proof of the truth of the allegation is
allowed. If it be shown that the statements complained against as
libellous are true, and have been published or retailed with honest
motives and an honest aim, the accused is to be found not guilty.
Art. 4.
The State protects honestly acquired private rights. Expropria
tion is allowable if the public weal demands it. For such forced
cessions a just compensation is granted. Disputes concerning the
amount of compensation are judged by the courts of law.
Art. 5.
The criminal law is to be modelled according to humane prin
ciples. Capital punishment and the penalty of bearing chains are
inadmissible.
The person accused of a crime or misdemeanour, as well as the
injured party, are to be admitted to all proceedings taking place
before the judge of instruction (magistrate), with the faculty of
appointing counsel and addressing any questions to the witnesses
which may serve to clear up the subject.
�22
Art. 7.
Personal freedom is guaranteed. No one may be arrested, ex
cept in the cases foreseen by the law, and with the forms prescribed
by the law.
To such as may have been illegally arrested the State has to
make proper compensation or satisfaction.
No means of forcing a confession are allowed.
Imprisonment for debt is inadmissible.
Art. 8.
The sanctity of the private dwelling is guaranteed.
A domiciliary visit can only take place either by consent of the
resident, or by authorization through a competent functionary,
who is exactly to specify the aim and the extent of this measure.
Exceptions of this rule are permitted if there should be danger in
delay.
Art. 9.
In cases of judicial restitution of persons innocently condemned
proper satisfaction is to be made by the state.
Art. 10.
Every functionary is, according to the terms of the law, re
sponsible as well to the State and the municipalities as to private
persons for acts done in his official capacity.
Art. 11.
The term of office of the Cantonal Council, and of all adminis
trative authorities and functionaries, is fixed at three years ; that
of judicial authorities and notaries at six years.
All constituted authorities are to be renewed in their totality.
In no administrative or judicial body may there sit at the same
time father and son, father-in-law and son-in-law, two brothers,
two brothers-in-law, or the father of a husband and wife.
Art. 12.
Any functionary who is removed from his place within his term
of office, and without fault on his side, has a claim for full com
pensation ; and if such removal takes place in consequence of an
alteration in the constitution or laws, for equitable compensation.
Art. 13.
All elections by the people of cantonal, county, and district
officers are made by means of the ballot box. The municipalities
are likewise at liberty to employ this mode of election.
�23
Art. 14.
The citizens of the canton or of Switzerland may, on fulfilling
the legal conditions, settle in any municipality of the canton, and
acquire the right of local citizenship. Those having settled in any
locality may not be subjected to other or higher local'taxes than
the local citizens (liverymen), with the sole exception of a mode
rate fee for the permission of settlement. A right (in the munici
palities) to refuse or withdraw the right of settlement, where the
local documents have been handed in, may, on principle, only be
derived from the proof of a manner of life in the person claiming
or having obtained settlement dangerous to public safety or
morality.
Art. 15.
Marriage has equal civic validity whether it be concluded by
the civic ceremony or by the ecclesiastical one.
The functions in this respect of the civil officers as well as of
the clergy of the birthplace and domicile of the bride and bride
groom are gratuitous.
Art. 16.
The faculty of entering on valid pecuniary transactions, the
right of voting, and the capacity of being elected for all offices,
begin simultaneously with the close of the twentieth year of life.
Art. 17.
Swiss citizens, having settled in the canton, are the equals of
the citizens of the canton in the exercise of all political rights.
Art. 18.
Suspension of the right of active citizenship, and of the capacity
of being elected, takes place—
1. With the loss of the faculty of entering on valid commercial
*
transactions.
2. On account of degrading crimes or misdemeanours, by judg
ment pronounced by a court of law.
3. In consequence of bankruptcy, whether the proceedings have
been carried to an end, or the bankruptcy has been annulled again,
but only in case of fault attaching to the bankrupt, and by a judi
cial decision. The suspension to continue from one year to ten.
4. On account of continued receipt of public alms, and only
whilst such period of assistance lasts.
* By declaration of lunacy, &c.
�24
II.—Economical Principles.
Art. 19.
All owing the duty of paying taxes have to contribute to the
burdens of administering the state and the municipalities in the
measure of the resources at their command.
The income tax and the property tax are to be ordered by classes,
according to the principle of a moderate and just progression.
Small fortunes of persons incapable of work, as well as of every
income that amount which is absolutely required for existence, are
free of tax.
The progressive ratio is not to surpass, as to income tax, the
fifth part of the simple ratio; and, as to property tax, the double
of the simple ratio.
As to municipal taxation (rates), a progressive tax on property
does not take place, but only a proportional one can be claimed.
The duty of contributing to rates for the expenses of the munici
pality is to be regulated by the state.
The right of voting implies the duty of making a moderate con
tribution to the public burdens, to be distributed equally on all.
The State raises a tax on inheritance, to be progressive accord
ing to the distance of the degree of relationship of inheritors, and
according to the amount of the sum inherited. The law fixes
those degrees of relationship and those minimum sums which are
to be exempted from this tax.
Legislation will make those regulations which may appear appro
priate to an exact ascertaining of the power of bearing taxation.
Tax privileges in favour of single private individuals or indus
trial companies are inadmissible.
No new taxes on the consumption of indispensable articles of
food can be introduced. The tax on salt is at once to be diminished.
Art. 20.
Cantonal and county officers, as well as notaries, receive, as far
as possible, fixed appointments in the proportion to the amount of
business to be transacted by them. Any fees and fines are, as a
rule, to go to the cantonal treasury.
Art. 21.
The exercise of every profession in art and science, commerce,
and industry, is free, providing however such legal and police
regulation as the common interest may require.
Art. 22.
The care of the poor belongs to the Municipalities. The State
affords appropriate contributions towards rendering the burden of
providing for the poor more easy to those localities which are in
�25
need of it. The State supports the efforts of municipalities and
societies towards the decrease of poverty, especially towards the
education of poor children, improvement in the care of the sick,
and reformation of neglected persons.
Art. 23.
The State furthers and facilitates the development of co-operation
resting on self-help. It institutes by legislation such conditions
as may be necessary for the protection of workmen.
Art. 24.
The State, with a view to the increase of a general system of
credit, establishes, as soon as possible, a credit bank.
Art. 25.
The highways, roads, and streets are to be classified according
to the importance of the traffic carried on in each.
The burden of making them and keeping them in repair falls to
the State and to the political communes (or municipalities).
*
The assistance of the State extends to all classes of road, except
ing bye-streets and lanes.
Art. 26.
The railways, which, on account of their importance in the
economy of the nation, enjoy extraordinary privileges granted by
the State, are to be administered under its control, so as to fulfil
their destined purpose.
Those portions of the territory of the canton which, in regard to
population and traffic, are on the same line with such as have by
means of State help been endowed with railways, have likewise a
claim to assistance from the State.
Art. 27.
The State undertakes the first military outfit of militia-men. As
to the replacement- of articles of military furniture which have been
used up or lost a law will fix details.
III.—Legislation and Representation of the People.
Art. 28.
The people, with the co-operation of the Cantonal Council,
exercise the powers of legislation.
A.—Right of the people to make proposals.
Art. 29.
The right of making proposals which those entitled to vote
Query : In what proportion?—Translator. .
�26
possess (Initiative) comprises the demand of the passing, repeal, or
alteration of a law, or of any such resolution as is not, by the
terms of the Constitution, expressly reserved to the competency of
the Cantonal Council. Demands of this kind may be made either
in the form of simply calling attention to the matter in question,
or by offering the details of a bill; and in either case motives are
to be adduced for the alteration proposed.
If a single individual or a constituted authority makes such
a demand, and it is supported by one third of the members of
the Cantonal Council, the question must be laid before the
people for decision. The right of personally advocating in the
Cantonal Council the alteration proposed is granted to the indi
vidual having made the demand, or to the deputy of the constituted
authority moving in the matter, provided that twenty-five members
of the Cantonal Council support the request of this personal
advocacy of the motion.
If five thousand persons, having the right to vote, make a de
mand of the kind aforesaid; or if a number of municipal meetings,
in which at least five thousand persons entitled to vote have pro
nounced in favour of such a demand, the decision of the people is
to be equally taken, unless the Cantonal Council have previously
responded to the demand. Any demand of this kind, having been
handed in early enough, the matter is to be placed before the
people for their decision, at the latest, at the second subsequent
regular taking of votes.
The demand or bill has in every case to be submitted, before
the vote, to the Cantonal Council, for them to give an opinion in
the form of a resolution.
In any case in which a bill proceeding from popular initiative
is submitted to the vote, the Cantonal Council, besides giving its
opinion, may place before the people a modified bill for decision
between the two.
B.—Popular Vote.
Art. 30.
Twice every year, in spring and in autumn, the vote of the
people takes place on the legislatory acts of the Cantonal Council
(Referendum). In urgent cases the Council can order an extra
ordinary taking of votes.
There are to be submitted to the popular vote:
1. All alterations of the constitution, laws, and concordats.
2. Those resolutions of the Cantonal Council which that
Council is not competent to pass definitely (vide Art. 31).
3. Any resolutions which the Council may wish to put to the
popular vote.
The Cantonal Council is entitled on submitting a law or reso
�27
lution, to order—beside the vote on the totality of the propoals—
exceptionally a vote on single points of it.
The vote takes place by means of the ballot boxes in the
municipalities. Participation in it is a citizen’s duty, binding on all.
The vote can only be by affirmation or negation.
The absolute majority of affirming or negativing votes is
*
decisive.
The Cantonal Council is not entitled to give provisional validity
to any laws or resolutions requiring the popular vote, previous to
such vote being taken.
All proposals to be submitted to the popular vote are to be
published and handed to the voters at least thirty days before the
taking of the vote.
C.—Cantonal Conncil.
Art. 31.
The competency of the Cantonal Council extends to :—
1. The discussion and resolution of all questions which are
to be submitted to the popular vote.
2. The request that the Federal Council be convoked (vide Art.
75, § 2, of the Federal Constitution).
3. The disposal of the military forces of the canton, as far as
they are not required by the Confederacy.
4. The control of the entire administration of the country, and
of the action of the courts of law, as well as the decision in any
conflicts between the executive and judicial powers. For the pur
pose of impeaching members of the Government Council and of the
Supreme Law Court the Cantonal Council may appoint a special
procurator (a public prosecutor).
5. The final decision on new expenses, occurring but once and
for a definite purpose, such expenses not to exceed 250,000 francs;
as well as on annually recurring expenses up to the amount of
20,000 francs.
6. The fixing of the annual estimates of ways and means, and of
expenses in accordance with existing laws and resolutions, reserving
however the above restrictions under No. 5; and the granting at
the same time of the amount of taxes required.
7. The audit of the public accounts, and of the accounts of
separate funds, the care for undiminished preservation of the public
domains, and for appropriate . (f) . and employment of the
income from them.
* That is, one-half of all the votes given, plus one, in contradistinction to
a vote by a two-thirds’ majority; or to a majority which, as being com
pared with the absolute majority, is only the largest of several minorities.—
Translator.
f Unintelligible misprint in the original.—Translator.
�28
8. The exercise of the right of mercy.
9. The order of such elections as are by legislation placed within
its competency.
10. The election of its officers.
Art. 32.
The Cantonal Council is elected in electoral districts whose num
ber and extent the law orders, in such wise that each district re
ceives at least two members.
The number of 1,200 souls gives a district a claim for the election of a member of the Cantonal Council; a fraction of above 600
souls is reckoned as a full number. As' to fixing the number of
the populations the Confederate census is decisive.
In electing a Cantonal Councillor not more than three successive
electoral acts are to take place; in the first two, absolute majority
decides, in the third, relative majority.
*
Art. 33.
The members of the Government Council cannot be members of
the Cantonal Council; yet in it they have a consulting voice, and
the right of making motions and presenting reports.
If any members of the Supreme Law Court are elected as mem
bers of the Cantonal Council they have a merely consulting voice
on the presentation of the reports from their court.
The Cantonal Council can call into its meetings experts with
consulting voice.
Art. 34.
The meetings of the Cantonal Council take place at Zurich, and
are, as a rule, public. Its members receive during the session a
moderate daily pay, and once in the session an appropriate com
pensation for travelling.
D-—Cantonal Foief and Election of Representatives of the Canton.
Art. 35.
The result of the popular vote in the canton, with reference to
the acceptance or non-acceptance of any alteration in the Federal
* Vide note to page 27. This is the mode of proceeding :—If the result
of the election shows a candidate not to have a number of votes equal to
one-half of the votes given, plus one, then the election is null, and a new one
has to take place, which will be decided on the same principle. If its appli
cation has twice failed, then, in a third election, a relative minority is, by
force of circumstances, considered sufficient; that is, the person having the
highest number of votes is considered elected, though that number may be
below the half of the number of voters — Translator.
f In the Assembly of the Swiss Confederation.—Translator.
'
�29
Constitution (Art. 114 of the latter) is at the same time to be con
sidered as the cantonal vote. The right of proposal (initiative)
granted by Art. 81 of the Federal Constitution to the ' different
cantons, can be exercised as well by the Cantonal Council as by the
mode of a decision of the people.
Art. 36.
The two members of the Swiss Cantonal Council are elected by
*
the whole electoral body of the canton, forming for this purpose
one electoral district, at the same time with the members of the
National Council,! and for three years.
IV.—Executive Power and Administration.
A.—Government Council.
Art. 37.
The executive and administrative authority of the canton, the
Council of Government, consists of seven members, who are elected
by the people, the whole canton being formed into one electoral
district^ at the same time with the Cantonal Council.
Art. 38.
The Government Council elect their President and VicePresident for a term of one year.
Art. 39.
The office of a member of the Government Council is incom
patible with any other appointment bearing a fixed salary. In
order to fill the office of a director or member of an administrative
council of a joint-stock company a member of the Government
Council requires the permission of the Cantonal Council.
Not more than two of the members of the Government Council
may.belong to either of the Federal Councils.
Art. 40.
Within the competency and the duties of the Government
Council are essentially:
1. The right of proposing to the Cantonal Council laws and
resolutions.
* This is one of the Federal authorities sitting at Berne, not to be con
founded with the Zurich Cantonal Council, and may be compared with the
American Senate.
f Another of the Federal authorities, to be compared with the American
House of Representatives.—Translator.
I That is, every elector voting for seven candidates.—Translator.
�30
2. The proper publication of all proposals to be submitted to the
popular vote, and of all proposals after their being passed into
laws, as well as the care for the execution of the laws, and of the
resolutions of the people and the Cantonal Council.
3. The intercourse with the Confederation and with the cantons
of Switzerland.
4. The control.of matters of education, of ecclesiastical affairs,
and of the administration of the poor law, as well as of all sub
ordinate authorities and functionaries.
5. The. judgment, in the last instance, of all disputes in ad
ministrative questions.
6. The drawing up. of the estimates of ways and means, and of
expenses of the public exchequer, and of the separate funds; the
presentation of the annual accounts, as well as of a report, to the
Cantonal Council, of the entire activity of the Government
Council.
7. The organization of the government offices, and the appoint
ment of all those functionaries and officers whose election has not
by constitution or law been entrusted to some other public appoint
ing body.
Art. 41.
The Government Council elects, for the term of office fixed for
administrative officers, the public prosecutor, on whom the duty is
incumbent of prosecuting, in the name of the State, crimes and
punishable offences.
Art. 42.
The functions and business of the Government Council are, for
the purpose of furthering their despatch, divided into Directions,
*
each of which is presided over by a member of the Government
Council. Final decisions proceed from the whole Council ; how
ever, within certain fixed limits, a final competency may be assigned
by law to the different Directions.
The Government Council distributes amongst its members the
Directions in such a manner that no member shall fill the office of
the same Direction during more than two continuous periods of
office.
Standing commissions, appointed by the Government Council,
may be added to the single Directions if the nature of their functions
require it. In all other respects the law fixes the organization of
the Directions and offices as well as the number and salaries of
officers.
Departments.
�31
B.—Administration of Districts.
Art. 43.
The canton is divided into Districts; any alterations in the
existing distribution of these has to be made by legislation.
Art. 44.
The administration of the District is carried out by a District
Council, consisting of a Lieutenant-Governor (“ Statthalter ”) as
President, and two District Councillors, to whom are to be added
two Deputy-Councillors.
Where local wants require it the number of District Councillors
may be augmented. Equally, wherever the extent of a LieutenantGovernor’s business’demauds it, a part of it may be handed over to
an Adjunct, to be transacted by him independently.
The election of these officers belongs to the inhabitants of the
district entitled, by Art. 16 to 18, to vote.
Art. 45.
The duty of the District Council is especially:
The control of the administration of the communes and their
domains, as well as of matters relating to minors and their
guardians; in certain cases, to be determined by law, the decision
in the second instance in affairs of guardianship and of the assist
ance to the poor; finally, the decision in the first instance in dis
putes referring to administrative matters.
On the Lieutenant-Governor especially is incumbent the execu
tion of the order of the Government douncil, as well as the
execution of such functions as are laid on him by the criminal law
and the police law, and the control of roads and streets.
Art. 46.
Any position in the district administration is incompatible with
that of a common councillor or clerk to a Common Council.
C.—Communes.
Art. 47.
Communes are ordinarily divided into ecclesiastical communes
(parishes), educational communes, and political communes (muni
cipalities).
The parish forms, as a rule, at the same time the educational
district.
The formation of new communes, and the union or dissolution of
existing ones, belong to legislation.
For special and local aims other associations may take placewithin the communes, especially the formation of civil communes.
�32
Art. 48.
The communes are entitled to regulate their affairs independently
within the limits of the constitution and the laws. Decrees of a
commune, barring their being attacked on grounds of informalities,
can only be called in question if they evidently transgress the
proper sphere of the commune, and at the same time involve the
imposition of an appreciable burden on those obliged to pay rates,
or if they improperly offend against considerations of equity.
Art. 49.
The administrative organs of the ecclesiastical communes
(parishes) and school districts, or educational communes, are:—
The assembly of the ecclesiastical commune (parish meeting ; )
The assembly of the school district and educational commune ;
The Church Council ;
The School Council.
The administrative organs of the political commune (municipal
ity) are :—
The assembly of the political commune;
The Common Council ;
Art. 50.
In all assemblies of the commune, the citizens of the commune,
having a vote according to Art. 16—18, and the cantonal and
federal citizens, established in the commune, have the right of
voting.
In questions of the administration of relief to the poor, of con
ferring communal citizenship, as well as in questions of the ad
ministration of purely communal separate funds and communes,
only communal citizens, residing in the canton, though within or
without the commune, are entitled to vote.
In the ecclesiastical communes (parishes or general vestries) on
the occasion of discussions on ecclesiastical matters, and of the
election of ecclesiastics, of members of the Church Councils, and
of church employés, only those of the citizens, and of those estab
lished in the commune who belong to the denomination in question,
have the right of voting.
Art. 51.
To the general assembly of the commune belong especially: —
The control of such portions of the communal administration as
may be assigned to it, the fixing of the annual estimates, the audit
of the annual accounts, the granting of rates, the consent to such
expenses, as may surpass an amount to be fixed by it, as well as
the election of its council, whose composition with respect to
citizens proper, and to those having a settlement, the law will
determine.
�33
Of the resort of the Common Council are especially : —
1. The preliminary discussion of all affairs which have to be
brought before the assembly of the commune.
2. The execution of the resolutions of the commune.
3. The administration of the domain of the community, with
reference, however, to Art. 55, § 2.
Art. 52.
The general assembly of the ecclesiastical commune, and the
Church Council, have to attend to the ecclesiastical affairs of the
commune; and, as a rule, also to the administration of relief to the
poor. The communes are free to elect a special authority for the
latter purpose.
Art. 53.
To the general assembly of the educational commune, and to the
Council of Education, belongs the care for the general national
schools.
All other branches of the administration of communal affairs,
with the reservation, however, indicated in Art. 47, § 4, are
handed over to the political communes and their organs. How
ever, where special circumstances make it appear desirable, a
union of several political communes may be formed, in order to
carry out in common any special branches of municipal adminis
tration, and appoint special organs for that purpose.
The celebration of civil marriage belongs to the Municipal
Council, or to a committee of the same.
Art. 54.
The care for minors, and the duty of assistance in case of im
poverishment, belong as a rule to the commune where the persons
in question are born. (Comp. Art. 22.) However, the legislature
may transfer, wholly or partially, these duties, and the rights con
nected with them, to the commune of residence.
Art. 55.
The communal domains, excepting the citizens’ purely separate
lands and commons, are in the first instance destined to satisfy
the public requirements of the communes.
The municipalities are left free to entrust to the communal
councils the administration of all communal property.
V.—Administration of Justice.
Art. 56.
A judgment given by competent authority cannot be set aside
c
�34
or modified either by the legislative or by the administrative power.
The right of mercy, however, is reserved to the Cantonal Council.
Art. 57.
Crimes and political offences, including offences of the press, in
which the defendant demands it, are tried before juries.
The law may also appoint trial by jury for other portions of the
law, both civil and criminal.
Art. 58.
The law determines the number, organization, competency, and
proceeding of the courts of law.
Courts of arbitration by mutual agreement are admissible.
Art. 59.
The mode of proceeding is to be regulated with a view to the
greatest possible security of right, as well as to speedy and cheap
dealing with the cases. For disputes concerning small amounts a
summary proceeding will be introduced.
Art. 60.
The officers entrusted with notarial business are elected from
among the examined candidates by the inhabitants of the notarial
circle entitled to vote according to Art. 16-18.
Art. 61.
Execution for debt is entrusted to an officer of the municipality.
VI.—Education and Ecclesiastical Affairs.
Art. 62.
The furtherance of the general education of the people, and of
the republican education of citizens, is the care of the State.
In order to increase the professional and industrial worth of all
classes of the people the national schools are to be extended so as to
embrace a more advanced period of youth. The higher establish
ments of learning are to be harmonized with the wants of the
present age, without doing injury to their scientific character, and
are to be placed in organic connection with the national schools.
Primary instruction is obligatory and gratuitous. The state
undertakes, with the participation of the communes, to provide the
means required.
The teachers of primary schools are to be thoroughly trained
with respect to knowledge and management. They are likewise to
be especially fitted for managing adult schools.
The communes control, through the local educational authorities,
�35
the management of the schools, and the performance of their duties
by the teachers. For every district, besides, a special educational
authority, or district school council, is to be appointed.
The organization of an education council—to be attached to the
direction of education—and of a school synod, remains reserved for
legislation.
Art. 63.
The freedom of belief, of worship, and of teaching is guaranteed.
Civic rights and duties are independent of religious confessions.
Every exercise of force against communities, associations, and
individuals is excluded.
The national evangelical church and the other ecclesiastical
*
corporations regulate their affairs independently, under the supreme
control of the State. The organization of the former, to the ex
clusion of all violence done to consciences, is fixed by the law.
The State undertakes, in general, the contributions it has hitherto
furnished for ecclesiastical wants.
Art. 64.
The ecclesiastical communes elect their clergy, and the educa
tional communes the teachers of their schools, from amongst those
capable of being elected.
The State remunerates the clergy, and—with the participation of
the communes—the teachers, in the sense of the greatest possible
equality and of a rise in the stipends appropriate to the require
ments of the times.
The teachers of the national schools, and the clergy of the eccle
siastical corporations assisted by the State, are subjected to a con
firmatory election every six years. If, on taking the vote, the
absolute majority of the members of the commune having the right
to vote declines to confirm the appointment, the place must be filled
up anew.
Teachers and ecclesiastics at the present moment holding posi
tions are to be considered as elected for a new term of office on the
acceptance of this Constitution; and in the case of their not being
re-elected have a claim to compensation according to their years of
office and to their services rendered.
This rule applies also to the clergy of the (Roman) Catholic
parishes.
VII.—Revision of Constitution.
Art. 65.
The revision of the constitution in its totality, or in single parts,
may take place at any time by the mode of legislation.
* Protestant.—Translator.
�36
In case the revision of the totality of the constitution be resolved
by the action of popular Initiative, a new election of the Cantonal
Council will take place, which will have to take in hand the
revision.
Bills referring to the revision are subject to a double discussion
in the Cantonal Council, and the second discussion is not to take
place less than two months after the date of the first.
In the name of the Committee of Constitution,
Dr. J. SULZER, President.
L. FORRER, First Secretary.
Zurich, March 31st, 1869.
TRANSITORY ENACTMENTS.
1. Articles 11, 15, 19—21, 23, 59-62, and 64 of the Constitu
tion will be applied only after the passing of the laws necessary for
their execution.
2. Article 14, in so far as it prescribes the abolition of the tax
on settlement, is applicable from the beginning of next year.
3. With regard to Article 18, § 3, it is resolved that the re
habilitation of such citizens as have, previous to the acceptance of
this constitution, lost their active citizenship in consequence of
bankruptcy, shall take place, ipso facto, after the lapse of ten years,
to be reckoned from the day of the declaration of bankruptcy,
unless such rehabilitation have, before the expiration of such
term, been declared by a judgment of court.
4. Articles 1-10, 12-14, 16-18, 22, 26, 28-58, 63, and 65, are
to be applied even before their principles are further developed by
future legislation. Consequently, all existing regulations contained
in laws and ordinances, and contradictory to those articles, are
herewith abolished.
5. In case of the acceptance of this constitution, the election of
the new Cantonal Council, as well as of the Government Council
and the two members of the Swiss Council of Cantons, will take
place on May 9th, according to the mode prescribed by the con
stitution. The Cantonal Council will meet on the second Monday
after the accomplishment of the third election, and at the same
moment the charge given to the Committee of Constitution is to
be considered at an end.
After having constituted itself and taken the oath, the Cantonal
Council proceeds to swearing in the Government Council, and then
issues, before any other business, a provisional set of standing orders.
Cherry & Fletcher, Printers, 6, Wardrobe Place, Doctors' Commons, E.C.
�
Dublin Core
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Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
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Pamphlet
Dublin Core
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Title
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Direct legislation by the people versus representative government
Creator
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Burkli, Karl
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 36 p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway.
Publisher
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Cherry & Fletcher
Date
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1869
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G5235
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Oswald, Eugene (tr)
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Government
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (Direct legislation by the people versus representative government), identified by </span><span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
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Text
Language
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English
Conway Tracts
Democracy
Political reform
Referendum
Representative Government and Representation
Sacerdotalism
Social Reform
Working Classes
-
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
Publisher
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
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Pamphlet
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Title
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Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz
Creator
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Kroeger, A. E.
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [Boston]
Collation: 36 p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: Includes bibliography (p.1). From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. From North American Review,108, no. 222 (January, 1869).
Publisher
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[Ticknor and Fields]
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1869
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CT27
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Enlightenment
Philosophy
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English
Conway Tracts
Enlightenment
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
Philosophy
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METHOD OF EDUCATION:
A. 1ST ADDRESS
INTRODUCTORY TO THE SESSION 1859-60
♦
OF THE
ST. LOUIS MEDICAL COLLEGE,
BY
J. H. WATTERS, M.D.,
Professor of Physiology and Medical Jurisprudence.
ST. LOUIS:
GEORGE KNAPP & CO., PRINTERS.
1 8 59.
��METHOD OF EDUCATION:
An Address Introductory to the Session 1859-60 of the St. Louis Medical
College. By J. H. WATTERS, M.D., Professor of Physiology and Med
ical Jurisprudence.
Gentlemen,—Under favorable auspices we meet to-night to
celebrate the opening of our eighteenth session, and in behalf of
the faculty I welcome you as students to these halls dedicated to
medical education.
The ardent aspirations of the young of a country to fit them
selves for useful and honorable activities, brings happiness not
only to the individual, but secures life, intelligence and refine
ment to society—stability, power and influence to the state. It is
this which engenders and fosters the very vitality, spirit and soul
of a community. General society — yes, our whole country—is
interested in this assemblage of young men gathered hither from
the various parts of our extensive and prosperous valley, all in
spired with a common desire to be enabled to render a reasonable
answer to the problem of life. Some answer, whether it be rea
sonable or not, must be given by every man. It is not optional,
but the necessity is implied in the very existence of a rational be
ing : it is not a request, but an imperative demand. Should one
think to avoid it by silence or refusal to act, he deceives himself;
for his very silence and supineness become contempt, and contain
already his answer.
Man is by nature most munificently gifted; but his character and
activities are the apswer he renders to the question, “ what will he
do with it”—with his life, his mind, his reason, his image of God?
The various grades of characters, from the lowest besotted dregs
of society to the highest and noblest men, present merely the dif
ferent uses made of nature’s high gifts. Consider now
“ The wisest of the sages of the earth
That ever from the stores of reason drew
Science, and truth, and virtue’s dreadless tone
�6
and now reflect upon this solemn fact, that
“ Him, every slave now dragging through the filth
Of some corrupted city his sad life,
Pining with famine, swoln with luxury,
Blunting the keenness of his spiritual sense
With narrow schemings and unworthy cares,
Or, madly rushing through all violent crime,
To move the deep stagnation of his soul,—
Might imitate and equal.”
We hear in our youth too much cant about “ poor weak human
nature, the flesh, and the deviland those who would throw
upon the shoulders of these imaginary personalities the necessary
and legitimate results of individual slothfulness, inactivity, and re
fusal to use what has been given, would obliterate what little of
the image of God is yet visible in humanity, and would put a stop
to progress—not by bold and open opposition, which would be ac
companied with corresponding reaction, but by smothering and
destroying the already enfeebled energy and spirit.
That each individual may use his talents and powers in the best
and most reasonable way possible, is the object of all education,
whether literary, professional, scientific, or religious. In other
words, the object of education is to enable man, in his activities,
to harmonize with the Infinite, the Universal, the Absolute. It is
only as his activities do harmonize and thus cooperate with the
Infinite, that man is emancipated and exalted; while in so far as
they are discordant, man militates against God, and in the con
flict is always vanquished, degraded and enslaved. This proposi
tion is universal, and extends in its application through the whole
range of human activities. And, gentlemen, as you propose to as
sume the responsible vocation of physicians, the object of your
professional studies is that you may be enabled so to act upon
physical nature as to cure disease and relieve suffering. This,
too, can be done only by cooperating with the universal and abso
lute in perfect obedience to the physical laws; which laws are to
us the outward expression or representation, in space and time, of
universal reason. If our acts are not in obedience to these laws,
our medications, like the prayers of the wicked, are an abomina
tion. It is a common saying that nature cures disease, and that
the physician’s province is to assist nature. While this expression
admits of very liberal interpretations, yet literally it is most false.
Man under no circumstances assists nature; this is neither his
province nor prerogative : it is his highest privilege to use nature.
But how are we to use nature ? By what method are we enabled
�7
to take advantage of her laws ? In other words, what relation has
education to success, science to art? This is the question I pro
pose discussing to-night; and while I address you, gentlemen,
especially, as medical students, the method by which you will be
enabled to attain the objects of your calling, is the method of
every human activity whatever—of your social and political rela
tions no less than professional.
As the object of all education is to enable man to harmonize his
activities with the Infinite, the Universal, the Absolute, this object
can be attained only so far as we know the Infinite, the Universal,
the Absolute. I am aware that there are those high in authority
who contend that the capacity for this knowledge is not vouch
safed to man. If this be so, then indeed are we most miserably
circumstanced. What! here—possessing hopes, desires, aspira
tions, longings for something better—condemned to disappoint
ment and ignoble defeat upon every side, except in so far as our
activities are in harmony with the Infinite, and yet having no ca
pacity to know that Infinite by whom we are judged and to whom
we are subject! This can not be so: else man could not adapt
means to ends; the result of his spontaneity would be altogether
accidental; his fortune would not be in his own hands. It is not so:
the development of science condemns it; our railroads, telegraphs,
and manufactures, and all the arts, condemn it; our social, politi
cal and religious relations condemn it; all culture and progress
condemn it. As the result of every human activity is determined
by its relation to the Infinite, the relation which any people bear
to the Infinite is expressed not only in their moral, social, political
and religious condition, but also as well in their machinery, their'
manufactures, their agriculture, their navigation, their architecture,
their painting, their sculpture, their poetry, their ornaments, their
dress, in all their activities and in every expression of their sponta
neity. All advancement and progress of the individual, of society,
of humanity, is proof that we have the faculty to know the Abso
lute to which we are subject, as all success is but an expression of
this knowledge, and a resulting harmony between our activities
and the Infinite.
But man is guided in his activities by his intelligence, and mind
is in its very nature active, spontaneous, self-determinate. Know
ledge, therefore, must be the determination of the mind itself, else
the spontaneity and self-determination of mind would be super
seded and abrogated by knowledge, which is absurd. Consequent
ly, the mind must possess the faculty of determining itself harmo
niously with the Universal and Absolutewhether you agree to
�8
designate this power of the mind thus to determine itself, as know
ledge of the Universal and Absolute, or not, matters nothing, so far
as the question under discussion is concerned—By what method
is man enabled to harmonize his activities with the Infinite, the
Universal, the Absolute ? This faculty is reason. Reason being
one and absolute to man, to nature, and to God, it is most appa
rent, that, so far as our activities harmonize with reason, they must
in that very fact harmonize with the Universe and with God.
Therefore, the method by which the object of all education is to
be attained, is the method by which we are enabled to harmonize
our activities with .Reason. This proposition, gentlemen, embod
ies the central idea which I hope to present to you to-night in an
intelligible manner. You yill observe the important point, that
in this proposition we have substituted Jieason for the Infi
nite, the Universal, the Absolute. I know full well, that, in
making this substitution here in a public lecture, I am in no little
danger of being understood as making man equal with God. But
if there were no danger here, there would be little or no occasion
for this lecture ; and if, on account of this danger, I had chosen
another theme, or had treated this in a manner to conform to the
more general and popular notions, I would in that have been hug
ging my own shackles; whereas my theme this night is, How are
we freed, emancipated, exalted? A just man has not his freedom
curtailed by just laws in so far as he cognizes justice, because the
law unto himself frees him from the external laws; that is, the ex
ternal laws cease to bind and restrain him just in so far as from his
own self-determination he would fulfil them. Just so, and for the
same reason, a reasonable man has not his freedom annulled by
the laws of reason in so far as he knows reason. As one in his own
spontaneity determines himself according to reason, he ceases to
be restrained by the external laws of reason. If all moral and
physical laws be laws of reason, then indeed can man be delivered
from the dominion of necessity only so far as reason in him be
comes self-conscious. We believe in Divine Omnipotence; that
in the Infinite “we live, and move, and have our beingthat with
out Him we can not think a good thought or do a good act; and
yet we believe that man is free and justly accountable. The truth
and consistency of these two positions is all I contend for in the
substitution I have made of Reason for the Infinite, the Absolute,
the Universal. He who believes in human freedom can not but
believe that man possesses the faculty of determining liimsflf in
harmony with the Universal; for in so far as man is determined
by anywhat not himself, he is necessitated and not free. He who
�9
believes in human freedom and also in Divine Omnipotence and
Omniscience, must believe these twq positions consistent; unless,
indeed, he be himself a slave, clinging in blind fanaticism to the
very chains which bind him. And what does he mean by consist
ency except their mutual harmony with reason? And when he
acknowledges that two truths must be consistent, in this necessity
he recognizes reason as the universal umpire, authoritative to man,
to nature, and to God.
If, therefore, the object of all education is to enable us to har
monize our activities with reason, then the method we seek is the
method of reason becoming self-conscious, or, in other words, it is
the method of reason coming to a knowledge of itself. This is
perfectly clear, that in order that we may harmonize our activities
with reason we must know reason. But the reason alone can
know reason; consequently we can know reason only as the reason
becomes self-conscious. Did you ever see a little child held before
a looking-glass ? Through its senses it cognizes the phenomenon
and through its understanding it is convinced of duality,—it peeps
behind the glass fully expecting to find another child. But as it
comes to know itself, with apparent rapture it recognizes itself
in the image. Not the senses, nor yet the understanding, but only
reason can know and comprehend reason. The spontaneity of man
may be under the dominion of the senses, or of the understanding,
or of the passions; but as these are all finite and related to the in
finite only in and through reason, when they guide, the blind lead
the blind and both fall into the ditch together. But when oui*
spontaneity is guided by reason, the outward expressions of this
spontaneity—our activities, our works—must harmonize with rea
son, with nature, and with God. The great problem of humanity,
therefore, is to identify our spontaneity in each, every and all of
its various possibilities with self-conscious reason. Our question,
therefore, as to the method by which the object of education is to
be attained is now reduced to this form: What is the method of
the reason in becoming self-conscious ?
As we are students of nature, and as in this department especial
ly we hope to assist in the great struggle of humanity, and to leave
the world the better of our having lived, (if this be not our ambi
tion we are unworthy of humanity,) I shall seek this method only
as expressed in the more developed sciences. And we may hope
to get some insight thus, because Science is the formal recognition
of reason. Do not allow yourselves to anticipate me here, and to
object in your thoughts to this position, that the physical sciences
treat of nature and her laws, and, consequently, that a knowledge
�10
of these laws can be obtained only through observation and ex
periment. Be patient one moment and we will consider this matter
together. It is admitted that observation and experiment are ne
cessary conditions to a knowledge of nature and her laws, but you
must admit also that you neither see, feel, taste, nor smell the physi
cal sciences. It is true you put ores and compounds into the
crucible, but you neither put therein nor take hence the science of
chemistry; it is true certain angles and distances must be obtained
by observation, but the transit instrument and the telescope are not
wonderfully devised machines for the manufacture of the science
of astronomy; you may examine and peep, but the science is not
there—you can not get it thus. What, then, is the relation between
observation and science ? This question is sub judice, and until
decided it might be well to suspend our anticipated objection.
Physical science is rendered possible only in and through the
identity of the laws of nature and the laws of thought. This is
a self-evident proposition; for if nature could in her mode of
action be whimsical or unreasonable, where, I ask, would be the
criterion whereby we could know nature or determine her mode
of action ? There would be none, and we would necessarily be ut
terly in the dark. If there be physical science at all, therefore, the
laws of nature must be identical with the laws of thought, and
Science must be the recognized identity. The senses do not and
can not give us science; observation and experiment can only give
phenomena. Physical science exists only so far as reason has come
to a recognition of itself in the phenomenal. That is, so far as we
have science reason must have become the criterion whereby na
ture is recognized as laws of thought. But reason can become
the criterion only in so far as it becomes self-conscious, or as it
knows itself. Consequently, we may hope by an examination and
careful analysis of the sciences, to learn something of the method
whereby the object of all education is to be attained; in other
words, of the method of reason in becoming self-conscious or in
recognizing itself. Though we may thus only obtain a partial in
sight, yet even this is not to be altogether despised.
As mathematics is more developed and more generally under
stood than any other science, we will direct our attention to it
especially. And let it be understood that our object here is not
to reduce all science to what has been termed the mathematical
method, but rather to seek in the mathematics the method of the
reason in becoming self-conscious, as all science (mathematics, of
course, included) has been shown to be the reason coming to know
and recognize itself. As my object, as a teacher, is always more to
�11
excite thought than to amuse,—to draw out the mind rather than
to instil dogmas, I hope you will excuse me for selecting for your
consideration a subject requiring so much study. My excuse is
that the principles involved in this subject, though they may seem
abstract, are most practical, forming as they do the very foundation
of all knowledge and all success.
Mathematics as a science starts with certain primary proposi
tions, which are divided usually into two classes—Definitions and
Axioms. But what mean these propositions ? whence came they,
and where is the authority for the use made of them in mathemat
ics ? If we can obtain correct answers to these questions, we will
have approached very near what we seek: but do not be uneasy, I do
not intend to lead you over the paths already well worn by the Sen
sationalists and Idealists. First let me call your attention to this most
important consideration— That there can be no existence, law, mode
of action, or phenomenon, without limitations; for all these im
ply determinations, and there can be no determinations without lim
itations. This is self-evident and absolute; think of it one moment.
There can be no this and that without a difference, and there can be
no difference without limitations. To vision, pure light would be
equivalent to pure darkness; there can be no seeing without a
mingling of the two—without shades or colors. Power is equiva
lent to no power without resistance; you can not lift yourself by
the hair; as Archimedes could not find a pou std, or place to fix
his machine, he could not move the earth. The equation sign
stands forever between absolute motion and no motion; the an
cients did not recognize the parallel lines, and they attached the
predicate no motion to the earth. And our physical sciences (so
called) now are mostly legerdemain to induce the student, by com
plicating the process, to believe he has succeeded in lifting him
self ; in lieu of the earth, physical science is placed on the back of
a tortoise. As there could be nothing to know, therefore, without
limitations, so there could be no knowing. As all things and phe
nomena depend upon the union of opposites, as of motion and rest,
of power and resistance, of light and darkness; so science is based
upon the union of opposites necessarily. As what is to be known
has its existence in this union, evidently the knowing must be bas
ed upon it. Now pure space, like pure light, is without limits, and
consequently is without determination. There is no this, as deter
mined from that; there is no here and no there; no outside and
no inside; no circumference, and no centre. As, for vision pure
light must be united with its opposite—darkness, so the science
of geometry must be based upon the union of the pure idea space
�12
and its opposite. Now, what stands opposed to space as darkness
is opposed to light? You at once recognize it as the point. The
point is not space, but it is related to space as its opposite, as its
negation, as its limitation. We are now prepared to understand
the meaning of the Definitions upon which geometry is based.
These definitions are the limitations of space by its opposite—the
point;—the motion of a point may be said to generate a line; the
motion of a line, to generate a surface; the motion of a surface, to
generate a solid. So, while pure space is without limitations or
determinations, yet united with its opposite we have definitions as
the bases of science. We now have a here and a there, a this and
a that. By this union we have a straight line, a curved line, a tri
angle, a square, a polygon, a circle, an ellipse, a parabola, an hy
perbola, a polyedron, a prism, a parallelopipedon, a sphere, an ellip
soid, &c. &c.
But before investigating further the meaning of the definitions
of mathematics, we must investigate whence they came; a know
ledge of their origin will contribute to the understanding of their
nature. You are aware that many contend that all our knowledge,
including of course mathematical definitions and axioms, is deri
ved from sensation; and that others contend, no less confidently,
for the existence of innate ideas, and for this origin of all know
ledge. It is not pertinent to our present object to meddle with
either of these systems. We have seen that all determination is
through limitation; that is, if all limitation were removed from
any thing, all determination would be removed; and what would
be left would be equivalent to nought—is nothing—the thing
would no longer have existence. But do you say something would
still be left ? Think one moment; your something left being with
out determinations, wherein, I ask, is its difference from nothing ?
You call it something, I call it nothing, and you can not apply a
predicate to your something which I can not also apply to my
nothing; if you can, then your “something left” has limitations
which is contrary to the hypothesis. It is perfectly apparent,
therefore, if we know not the limitations, we know not the thing;
and that, in so far as we know the limitations, we know the thing
in itself—the thing having an existence only in these limitations.
Therefore, if things in themselves were not related to us, we could
never know them; if there were no bond of union between nature
and ourselves, all things in nature by which we are surrounded
would be to us as though they were not,—we would be uncon
scious of their existence. Consequently, if we know nature at all,
(and no one will be likely to deny this,) there must be some means
�13
of our knowing or becoming conscious of the limitations of things
in themselves. But how can the mind know or become conscious
of that which is outside of itself? This is the difficult but most
important question. If we admit the duality of nature and mind,
must we admit that the mind can get outside of itself to know na
ture ? This would be a manifest absurdity, for nothing can get
outside of itself. Then, to admit a knowledge of nature, are we
compelled to do away with the duality, and to become out and out
materialists on the one hand, or idealists on the other ? I think
not. Then, if the mind can not get out of itself, how can the mind
know nature if duality be admitted ? I think I see one, and only
one possible solution of this problem; for, in admitting that the
mind can not get out of itself, we admit that our knowledge of na
ture comes from the mind knowing itself. This is the problem:
Admitting the duality of nature and mind, and that the mind can
not get out of itself, how can the mind know nature ?
It is admitted that we have some knowledge of nature, and, con
sequently, that there must be some relation between mind and
the external world. Now if we admit duality, the only possible
relation is that of mutual limitation; that is, in so far as nature and
mind are distinct and dual, they must reciprocally exclude and ne
gate each other. And in so far as they are distinct, the only pos
sible relation they can have on the side of their duality must be
xthe mutual limitation through this reciprocal exclusion and nega
tion. This is the only possible relation upon the admission of dual
ity, because neither could get outside of itself, which would of
course be necessary for any other relation. Consequently, this re
lation, so far from requiring the denial, is in virtue of the duality;
and, as this is the only possible relation consistent with duality, this
must be the avenue to a knowledge of nature; or else, we must de
ny either the duality, or, the possibility of such knowledge. These
three are the only possible alternatives:—You must either do away
with the duality and become materialists on the one side, or ideal
ists on the other; or else, admitting the duality, you must deny
the possibility of a knowledge of nature; or else, admitting both
the duality and a possibility of a knowledge of nature, you must
find in the mutual exclusion and limitation the condition of this
knowledge. Endorsing this last alternative, we must endeavor to see
how nature and mind mutually excluding and limiting each other, is
the avenue to a knowledge of nature. We are not now concerned
with the inquiry how nature and mind limit each other, but our
present inquiry starts with the fact that they must limit each other,
upon the admission of duality. This is the solution: Nature and
�14
mind mutually excluding and limiting each other, in so far as the
mind cognizes its own limitation, in that act, being limited by na
ture, it recognizes the limitation of nature. To illustrate: suppose
A and B own adjacent farms; A, in knowing the limitations of his,
knows, in that very fact, the limitations of B’s so far as they mutu
ally limit each other; just so, the mind, in knowing its own limita
tions, knows the limitations of nature so far as they exclude and
limit each other. Thus the mind knows nature in knowing itself.
This is the only possible solution; but we need no other as this is in
every respect most satisfactory, containing within itself evidence
of its truth, and is therefore worthy of all acceptation, even though
we were not forced to adopt it, or else either materialism or ideal
ism, or the doctrine that all knowledge of nature is impossible.
But, at first glance, all this may seem to have little to do with the
Definitions of mathematics. Upon reflection, however, I suspect it
will be found to have somewhat to do not only with mathematics
but with our political, social and even religious condition, with the
steam engine and weaver’s shuttle and doctor’s pill, and even with
our bread and butter.
But to continue;—all knowledge, therefore, including mathema
tics and the natural sciences, is the mind knowing itself. If this
be so, you may ask, how do we know that nature is actual and
real? You may say, “upon the admission of the duality of nature
and mind, and, that they mutually limit each other, it is clear
enough that the mind, in knowing itself, knows nature in so far as
they thus limit each other; but, if the mind only knows itself, how
do you get the duality ? How does the mind know that an actual
nature stands over against it limiting it; and that these limitations
of itself, which only it knows, have an external condition at all ?”
This knowledge comes through sensation, which gives us a con
sciousness of objectivity. This will be clear, I think, if you will
call to mind a point already discussed at some length. As we have
seen that all existence and phenomena depend upon the union of
opposites, as of motion and rest, of power and resistance, of light
and darkness, so all consciousness implies duality. Consequently,
consciousness in the line of our spontaneity—that is, a limitation
where we know there is no internal limitation—gives us objectiv
ity authoritatively. The primary condition of our knowledge of
the existence of nature, as opposed to and as limiting mind, is mo
tion. But I must not dwell upon this part of my subject.
On the other hand again, one disposed to sensationalism will ob
ject,—“this is all nonsense to talk about the mind knowing nature
by knowing itself,—I see and feel objects themselves, but I do not
�15
know the mind,—I can not see it!” I grant you your position fully—
that you see and feel objects, and that you know mind very little;
probably if you could only get it under a microscope, or into a cruci
ble, you would know it better. But I thank you for your objection
just here in close juxtaposition with the one of the idealist already
considered; as we have to steer here between Scylla and Charybdis,
we must keep in mind their localities. In reply to idealism just now,
it was maintained that objectivity is given authoritatively in sensa
tion, in that all consciousness implies duality,—the union of op
posites. This seems to the senses to approach dangerously close
to you, O voracious Charybdis! who would draw all knowledge
into th£ abyss of sensationalism. You say you do not know mind,
but that you know nature, objects, matter, which are given in
sensation. Hence you peep at nature; you make observations and
experiments; you turn her round to make her present herself to
your senses on as many sides as possible; probably you may use
a microscope to assist the senses; you note down very carefully
the results—what you see; you classify this and call it Physical
Science ! And to be so lucky as to see something fir§t, say a new
fossil, and to describe it and classify it, entitles one to endless fame
in the history of Science ! Can it be that now, in the latter half of
the nineteenth century, such a gross and bungling counterfeit is
palmed upon humanity so currently! You say you know little or
nothing of mind because you can not see it,—this I have granted
without the slightest mental reservation; but you say you know
nature and objects around you because you see them and feel
them! Hold! you feel the fire and say it is hot; you see the rose
and say it is red; you taste sugar and say it is sweet. But the
sugar is not sweet, the rose is not red, the fire is not hot; these are
but sensations which you objectify and put into things which you
say you know in sensation. Now you must acknowledge that you
know not the things you imagine you see, and you say that you
know not mind as you can not see it;—what, then, do you know ?
Your physical science is no science, containing as it does the two
factors—the things seen and the individual seeing—most hetero
geneously mixed up, neither known, both undetermined, and one
of them (the individual seeing) extremely variable. Call this
Science! It is mockery, it is trifling with common sense to palm
such stuff off as science.
We have seen that the mind can know nature only in knowing
itself, and, consequently, that the mind can know nature only in so
far as they mutually limit each other. Now the grossest sensa
tionalist acts upon this position; for when he says the rose is red,
�16
that sugar is sweet, that fii’e is hot, he actually makes his own
limitations in sensation the limitations of things; and the more re
fined of the class who say, “we can know nothing of nature except
the phenomena,” in this fully endorse the same position. The real
difference between these and me is not here therefore, but rather
in this, that they would restrict mind to sensation, or at most to
the understanding. They, no less than I, acknowledge their own
limitations as all they know of nature or indeed can know. But
it may be asked,—“ if the limitations of mind are the means of our
knowing things, or all of nature that we can know, are we not right
in objectifying our sensations?” Certainly we are right; if we
wished to, we could not help seeing the rose as red, feeling* the fire
as hot, and tasting sugar as sweet. But I do most solemnly pro
test against the currency of this, or of any classification or gen
eralization of what is given in sensation, as science either of na
ture or mind. It is not science, because the mind does not Tcnow
and recognize itself in what is given in sensation. It cognizes
only the sensation, the feeling, the redness, the heat, the sweet
ness, &c., which are cognized as well by beasts; for no doubt
they see the grass as green and feel the fire as hot as well as we.
In the language of Scripture,—“The ox knoweth his owner, and
the ass his master’s crib; but Israel doth not know, my people doth
not consider.” The mere cognition of phenomena is not know
ledge either of the thing or of mind; and although phenomena are
an essential condition of physical science, it is a gross blunder to
suppose we can get knowledge or science by an accumulation,
classification, and generalization of no-knowledge, no-science. You
can not hang your coat on the shadow of a nail; it will not sustain
it, try it as often as you please. From all we have said, it follows
most manifestly that, as the thing exists only in its limitations as
we have seen, and as the limitations of nature are the limitations of
reason, physical science can only exist in this,—the reason becoming
self-conscious and recognizing itself in what is given in sensation.
This is a most difficult process, but it alone is worthy of humanity
and of our highest ambition; the reason in becoming self-conscious
pulls down the “wall of partition,” and admits us into the very
presence of the Infinite, the Universal, the Absolute. It alone can
make us free indeed, not by doing away with the external law, but
by enabling us in our own spontaneity to fulfil the law; which is the
object of all education, and should be of all human aspiration.
But, as we have seen, the mind can not get out of itself, and yet,
what has been given in sensation you have thrown from you and
already put in the thing, or rather, have made it the thing. IIow
�17
are you to get it back into mind again, to enable the reason to re
cognize itself in it? It is absolutely necessary, as you see, to get in
terms of the reasoning the limitations given first in sensation. The
only possibility left now for science, is for the reason to go out and
limit itself by the limitations of sense made object. To illustrate:
suppose you wish to get a cast containing the limitations or form
of a given object; you first take an impression in plaster; you now
make it the object of 'which you take an impression in a given
metal; you now have in metal the limitations of the original ob
ject. So you first take an impression of nature in the terms of ex
ternal sense, you now make this the object and take an impression
of it in terms of the reason. You now have, not science, but the
first condition of science; you have the object in terms of the rea
son,—but the science is the reason coming to know and recognize
itself in this its own object. As the thing in itself exists in those
same limitations which you now have in terms of the reason, the
reason in knowing itself in its own object, knows the thing in itself.
The object of reason thus obtained is always an idea limited by its
opposite,—as we have already seen the “definitions” upon which
geometry is based consist of the idea Space limited by its opposite.
Now we see whence the definitions come, and understand clearly
what they are. We now have some insight, I think, back to where
science must begin, if it begin at all. The definitions upon which
geometry is based, are, in distinction from the objects of sense, ob
jects of reason : they are ideal, not sensual. The words, point, line,
triangle, &c., are but signs to represent to the understanding the lim
itations of the idea; consequently, when I say a triangle is a figure
bounded by three straight lines, I give only a verbal definition of the
word triangle; but the word defined is only a sigu of the Conception.
So when I draw a triangle on the blackboard, the diagram is only a
sensual representation. The real, which the verbal definition and
diagram represent, is the ideal object—the object of reason. There
are many who think they study mathematics, who never grasp the
real definitions, but only the shadow as given in sensations. All these
ever reach are forms and rules. When they get a little older and
dabble in philosophy, they tell us mathematics is based upon hy
potheses and even absurdities; for, say they, “nothing can have
position which has neithei- length, breadth, nor thickness, as the
the mathematician predicates of & point.” This only shows that
the objector himself does not see the point, and it is to be feared
he never will see it, because not given in sensation.
The science of mathematics, in all its various branches, from the
determining the product of two and two, to the highest achieve
�18
ments of Newton or LaPlace, is constituted of the expressions of
the reason in the act of coming to know itself in the various limit
ations of the idea Quantity. This definition follows from what has
already been sufficiently insisted upon, but I will try to make it
even more clear. The data of every mathematical problem must
limit the problem, or it can not be solved. This involves, if clearly
understood, the most that I have said to-night. Every standard
measure of real things must be given both in sensation and in rea
son ; that is, it must be both cognized in sensation and recognized
by the reason. For instance, when I say a foot is one straight line
twelve inches long, here the straight line and numbers one and
twelve are recognized limitations of reason, whereas foot and inch
are cognized limitations of objects. All the standard measures are
such as as are both cognized and recognized together, and hence
used with the least possible effort. But all which is necessary is
that the data should limit both the thing and the idea. Hence, on
the side of sensation I may use inch, foot, yard, pole, or any stand
ard, provided I cognize it; so on the side of reason I am not
restricted to straight line, but may use triangle, square, circle, &c.,
&c., provided they can be both cognized and recognized. Hence
you see the application of the whole of mathematics to physical
science in regard to its quantitative determinations. Though I
can not measure the height of a steeple with a straight line, a foot
stick, I can measure it with a triangle. Here the cognition and
recognition are not together, and apparently in the same act of
mind, as when a foot rule is used, since we can not recognize the
triangle in all its properties by a simple act of the reason. Hence,
when we get the base line, or one side of the triangle, in units of
feet, and the angles in units of degrees—all of which are both cog
nized and recognized—we neglect for a time the side of sensation,
that the reason may recognize itself in the triangle; and when we
thus recognize the other leg of the triangle in units—terms Of the
reason—we then put back these units into feet from which we took
them, and now both cognize and recognize the height of the stee
ple at once; that is, we know it. This is an illustration of every
application of mathematics to physical science.
But the different sciences may involve different ideas; quantity
is not the only idea involved in the physical sciences. The ancient
Greeks did not, for obvious reasons, succeed in developing a science
of other ideas as they did of the idea quantity, and with us other
ideas have but little to do with assumed knowledge, with sci
ence. We do not recognize the Platonic “Idea” as the very
life of all science, of all knowledge and all success; and it is
�19
fashionable in these days to declare, both implicitly and expli
citly, that the Organon of Bacon has superseded the Organon of
Aristotle. As both sensation and reason are essential to physical
science—the one to give the condition, the other the essence and
life—it is difficult to comprehend how the one can supersede the
other, except upon the assumption that reason is nonessential to
science. But if, as we have seen, science consists in the reason
knowing and recognizing itself, then this judgment can be but a
sign of ourselves, that sense has superseded reason in us;—
“ Doth the harmony
In the sweet lute-strings belong
To the purchaser, who, dull of ear, doth keep
The instrument ? True, she hath bought tjhz right
To strike it into fragments,—yet no art /
To wake its silvery tones, and melt with/bliss
Of thrilling song! Truth to the wise exists,
And beauty for the feeling heart.”
I now find that many points are left untouched which I intend
ed to discuss, and which would be necessary to give unity to the
subject; but I find time will not permit, and I must hasten to a
conclusion. Let me remark, however, that Axioms are but expres
sions in terms of the understanding of the living-force of the rea
son of each individual. How erroneous, therefore, is the definition
that an axiom is that which all men receive as absolutely true. An
axiom is an absolute and universal truth, but it may not be recog
nized by all men. If I had sufficient energy of thought or living
force of self-conscious reason, the proposition that the square of the
hypothenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two
sides of a right-angled triangle, would become an axiom; but as I
have not this, and as the mind can not transcend itself, I have to
use the lever of method. But as all this is but the carrying out of
what has already been said, I need not dwell upon it. This living
energy of reason was so great in Plato, Shakspeare, and Goethe,
that they could lift greater weights directly than most men could
with all the appliances of levers and pullies.
We have seen that, as the mind can not get out of itself, (and
this position is implicitly admitted by all, though it may be expli
citly denied,) it can know only through a knowledge of itself. We
have seen that we can know physical nature even, only because
nature exists in its limitations, and these limitations are identical
with the limitations of mind or the laws of thought. And God being
Infinite Mind, in whose image we are created, the mind knows God
only in so far as it becomes self-conscious or knows itself. “ God
�20
is a Spirit, and they who worship Him must worship Him in spi
rit and in truth.” But we have seen, also, that the mind can know
itself only in self-conscious reason, and that reason hence is the
only criterion of truth. It is sad to reflect how little self-conscious
reason there is in the world, in humanity. Though reason is the
only criterion of truth, and it alone can exalt us and free us, by en
abling us to unite and cooperate with the Universal and Absolute,
yet, do we not see this our only hope condemned and upbraided
even in the pulpit, driven from the state, and trampled down and
spit upon by politics, and treated little better by science, so-called ?
When this is gone, what have we left? Nothing but individual
tape-strings! Oh, yes! they all talk loudly about the “ Higher
Law,” and say “ do right! do right I” And you ask them, what is
the Higher Law? what is right?—and they immediately and with
the most impudent assurance present their individual tape-strings,
and commence straightway measuring! measuring! But by what
authority are these stamped? By the senses, the feelings, the pas
sions. But each individual has a different standard stamped by
the same authority, except where what is called education induces
many to use the same string. And what power is umpire in these
irrepressible conflicts thus inevitably induced ? God is out of the
question, as reason has been dethroned, apd nothing is left but
physical force. Hence family, political and religious discord and
strife—one tape-string in conflict with another; no self-conscious
reason, no knowledge of the Absolute. If you direct your mind
through the whole range of human activities, you find labels ac
cording to these tape-strings stuck on every thing—the most sa
cred no less than secular. And this is called Knowledge! Truth!
Higher Law! And Education, in all its various departments, is,
in the main, the drilling into the young these lifeless forms, these
shams, these midnight apparitions, these labels arranged in order
to suit the easy method of the sensational understanding. Oh! it
is sad to behold how grossly humanity is engulfed into the senses.
We boast that we are the lords of creation; which means, that we
can bridle the horse, and that we will ultimately exterminate the
lion: for, the spirit of humanity is indicated, not in the question,
how shall we use those gifts to us which have not been vouchsafed
to beasts ? but rather, how shall we make up our deficit in beastly
gifts ?—“ What shall we eat ? what shall we drink ? and where
withal shall we be clothed?”
�St. Louis Medical College,
November 1st, 1859.
’
Prof. J. H. Watters.
Dear Sir,
At a meeting held by the Class, J. T. Marsh in the
chair, it was unanimously resolved, that a committee be appointed for the pur- •
pose of requesting from you permission to publish your Introductory Address,
delivered before the Class, in College Hall, on the evening of October 31st.
Hoping that the above resolve may receive your approbation, a favorable reply
will meet with the thanks of the Class, and of yours,
Respectfully,
J. L. WILCOX,
GRATZ A. MOSES,
CHAS. KNOWER,
JOHN THOMPSON,
J. C. HICKERSON.
St. Louis, Nov. 2, 1859.
Dear Sirs,
The manuscript of my lecture is at your service ; please present
to the Class my acknowledgment of the compliment,
And believe me, as ever,
Your attached friend,
J. H. WATTERS.
To Messrs. Wilcox, Moses, Knower, Thompson, Hickerson.
�
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Method of education: an address introductory to the session 1859-60 of the St. Louis Medical College
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Watters, J. H.
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Place of publication: St. Louis
Collation: 20 p. ; 23 cm.
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George Knapp & Co.
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1869
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Education
Medicine
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Conway Tracts
Education
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Text
MR. REYERDY JOHNSON:
The Alabama Negotiations;
AND THEIR JUST REPUDIATION BY
THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES.
BY GEORGE BEMIS.
BAKER
&
NEW YORK:
GODWIN, PRINTERS,
PRINTING-HOUSE SQUARE.
1869.
��MR. REVERDY JOHNSON:
THE ALABAMA NEGOTIATIONS.
The extraordinary avowal of Mr. Reverdy Johnson in vindication
of his rejected “ Alabama ” convention, that the United States 1‘ob
tained, by the convention in question, all that we have ever asked ”—an
avowal contained in a dispatch to Mr. Secretary Seward on the 17th
of February last, but which has but recently found its way into circu
lation on this side of the water—is one so calculated to embarrass the
country in its further negotiations with England, and to disparage
American reputation abroad for fair dealing in diplomacy, that I feel
called upon, as an advocate*©^ American rights and American honor,
to expose its groundlessness, and to uphold the perfect fairness and
propriety of the Senate’s repudiating alike Mr. Johnson’s words and
his works.
It is bad enough to have such ^compromising assertion as this of
the late Minister to England, [paught up and echoed by our English
opponents and European ill-wishers, generally; but to have it started
by our own diplomatic representative in the first instance, and that
out of apparent pique, because the country had not approved of his
doings, constitutes an offense against official propriety and national
loyalty such as I believe has never before been witnessed on the part
of an American Minister. I trust that the expose which 1 am about
to attempt of the justice of Mr. Johnson’s extraordinary avow’al, will
be so conclusive, that the most charitable deduction to be made in his
favor, after reading it, will be, that either his mind and memory had
failed him, or that his ignorance of the subject which he was treating,
may have left room for his honestly believing in the truth of what he
was so rashly and unwarrantedly asserting.
�4
MR. REVERDY JOHNSON:
The letter or dispatch of the 17th of February, referred to, con
tains various other obnoxious assertions of Mr. Johnson’s, upon]
which I may have occasion to comment in the course of my remarks,
such as, “ at no time during the war, or since, has any branch of the.
Government [of the United States] proposed to hold Her Majesty’s
Government responsible, except to the value of the property de
stroyed ” by the “ Alabama ” and similar vessels; “ the Government [of
the United States] never exacted anything on its own account”'—“to
demand more now * * * would be an entire departure from our
previous course, and would, I am sure, not be listened to by this Gov
ernment [the British], or countenanced by other nations,” etc., etc.;
and I would gladly reprint the whole of it, except for its length, and
Q for the reason that the lettei' itself has, doubtless, already had a
wide circulation through the American press—at least in the United
States. The whole dispatch, I venture to predict, will be a memora
ble one in our diplomatic annals, and will hereafter set the seal of
history, as I must think, upon the character of Mr. Reverdy John
son’s “Alabama” negotiations.
For the information of those of my readers who may not have
happened to see it, I would say that it is to be found (at least) in the
New York Herald of July 3, where it first met my eye, and where
some editorial introduction shows that it had been recently furnished
to that journal—apparently by Mr. Johnson himself—to meet, what
was said to have been, “ a garbled extract ” from it published in some
other New York newspaper. The whole letter, itself, would seem to
have been laid before the Senate, in secret session and confidentially,
prior to its action on the “ Alabama ” Convention ; and I gather from
other American journals (other than the Herald'), which have hap
pened to come within my observation here, that Mr. Johnson, before
publishing it, asked the President’s permission so to do. Whether
President Grant actually gave that permission, or whether he could
have constitutionally authorized the publication of a Senate confiden
tial document at all, supposing him to have been indulgently inclined
to grant the ex-minister’s request, is more than I have ascertained ;
but I am confident that Mr. Reverdy Johnson’s worst enemy could
not have persuaded him to a more injurious step, for his own reputa
tion, than that of thus giving this letter an unnecessary, and perhaps
unjustified publicity.
Before entering upon my criticism of this extraordinary dispatch
of the 17th of February, I must first premise a word of comment
upon the circumstances attending Mr. Johnson’s appointment as Min
�’THE ALABAMA NEGOTIATIONS.
5
ister to England, and also call the reader’s attention to the dates of the
two conventions which he afterward negotiated in that capacity.
As to the appointment itself, which was made and confirmed in
the early part of the month of July, 1868, I believe that even Mr.
Reverdy Johnson’s own friends will hardly contend that the English
mission was offered to him on any other footing than as a graceful
compliment for previous political services (probably, on the part of
the President, for having so warmly befriended him during the Im
peachment trial), or that his unanimous confirmation by the Senate
afterward, was due to anything so rrijuch as to a feeling of kindly per
sonal regard toward him on the part of his fellow-Senators, coupled
with the belief that his functions wouffh mainly nominal and honor
ary. At any rate, as I shall presentlySave Occasion to show, his origi
nal instructions, after he was so ^onfirriaed, gave him no latitude to do
more than “ sound Lord Stanley upon the subject ” of the “ Alabama”
claims, and, as Mr. Seward addsw»yy‘ after the two more urgent
controversies previously mentioned [the ‘ Naturalization ’ and ‘ San
Juan’ questions] can have been put wider process of adjustment.”
Mr. Johnson, thus confirmed and thus instructed, negotiated two
conventions (or treaties, as they am more popularly called), viz.: one
signed by Lord Stanley and himselQ.'ated November 10, 1868, which
was “unanimously” repudiated byg^srv member of Andrew’ John
son’s cabinet; and a second, with Lord ClargWon, dated January 14,
1869, which was the one acted upoafbyg^ United States Senate,
April 13th following, and rejected by a vote of fifty-four to one.
Now, in answer to Mr. Reverdy Johnson’s assertion, that we ob
tained by his conventions—one or both—“ all that we ever asked,” I
hope to show by official documents—some of them being Mr. John
son’s own dispatches—
1. That he himself was not originally authorized “ to ask ” for
anything; instead of which he propose®!, at one of his earliest inter
views with Lord Stanley, “ the payment of a lump sum of money,” or
“ some cession of territory,” in settlement oRbe Alabama claims.
2. That starting thus with asking money or territory, he dropped
all mention of both in his conveilfion of November 10th, which
amounted to such a total abandonment of the American claims, na
tional and individual, that even “ President Johnson and his colleagues ”
(to quote Mr. Thornton’s account of the reception of the treaty at
Washington) “were unanimously of the opinion that in its present
form the convention would not’ receive the sanction of the Senate,” and
“ its contents were not in accordance with the instructions which had
been given to Mr. Reverdy Johnson.”
�6
Q
MR. REVERDY JOHNSON :
3. That Mr. Reverdy Johnson and Mr. Seward united in agreeing
to the convention of January 14th following, in total oblivion or ig
noring of Mr. Seward’s long record of complaints about belligerent
recognition and the national injury which hadj resulted therefrom, and
when both of the negotiators were well aware that any convention to
which they might put their names, or give their approval, was subject
to the final sanction of that Senate which had come within one vote of
deposing with disgrace the President under whom both of them at that
moment held their commissions.
4. That, while the consideration of the convention of January 14th
was pending before the Senate, and after the administration of Andrew
Johnson had given way to that of President Grant, and at a time when
Mr. Reverdy Johnson knew that the new President was about recalling
him, and had given him no shadow of authority for the proceeding—
viz., under date of March 25,1869—Mr. Reverdy Johnson, of his own
head, “ officially ” proposed to Lord Clarendon to amend the conven
tion then pending before the Senate by adding to its terms a consid
eration of the national claims which the United States as a Govern
ment might have against the Government of Great Britain—the very
claims which he himself has undertaken to decry in this lately pub
lished letter of February 17th, as such “ as would not, I am sure, be
listened to by this Government [the British], or countenanced by
other nations.”
5. And that, finally, when Lord Clarendon begins to be distrust
ful of Mr. Reverdy Johnson’s attempt to represent or misrepresent
the United States, and demands of him by what authority he under
takes to ask for so material an alteration of his previous arrangement,
Mr. Johnson replies to him that he makes the proposal “ under the
ample authority conferred upon me when I came to this country and
since ; an authority which has never been revoked or in any particular
modified thus distinctly affirming that he had ample authority to
negotiate for the settlement of those very national claims, which he
would now make it appear had never been put forward, “ during the
, war or since, by any branch of the Government.”
From such a muddle of mistakes or misrecollections on the part
of the American Minister as seems to be involved in the foregoing
statement, which I promise presently to duly verify by official docu-s
ments, the reader will doubtless be glad to be delivered, so far as may
be, by a sight of Mr. Johnson’s original instructions themselves. Ac
cordingly I hasten to lay them before him, so far as they touch upon
the negotiation of the Alabama question, with which alone I am now
�THE ALABAMA NEGOTIATIONS
7
dealing. I quote from what I believe to be an accurate reprint of
them, contained in an elaborate and careful summary of the documents
laid before the United States Senate at the time of acting upon the
commission of January 14tb, as recently published in the New York
Times of July 6, 1869 :
Department of State,
)
Washington, July 20, 1868. t
»
Sir :
*
*
*
W
*
*
*
*
[I here omit a long exposition confined exclusively to the “Naturalization” and
“ San Juan ” questions. I shall also take the liberty to italicise the concluding
lines of the extract following, as I intend to? do in ^reference to future extracts
throughout, where I think the use of italics will help the busy readei* to more
readily apprehend my points.]
Thirdly, If you shall find reason to expect that the British Government will be
prepared to adjust the two questions already mentioned in some such manner as
has been proposed, and satisfactory to both parties, you will then be expected to
advert to the subject of mutual claims of citizensand subjects of the two countries
against the Governments of each other respectively.
The difficulty in this respect has arisen out of our claims which are known and
described in general terms as the Alabama elainia In the first place, Her Majes
ty’s Government not only denied all national obligation to indemnify citizens of
the United States for these claims, but even refused to entertain them for discus
sion. Subsequently Her Majesty’s Government, upon reconsideration, proposed to
entertain them for the purpose of referring them to arbitration!, but insisted upon
making them the subject of special reference, excluding from the arbitrator’s con
sideration certain grounds which the United States deem material to a just and
fair determination of the merits of the claims. The United States declined this
special exception and exclusion, and thus the proposed arbitration has failed.
It seems to the President that an adjustment might now be reached without
formally reviewing former discussions. A joint commission might be agreed upon
for the adjustment of all claims of citizens of the United States against the British
Government, and of all claims of subjects of Great Britain against the United
States, upon the model of the joint commission of February 8, 1853, which com
mission was conducted with so much fairness* and settled so satisfactorily all the
controversies which had arisen between the United States and Great Britain, from
the peace of Ghent, 1814, until the date of the Sitting of the convention.
While you are not authorized to commit this Government distinctly by such a
proposition, you may sound Lord Stanley upon the subject, after you shall have ob
tained satisfactory assurances that the two more^urgent controversies previously men
tioned can be put under process of adjustment in the manner which I have indi
cated.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
WILLIAM H. SEWARD.
Reverdy Johnson, Esq., &c., &c.
The last sentence of the foregoing dispatch settles the question of
the extent of ministerial powers conferred by “ the original instruc
tions of July Wthf upon which we shall presently see that Mr. John
son is continually dwelling. An authority “ to sound ” cannot certainly
be equivalent to a power to settle. It may be best, however, once for
all, to run through the American Minister’s entire diplomatic career,
so far as the matter of official discretion is concerned, in order to be
�8
MB. REVERDY JOHNSON J
convinced of his total misappreciation of the functions with which he
was charged. I doubt if such another exhibit of misrecollection or mis
understanding of his official powers (perhaps of excess of them) by a
diplomatic envoy, can anywhere be found. Being originally invested, as
the above extract shows, with no higher discretion than to “ sound Lord
Stanley,” and that, too, only upon the contingency of “ the two other
more urgent controversies having first been put under process of adjust
ment,” Mr. Johnson, after some further correspondence and sundry telegraphic communications from the State Department, which we shall
presently have occasion to notice, but of which he apparently makes ho
account, negotiates and signs with Lord Stanley the convention of No
vember 10th, and sends it home with an explanatory dispatch dated the
same day. In the course of this dispatch, after setting forth the tenor and
effect of his treaty, he adds the following remarkable explanation of
his doings, as if he anticipated being called to account for exceeding
his instructions. I quote again from the New York Times' reprint of
the official correspondence, the letter Johnson to Seward, of November
10,1868:
3/y authority for agreeing to this [that is, the leaving to arbitration the “Alaba,
ma ” claims in the shape which his convention had arranged for] is found in your
original instructions of the %S)th of July last, and is indeed to be found in the cor
respondence between yourself and my predecessor regarding these claims.
Was ever a more extraordinary avowal made by a diplomatic
agent than this ?—that, under a power “ to sound ” a foreign govern
ment, he considers himself duly authorized to sign a lasting treaty
with that Government (by force of the technical term “convention,”
to last to all time), and, if he has not sufficient authority of himself,
he has it as successor to a predecessor who had power enough for any
thing I Pray, has Mr. Reverdy Johnson, in his great practice as a
lawyer, ever learned that in the law of Agency, A. B. can consider
himself empowered to do whatever C. D. could have done, because
both A. B. and C. D. happen to represent a common principal ? Yet
I have no earthly doubt that the New York Times' reprint of Mr.
Johnson’s language, as above, is accurate to the letter.
But this is by no means the worst muddle or misunderstanding
made by the American envoy in the course of these negotiations, over
which I am arguing the question of the Senate’s duty to reconsider
and reject his work.
Being sharply reminded by Mr. Seward, by an ocean telegram,
that he had gone too fast and too far in negotiating this convention
just referred to, Mr, Johnson rejoins, that he was “ not only author
in
�THE ALABAMA NEGOTIATIONS.
ized,” but “ bound ” to do what he had done.
language:
9
I quote again his exact
\Johnson to Seward, Nov. 28, 1868.]
Why you are of the opinion that the [Alabama] Claims Convention is “ useless
unless amended ” you do not state, and I am unable to conjecture. I have just had
an interview at the Foreign Office with Lord Stanley, who readme a dispatch from
Her Majesty’s Minister at Washington, which stated that it was understood that
all the Cabinet disapprove of it, and had said that it was contrary to instructions.
This latter statement puzzles me yet more. If I understand your original, and all
the subsequent instructions, whether by telegraph or otherwise, the convention
conforms substantially with them. By thoseof the 20th of July, I considered myself
authorized, if this Government would adjust? as desired, the Naturalization and San
Juan controversies, to settle the claims’ controversy by at convention on the model of that
of February 8, 1853. And as the two former were satisfactorily arranged, I deemed
myself not only authorized, but bound to adopt the course that I did in relation to
the latter.—N. Y. Times, ut sup.
Now, taking Mr. Johnson’s own statement of his case, what can
he mean by stating that the instructions of July 20, which merely sug
gested “ a sounding,” not only “ authorized, M bound him to adopt
the course that he had taken in relation to the latter ” [these same
Alabama Claims] ? Has not Mr. Johnson failed in mind and memory;
and must it not have been perceptible to his English official opponents ?
But there remains a worse confusioi^if possible, of powers and
authority in connection with th^Minister^{attempt to reconcile his
treaty of January 14th to Senatorial acceptance. The ratification of the
convention having been kept in abeyanc^by the Senate till after the
accession of General Grant J^the Presidency, and word having reached
Mr. Johnson, in England, that the treatykvas not likely to be accept
able at home, on account of its omission of any mention of national
claims, he sets about amending it of his own motion in the manner
already suggested. Under date of March 25th, long after he must have
been painfully aware of the unpopularity of his course with the coun
try at large, and long after he had, doubtless, expected his recall by
the newly-installed Executive,, he writes to the British Foreign Secre
tary, Lord Clarendon, as follows. (I quote now from the British Par
liamentary Blue Book for 1869, North America,! No. 1, p. 46):
* * *
therefore, now officially propose to your lordship that we sign a
supplemental convention, which shall only sofar-alter the one of the 14th of January
as to provide that the claims which either Government may have upon the other shall
be included within it, and be settled in the same way.
Lord Clarendon, by this time having, doubtless, become persuaded
of the American envoy’s disposition to amplify his office, demanded,
in reply, whether he had the necessary authority for agreeing to so
important a modification of the original treaty. To this Mr. Johnson
replies in the following extraordinary letter, which, it seems to me,
2
�10
MR. REVERDY JOHNSON I
caps the climax of his ministerial mistakes or muddles,
from the British Blue Book, as before, p. 47) ;
(I quote again
U. S. Legation, London, March 29, 1869.
My Lord :
I have the honor to receive youT note of the 27th instant, and shall look with
solicitude to the determination of your Government upon the proposition contained
in my official note to you of the 25th.
That proposition was not made in pursuance of any express instructions of
my Government, but under the ample authority conferred upon me when I came to
this country, and since ; an authority which has never been revoked, or, in any par
ticular, modified.
Repeating my opinion, that the acceptance of the proposition would result in
the ratification by the Senate of the Claims Convention of the 14th of January
last,
I have, <fcc.,
(Signed)
REVERDY JOHNSON.
What hallucination can have seized Mr. Johnson about the extent
of his original powers ? Had he never read his instructions, or had
he forgotten to what degree they must have been modified in order to
enable his negotiation of the convention of January 14th ? And yet he
takes pains to assert that they have “ never been revoked, or [nor], in
any particular, modified.” If it be suggested that his intended mean
ing may, in some degree, be obscured by the unfortunate grammatical
expressions which he uses, and that he intends to say that he is enjoy
ing just as much diplomatic authority on the 29th of March, under
President Grant’s administration, as on the 14th of January, under
Andrew Johnson’s, when he joined Lord Clarendon in signing the
convention of that date; then what shall be said of his capacity to
understand his functions when, with no new authorization, he under
takes to interpolate so important a clause into a State paper which
had long since passed out of the sphere of his control ? Especially
when, as he himself avows in the continuation of the correspondence
(in a letter to Lord Clarendon of April 9th, on the same subject,—Blue
Book, as before, p. 49):
That I did not suggest in the negotiations which led to the convention of Jan
uary the including within it any Governmental claims, was because my instructions
only referred to the individual claims of citizens and subjects.
What was Lord Clarendon to do with an envoy who had such a
strange power of stretching out his instructions, and then, when
brought to the test, letting them fly back again like a piece of Indiarubber—but to finally say to him, as Lord Clarendon reports to his
own envoy at Washington (Blue Book, p. 49, Clarendon to Thornton,
April 9, 1869), he did *?
Mr. Johnson, [as] I said [to him] was, no doubt, acting on his instructions; but
they were the instructions given to him by the last Government, and Her Majesty* s Gov
ernment could not consider a communication not made by the authority of the presets
Government,
�THE ALABAMA NEGOTIATIONS.
11
I think this brief epitome of Mr. Reverdy Johnson’s constructive
expansion and contraction of his ministerial functions must have satis
fied the reader that, if Mr. Johnson is no better a judge of the merits
of his country’s claims against England for her unneutral conduct
during the late civil war, than he is of his own powers to treat with
that Government for the settlement of those claims, his aspersion that,
we have obtained by his convention all that we have ever asked, and
that the Government of the United States had, in effect, no case to
begin with, is already well-nigh disposed of.
Before dropping this branch of ■ my subject, however, I must
remark in passing, that Mr. Reverdy Johnson’s transgression of his
instructions cannot for a moment be urged against us by the British
Government in any future negotiation^ upon the same subject, be
cause, by the very terms of the two conventions which the British
Foreign Secretaries signed with him, that«bvernment expressly ad
mitted its obligation to inform itself of the extent of the envoy’s
powers. Thus, it makes a part of the recitals of both of the con
ventions of November 10th and January 14th, as well as of several
other preliminary drafts between the negotiators, that “ the Pleni
potentiaries having communicated to each other their respective full
powers, found in good and due form, have agreed as follows.”
So, besides the holding back by Lord Clarendon on the subject
of interpolating ‘‘Governmental claimsfWinto the treaty, through
caution of Mr. Johnson’s defective powepkt’o agree to that change, as
already referred to, it is noticeable thailLord Stanley, after signing
the convention of November 10th with Mr: Johnson, expressed to the
British Minister at Washington his misgivings of Mr. Johnson’s au
thority to bind his Government. Writing to Mr. Thornton after that
convention had been repudiated by President Johnston’s cabinet, and
for the purpose, as he states, of putting upon record his own doings
as Foreign Secretary in that particular, he says:
[/SZanZey to Thornton, December ft. Blue Book ut sup., p. 19.]
“ Matters remained in this state until the Receipt of your telegram of the
27th of November, up to which time I was under the impression, which was
also shared in by Mr. Johnson, that the Convention which had been signed,
being in accordance with his instructions as construed by him, would meet with
the approval of the United States Government.”
Is not this significant phrase “as construed by him? a full admis
sion that the British Government took their chance of Mr. Johnson’s
work being disowned, as his first convention was, for disregard
of instructions 1 Does it not also lead one to think that both the
British Foreign Secretaries—Lord Stanley, first, and Lord Clarendon,
�12
MR. REVERDY JOHNSON !
afterward—must have had their eyes opened to Mr. Johnson’s dis
torted conception of his ministerial capacity, before concluding any
of the negotiations which they respectively arranged with him ? In
fact, can there be much doubt that, when the late Minister’s whole
proceedings are taken into account, our English friends must have
understood Mr. Reverdy Johnson much better than he did himself?
But I pass from Mr. Reverdy Johnson’s incapacity to understand
his official functions, to consider the truth of his reflection upon his
country’s cause, that his diplomacy had gained for his Government all
that it had ever asked, and that it never had a claim of its own to
present.
Here I must again call Minister Johnson as a witness against
himself. Lord Stanley, who kept a record of his dealings with the
American envoy, as before alluded to, thus sets down the particulars
of one of his earliest interviews with him :
In a conversation which took place at the Foreign Office on the 25th of
September, Mr. Johnson, after discussing with me the subject of Naturalization,
passed to that of the so-called “ Alabama” claims. In this conversation, of
which a memorandum is inclosed, extracted from my notes of the interview,
Mr. Johnson first suggested, as a means of settlement, the payment of a lump sum
op money, or a cession of territory by Great Britain, both of which plans I con
sidered inadmissible, so long as the question of the liability of Great Britain was
denied by us, and remained undecided.—(Pari. Blue Book, ut sup., p. 17.)
The memorandum referred to is given on p. 19 of the Blue Book,
and is substantially to the same effect:
The conversation then turned on the “ Alabama ” claims. Mr. Johnson ad
verted generally, though not in the form of distinct proposals, to various methods
by which this question might be settled. His first suggestion was the payment of a
lump sum of money. Lord Stanley at once declared this to be inadmissible, so
long as the question of our being liable at all was denied by us and undecided by
any mode of reference. AZr. Johnson then talked of some cession of territory, an
idea which Lord Stanley did not think more promising.
I think Mr. Johnson can hardly contend that his two conventions
either stipulated for the payment of “ a lump sum of money,” or
“ the cession of territory.” How, then, can the United States be said
“ to have obtained by them all that we have ever asked ” ? Had not
the American Minister heard from some source or other, before
starting on his mission, that one or the other of these modes of settle
ment was expected? Or, was the suggestion entirely spontaneous,
and (may it not be added) unauthorized, with himself? Then, does
not “ cession of territory ” imply the satisfaction of a national demand?
Or, was Mr. Johnson imagining all the while, that each one of the
sufferers by the “ Alabama ” or the “ Florida ” was to take a town
ship in Canada as an indemnity for the loss of his ship? The same
�THE ALABAMA NEGOTIATIONS.
13
idea of cession of territory in satisfaction of these claims crops out
elsewhere in the course of this correspondence. Thus, Mr. Thornton,
writing to Lord Clarendon, under date of April 19th (lb., p. 53),
says, [this] “ mode of settlement [that is, by cession of territory]
has frequently been hinted at to me.”
Whether such a form of indemnity is a desirable or expedient
one for the United States, or whether indeed the cession of territory
has any legitimate connection with the solution of the Alabama ques
tion at all, it is-quite superfluous for the writer to undertake to settle.
But, that the agitation of such a demand, and*, by Mr. Johnson him
self, when freshly arrived in England, quite Contradicts his assertions,
that “ we have obtained all that we ever asked,land that “ the Govern
ment [of the United States] never exacted anything on its own ac
count,” seems to the writer too plain for further Comment.
I hasten to the more substantial matter of the total abandonment
by Mr. Johnson, and (I must add) by Mr. Seward, of the national
ground of complaint against Great Britain, connected with the matter
of the Belligerent Recognition of the Rebel Confederacy, and of
which all tangible notice is omitted jn both of the Conventions of
November 10th and January|l4th. Here I think every American who
has gone to the bottom of the AlabamaBontroversy will agree with
me, that the United States Senate were fully justified in repudiating
Messrs. Seward’s and Johnson’f diplomatic doings in to to.
How stands this point of Belligerenl Recognitionjas left in the
latest convention, and as dwelt upon in preceding negotiations which
led to it ? I fear that I shall havf p|tax the reader’s patience with
some explanatory details on this head ; yet I believe it unavoidable
to a just understanding ^f the merits of the discussion.
Doubtless he will have observed no allusion to Belligerent Re
cognition in Mr. Seward’s original] instructions to Mr. Johnson of
July 20th, which I have already quoted: nor, I may add, am I aware
that Mr. Seward ever afterward po much ^alludes to the subject
throughout the whole correspondence, as published in the blue books
of either country. This is significant, at the outset. Yet it is the
same Mr. Seward who during theJcourse of the civil war had made
no less than six formal demands as American Secretary of State upon
the Governments of England and France for the recall of that ob
noxious measure; and the same Mr. Seward who had a hundred times
at least denounced to those Governments their hasty and unfriendly
recognition of the rebels as a belligerent power, as the fountain and
source of all our foreign woes. Was it intentionally kept out of
�14
MR. REVERDY JOHNSON *
sight, or virtually ignored, in these Johnson-Stanley and JohnsonClarendon conventions, in order to effect some arrangement which
should have the eclat of disposing of a great international contro
versy ?
In reply to this question, and at the same time to meet Mr. John
son’s thrust that we should have got by his convention all that we
ever asked for, 1 beg the reader to go no further back with me into
the record of Mr. Seward’s complaints about the national reparation
expected from England for her hasty recognition of the rebels as bel
ligerents, than six months prior to Mr. Reverdy Johnson’s confirma
tion as Minister. Here is what the American Secretary of State au
thorized Mr. Johnson’s predecessor, Mr. Adams, to say to the British
Government in January, 1868. I only quote an extract:
Department of State,
)
Washington, Jan. 13, 1868. )
Sir: Your dispatch of the 24th of December, No. 1,503, has been received.
You were quite right in saying to Lord Stanley that the negotiation in regard to
the so-called Alabama claims is now considered by this Government to have been
closed without a prospect of its being reopened. With reference to the conversa
tion, which occurred between yourself and his lordship on the subject of a recent
dispatch of Mr. Ford [British Secretary of Legation at Washington], in which
Mr. Ford gave an account of a conversation which he had with me, it would per
haps be sufficient to say that Mr. Ford submitted no report of that conversation,
nor did he inform me what he proposed to write to Lord Stanley. I may add that
either Mr. Ford or Lord Stanley, or both, have misapprehended the full scope of
what is reported by Mr. Ford as a suggestion on my part.
Both of these gentlemen seem to have understood me as referring only to mu
tual pecuniary war claims of citizens and subjects of the two countries which have
lately been extensively discussed. Lord Stanley seegis to have resolved that the
so-called Alabama claims shall be treated so exclusively as a pecuniary commercial
claim, as to insist on altogether excluding the proceedings of Her Majesty’s Government
in regard to the war from consideration, in the arbitration which he proposed.
On the other hand, I have been singularly unfortunate in my correspondence,
if I have not given it to be clearly understood, that a violation of neutrality by the
Queen!s proclamation, and kindred proceedings of the British Government, is regarded
as a national wrong and injury to the United Stales; and that the lowest form of sat
isfaction for that national injury that the United States could accept, woidd be found
in an indemnity, without reservation or compromise, by the British Government to
those citizens of the United States who had suffered individual injury and damages by
the vessels of war unlawfully built, equipped, manned, fitted out, or entertained and
protected in the British ports and harbors, in consequence of a failure of the British
Government to preserve its neutrality.
WM. H. SEWARD.
0. F. Adams, Esq., <tc., <fcc.
This, I venture to think, is a very moderate and just statement of
the American claim, and one which will never be substantially de
parted from by the country in any settlement of the question hereafter
to be arranged. Had Mr. Reverdy Johnson never heard of it? Does
either of his conventions recognize il a national wrong and injuryor I
provide for its “indemnity without reservation or compromise” “to
�THE ALABAMA NEGOTIATIONS,
15
those who have suffered individual injury”? Let us look a little
more closely at Mr. Johnson’s dealings with Belligerent Recognition,
since, as we have seen, Mr. Seward keeps an ominous silence in re
gard to it.
So far as I can find, the only mention at any time of the subject
just named, on Mr. Johnson’s part, occurred in one of his early inter
views with Lord Stanley, prior to the signing of the 'convention of
November 10th, and is thus reported by Lord Stanley in a dispatch
to Mr. Thornton, under date of October 21st. The negotiation of the
first convention, it would seem from one of Mr. Johnson’s own letters,
was about this time just being entered upon:
In this conversation little was said as to the point on which the former nego
tiations broke off, viz.: the claim made by*the United States Government to raise be
fore the arbiter the question of the alleged premature recognition by Her Majesty’s
Government of the Confederates as belligerents* Ifstated/rt^lMr. Reverdy Johnson that
we could not, on this point, depart from the position which we had taken up; but 1 saw
no impossibility in so framing the reference, and that by mutual consent, either tacit or
express, the difficulty might be avoided.—Blue Book, ut sup, p. 10.
As the subject is dropped from this tifee forth by the American
envoy, so far as can be learned from the published correspondence of
either Government, are we to conclude thatfjbe British proposition
was at once submitted to, and that that Government, being no longer
importuned to depart from its. ppsiti^g it was henceforth mutually
agreed between the two negotiator! to concert “how not to do it”?
Whethei’ such an agreement, yas Owl® ever entered into by them
or not, it is plain that it was most effectively carried out, so far as the
American Minister was concernedly the convention of November
10th, the terms of which, so fai* as this point is concerned, I am about
to cite. Meanwhile, I must not deprive the reader of Mr. Johnson’s
report of his own doings on thaf head to the Department of State,
showing that Lord Stanley’s ingenious.-devicewas^at least, not un
favorably entertained by him. Says Mr.Johnson, writing home to
Mr. Seward, under date of the verg day of signing the first conven
tion (November 10th), and expressing his own gratification at what
he had achieved :
It is proper that I should give, as briefly as may be necessary, my reasons for
assenting to the convention, or rather to some of its provisions: 1. You have here
tofore refused to enter into an agreement to arbitrate the '•Alabama claims unless this
Government would agree that the question of its right to acknowledge as belligerents
the late so-called Southern Confederacy be also included within the arbitration. You
will see by the terms of the first and the fourth articles, that that question, as well as
every other which the United States may think is involved in such claims, is to be be
fore the commissioners or the arbitrator. This is done by the use of general terms,
and the omission of any specification of the questions to be decided. And my authorlily for agreeing to this is found in your original instructions of the 20th of July last,
Kind is indeed to be found in the correspondence between yourself and my predecessor
regarding these claims.—N. Y. Times, ut sup.
�16
MR. REVERDY JOHNSON !
I have already quoted the last paragraph, as above, in another con
nection. It deserves a repetition, however, as showing that while Mr,
Johnson professed to have read and to be familiar with the instruct
tions given to his predecessor, Mr. Adams (among which was this re
cent letter of January 13, 1868, instructing Mr. A. that the United
States claimed a national as well as a pecuniary indemnity), Mr. John
son believes that he can find in those instructions an authority (I) for
dexterously declining to insist upon the very same demand. I pray
the reader’s special attention to Mr. Johnson’s devise for giving the
go-by to the very point which he reminds Mr. Seward that he (Mr.
Seward) had always made a sine qua non in arbitration.
“ You will see by the terms of the first and fourth articles, that
that question [Belligerent Recognition] * * * * is to be before the
commissioners or the arbitrator. This is done by the use of general
terms and the omission of any specification of the questions to be de
cided” Rather a novel mode of getting a point before an arbitrator
—is it not ?—“ to omit all specification of the question to be decided ! ”
Could a better exemplification be found of the maxim, that“ language
is not intended to express men’s ideas, but to conceal them ? ”
And yet, will it be believed of this brave exponent of American
rights—this successful delineator of Hamlet with the part of Hamlet
left out—that, writing home to the Secretary of State, in that same
obnoxious letter of February 17th, from which I have so often quoted,
Mr, Reverdy Johnson—after his work is all done—after he “has met
the enemy and is theirs,” and is giving his version of how it happened
—could have expressed himself about the importance of Belligerent
Recognition to the American case, as follows ?
Supposing, then, that the [Blockade] proclamation of the President was known
to this Government [the British] when they declared the insurgents to be bel
ligerents—a question of fact which I do not propose to examine—it furnished no
justification for the action of this Government; and if it was not jusified, as I confi
dently believe was the case, the act is one which bears materially upon the question
whether the Government is not bound to indemnify for the losses occasioned by the
Alabama and other vessels, for then that vessel and the others could not have been con
structed or received in British ports, as they would have been in the estimation of En
glish law, as well as the laic of nations, piratical vessels. They never, therefore,
would have been on the ocean, and the vessels and the cargoes belonging to Ameri
can citizens destroyed by them would have been in safety. Upon this ground,
then, independent of the question of proper diligence, the obligation of Great Britain
to meet the losses seems to me to be most apparent.
Weighty and just words those ! and which it is to be hoped will
be remembered by our English friends when they are quoting the rest
of Mr. Reverdy Johnson’s record against us ! But what a pity that
they had not been uttered to the British Foreign Office before the two
�THE ALABAMA NEGOTIATIONS.
IT
conventions of November 10th and January 14th were signed ! And
still more, what a pity that they had not found a formal expression in
those national compacts, instead of the ingenious device of “omitting
any specification of the question to be decided ” !
But I am detaining the reader too long from the text of the Con
vention of November 10th. Here are its three important articles, so
far as they touch the “Alabama” controversy—the only reference to
the claims throughout the document. Indeed, buKfor these it would
not appear that the existence of an “ Alabama,” or an “ Alabama ”
grievance, had even so much as -.been Jieard of before by the parties
signitary.
Article IV.
The commissioners shall have power to adjudicate upon the class of claims re
ferred to in the official correspondence between theEtwo»^?overnments as the “ Ala
bama ” claims; but before any of such claims is taken into consideration by them,
the two high contracting parties shall fix upon some«sovereign or head of a friendly
State as an arbitrator in respect of such claims, to whom such class of claims shall
be referred in case the commissioners shall be unable to come to an unanimous
decision upon the same.
Article
V
In the event of a decision on any of the claims mWtioned in the next preced
ing article being arrived at by the arbitrators-involving a question of compensa
tion to be paid, the amount of such compensation shall be referred back to the
commissioners for adjudication; or, in*the eyent*®&-their nbMoeing able to come
to a decision, it shall then be decided by the arbitrator appointed by them, or who
shall have been determined by lot according’’fgfrthe provisions of Article I.
Article
VI.
With regard to the before-mentioned “Alabama” class of claims, neither Gov
ernment shall make out a case in support of its position, nor shall any person be
heard for or against any such claim. The official correspondence which has al
ready taken place between the two Governments, respecting the questions at issue,
shall alone be laid before the commissioners; and (in the-event of their not coming
to an unanimous decision, as provided in Article IV.), then before the arbitrator,
without argument, written or verbal, and without the production of any further
evidence.
The commissioners unanimously, or the arbitrator, shall, however, be at liberty
to call for argument or further evidence, if they or he shall deem it necessary.
The reader will have taken notice of the phrase used in the first
line of Article IV., “ the commissioners shall have power to adjudicate,”
which I have taken the liberty to dtllicise. While in the previous
articles it is stipulated that all other claims embraced in the arbitra
tion are to be laid unreservedly before the commissioners or arbitrator,
and it is made their business to hear them, the so-called “Alabama”
claims are only to be permitted an auditing, as it were, by special
grace. While blockade-breakers and Confederate bondholders may
8
�18
MR. REVERDY JOHNSON:
claim the commissioners’ ear and enforce the most unlimited audience,
the sufferers by the “ Alabama” may think themselves fortunate if
they get a hearing at all. Rather a descent—must not one call this ?—
on the 10th of November, from the American envoy’s demand on the
25th of September, “ of the payment of a lump sum of money,” or
“ a cession of territory,” as “ a means of settlement.”
And then, if the commissioners see fit to give the “ Alabama ”
claimants a hearing at all, what sort of a hearing is this which is se
cured for them ? “ Neither government shall make out a case in sup
port of its position, nor shall any person he heard for or against any
such claim. The official correspondence * * * shall alone he laid
before the commissioners, and, in the event of their not coming to an
unanimous decision, * * * then before the arbitrator, without
argument, written or verhcd, and without the production of any further
evidence."
“ The commissioners, unanimously, or the arbitrator, shall, however,
be at liberty to call for argument or further evidence, if they or he shall
deem it necessary.” Must it not have been a bad subject enough which
did not bear a discussion beyond limits as narrow as these? Neither
party to go to the bottom of their case, neither testimony nor argu
ment to be heard in support of it, and an unanimous decision, or else
the whole matter to be left to lot! One would think that with such
a hearing as this, it was quite unnecessary to stipulate beforehand for
“the omission of the specification of any question to be decided” by
the arbitrator. Indeed, the leading thought uppermost in the negoti
ator’s mind must have been, literally, that the least heard of the
“Alabama” claims the better.
What possible excuse can Mr. Johnson give for such a one-sided
and delusive treatment of a serious question as this, unless he was in
dulging the idea that he had achieved a master-stroke of policy in
getting the “ official correspondence of the two governments ” before
the eyes of the umpire ? If this was to be the great equivalent, I beg
to ask if the American envoy was not at all aware that the greater
part of the American case, national and individual—as one might
also say—is not contained, or not developed, in that correspondence ?
That, so far as public or private damage is concerned, the case of the
“ Florida,” for instance, is hardly touched upon by it ? That the facts
connected with the final escape of the “Alabama” from Liverpool,
through the negligence or treachery of the custom-house officials of
Liverpool during the last thirty-six hours of her stay in British
waters, and before finally quiting the Welsh coast—one of the strong
�THE ALABAMA NEGOTIATIONS.
19
est features in the American case, as I venture to think—are scarcely
so much as alluded to in either Mr. Seward’s or Mr. Adams’ dis
patches ? And, that that correspondence is altogether silent upon the
great point of the wrong inflicted upon the country, by the original
concession and continued persistence in the recognition of a belliger
ent status to the Rebel Confederacy, when that confederacy had never
once complied with the condition precedent upon which alone Lord
Russell declared, on the 6th of May, 1861, it was granted, viz.: that
the newly-acknowledged belligerents should have prize ports and prize
courts? Was not Mr. Johnson, aware, further,that.this same official
correspondence, whose efficacy he is perhapsRpdn tiding in, altogether
overlooks the pertinency of the repeated admission by the British
Government, during the war, of the validity and efficiency of the
American blockade long before the “Alabama”—certainly long be
fore the “ Shenandoah ”—was coaled, provisioned, and manned in a
British outport, under the guise of a legitimate ship-of-war of a dulyrecognized belligerent power ?
These are but a few of the omissions siich as I would ask if the
American Minister was ignorant of yhen he'was possibly laying such
stress upon the efficacy of the United States’ official correspondence.
I certainly adduce them in no spirit ^fault-finding with the able and
faithful exponents of bur foreign rel'^^f during the late war. All
things are not possible to men so bwffiurdened with national cares as
were those gentlemen, and I heartily jo® in the meed of praise which
a grateful country has so justly conceded'them for their patriotic
services at that trying period. Yet on the review df the whole work of
the civil war, now that time has been given for the deliberate examination
of its records, is it to be presumed thataomissions like the above, and
others of equal or greater importance shbuld have^scaped the atten
tion of the American representative, wh<®wa^ intrusted with the man
agement of the national case against England?* ■ If such a presump
tion is not admissible, then Mr. Johnsoggirtuallyabandoned his cause
in letting the official correspondence stand alike fdiTevidence and argu
ment—law and fact—justice and discretion—in the decision of these
claims. If, on the other hand, hi was ignorant of. the glaring defects
embraced in that presentation of our case,“hen his submission of it to
arbitration, upon that evidence alone, was worse than asking for an
award upon a point not specified.
I have thus dwelt at greater length upon the Convention of No
vember 10th, than may have seemed expedient, because, as it was
mainly Mr. Johnson’s work (Mr. Seward, I believe, in ignorance of
�20
MR. REVERDY JOHNSON:
its real tenor, only stipulating for the change of the seat of arbitration
from London to Washington), it serves to show how little reliance is
to be placed upon the American Minister’s assertion, when he is turn
ing against his country, and declaring that, as a Government, it never
had any case to begin with.
The text of Mr. Johnson’s Convention of November 10th reached
Washington in due course of mail in about a fortnight. Shortly after
its arrival, and while it was under consideration by the President and
his cabinet, Mr. Johnson telegraphed to Mr. Seward for permission to
go on and complete further negotiations on the “San Juan” question.
The following is Mr. Seward’s reply to Mr. Johnson’s telegram, show
ing the first impression of the Secretary of State of Mr. Johnson’s
“ Alabama ” labors :
Washington, November 26, 1868,
Reverdy Johnson, Esq., <fcc., <fco.:
Let San Juan rest. Claims Convention [that is, Alabama Claims Convention],
unless amended, is useless. Wait for dispatches, Friday or Saturday.
WM. H. SEWARD.
*
Mr. Seward followed this up with a letter of the next day, con
taining a detailed statement of objections to the treaty, and coupled
with a memorandum of alterations which he deemed necessary. As
I have not room for giving these documents entire, I must content my
readers with the summary of them, presented a day or two after, by
Mr. Thornton, to the Foreign Office, and published in the Blue Book,
already quoted, p. 22.
Says Mr. Thornton, writing to Lord Stanley, November 30th:
Mr. Seward received, on the 24th instant, the Convention upon Claims, signed
by your Lordship and Mr. Reverdy Johnson on the 10th instant.
On the 26th, Mr. Seward called upon me and informed me that the contents of
the convention were not in accordance with the instructions which had been given to
Mr. Reverdy Johnson ; that the President and his colleagues could not approve of
certain of the stipulations comprised therein ; and that they were unanimously of
opinion that, in its present form, the convention would not receive the sanction of the
Senate. Upon the latter po nt I could not but concur. Mr. Seward confessed
that it was possible that some excuse might be made for Mr. Johnson’s not having
kept more closely to his instructions, because as some of these were given by
telegrams in answer to Mr. Johnson’s questions sent by the same channel, Mr.
Seward may have misunderstood the former, and Mr. Johnson may not have fully
comprehended the instructions sent in reply. *
*
* Mr. Seward has
pointed out to Mr. Reverdy Johnson that he had always intended, and so instructed
him, that a protocol, not a convention, should be signed with regard to the “ Ala
bama” and war claims, in the same manner, and with the same condition, as that
upon the “ San Juan ” question. I have certainly always understood this to be the
case, and I believe that my correspondence with your Lordship has given indica
tions of this conviction on my part. *
*
* The United States Govern
ment likewise object to the unanimous decision required by Article IV. for the
�THE ALABAMA NEGOTIATIONS.
21
" Alabama ” claims, whereas the other claims may be decided by a majority of the
commissioners. This they consider unjust, and are even more sensitive about it
than upon the subject of the umpire. *
*
* No instructions had been pre
viously given to Mr. Johnson to make any positive declaration with regard to the “Ala
bama” claims, so as to distinguish them from the others.
If Article IV. were canceled, Article V. would naturally have the same fate.
The United States Government strongly object to Article VI., because it does
not allow either Government to make out a ease in support of its position, nor any
person to be heard for or against the “Alabama” claims; whereas both these steps
are allowed with regard to other claims, and they do not see why a prejudicial
distinction should be stipulated in the convention against the “Alabama” claims,
which would render the sanction of the Senate more doubtful, although they ac
knowledge that little could be added to what is contained in the official correspond
ence. [A point upon which the writer has ventured to express his entire dissent
as above.] They also object, for the reasons already mentioned, to the decision
being necessarily unanimous, both with regard to the claims themselves, or to the
[not?] calling for argument or further evidence. They, therefore, ask that
Article VI. may be canceled, or that it may be substituted by the following
words:
“ In case of every claim, the official correspondence which has already taken
flace between the two Governments respecting the question at issue, shall be laid
efore the commissioners ; and in the event of their not coming to a decision there
upon, then before the arbitrator; either Government may also submit further evi
dence and further argument thereupon, written or verbal.” *
*.
*
*
*
* Should your Lordship be able to agree to these modifications,
Mr. Seward has repeatedly assured me that the Senate are committed to the ac
ceptance of the convention so modified, and that he is convinced they will sanc
tion it,
I have taken pains to cite so much from Mr. Thornton in expla
nation of the points of disagreement between Mr. Johnson’s first con
vention and Mr. Seward, because, as these points were nearly all
eventually conceded by the British Government in the second conven
tion of January 14th, it puts the reader essentially in possession of the
terms of that convention, and, at the same time, shows how little Mr.
Johnson had conformed, in his first convention, either to the instruc
tions or to the wishes of his own Government. This report of Mr.
Thornton’s, however, gives Mr. Johnson the benefit of his additional
instructions by telegraph, which he may have misunderstood, as Mr.
Seward charitably suggests, but of which Mr. Johnson himself, as we
have seen, seems disposed to make but little account. This report of
Mr. Thornton’s suggests, further, another unpleasant feature in Mr.
Seward’s diplomacy, which the American brochure of diplomatic cor
respondence referred to does not disclose, I believe, viz., that the
Secretary of State was undertaking to speak for, and to pledge before
hand, the concurrence of the United States Senate in his negotiations.
What business, I would ask (if Mr. Thornton’s report is accurate on
this point), had the American Secretary of State to make any such
compromising assurance as this for a branch of the Government en
tirely independent of his own ? What did he mean by saying that
�99
I
0
-
MR. REVERDY JOHNSON:
the Senate were committed to the ratification of the doings of the I
Executive, when he knew that a few short months before a large ma
jority of the members of that body had voted for the removal of the
President for high crimes and misdemeanors, and many of the Sen
ators still believed his continuance in office a violation of the Consti-J
tution ?
But 1 must hasten on to the terms of the second convention. The
reader is, doubtless, familiar with Senator Sumner’s vehement and
effective denunciation of its shortcomings ; its failure to provide for
the settlement of the national grievance; its huddling-up blockade
running and Confederate bond-holding claims in the same category
with unneutral and unfriendly raids upon the peaceful commerce
of a friendly nation ; its leaving to lot whether any indemnity, even
of a pecuniary nature, should be granted to the individual sufferers;
and its total disregard of the settlement of the principles of the law
of nations involved in the controversy. Without troubling the reader
with a repetition of the energetic and convincing statements of that
now highly-famous speech on these heads, and, still more, without
undertaking to enter into the general merits of some other of its
much-controverted positions, I cannot forbear attempting to add a few
criticisms upon the terms of the treaty, and the negotiations attending
it, which seem to me to materially aid the Senator’s primary and chief
contention, viz., that it was equally the duty, as it was the constitu
tional prerogative, of the United States Senate, emphatically to re
pudiate the “ Claims” convention of January 14th.
In the first place, I beg the reader’s attention to its insufficient
setting-forth of the subject-matter of the controversy. We have al
ready seen with what bare toleration Mr. Reverdy Johnson secured
any mention at all of the Alabama claims in his first treaty of Novem
ber 10th.
Passing now to his second—which, it should be said in his favor,
was negotiated with the full concurrence of the Secretary of State,
and for which Mr. Seward took pains, in a letter dated J anuary 20th, to
express to him “ the President’s high satisfaction with the manner in
which you have conducted these important negotiations ”—it will be
found that Mr. Johnson hardly stipulates for a more respectful cog
nizance of the same claims by the commissioners in the later than in
the earlier treaty. The term “ Alabama ” occurs but once in the
whole document, and then in a parenthetical kind of way, as if the
American negotiator had been afraid to bring his bantling upon the
carpet at all. While other—the most trifling or the most truculent—
�THE ALABAMA. NEGOTIATIONS.
23
claims, running back to 1853, boldly raise their heads and challenge a
hearing, it is only in a secondary and subordinate capacity, introduced
by the phrase, which most writers would have been likely to enclose
in brackets, e. g. (“ including the so-called 1 Alabama’ claims”), that
the American grievance is permitted to present itself at all for arbi
tration. I believe the reader will not regret an opportunity of seeing
this for himself in the actual document, though at the cost of a few
moments’ delay. I shall not hav® occasion, by any means, to cite the
entire instrument.
The preamble to the conventi®. runsi as follows : [I quote from
the parliamentary copy, p. 36.]
Whereas claims have at various times since the exchange of the ratifications
of the Convention between Great Britain and thex-United States of America,
signed at London on the Sth of February, 1853, bee® made upon the Government
of Her Britannic Majesty on the part of citizens of the United States, and upon
the Government of the United States on the part of subjects on Her Britannic
Majesty; and whereas some of such claims are still pending, and remain un
settled, Her Majesty, the Queen, <&c., and the President, <fcc^: being of opinion
that a speedy and equitable settlement of all such claims will contribute much, to
the maintenance of the friendly feelings which subsist between the two countries,
have resolved to make arrangements for that purpose by means of a Convention,
and have named as their plenipotentiaries to confer and agree thereupon, viz.;
[The Earl of Clarendon on the part of Great Britain, and Reverdy Johnson, Esq.,
on the part of the United States.] Who, after having communicated to each other
their respective full powers, found in good and due form, have agreed as follows:
[Then follows Article L, from which I need wlynsite a few lines
to make good my purpose.]
Article I.—The high contracting parties agreflj that all claims on the part
of subjects of Her Britannic Majesty upon the Government of the United States,
and all claims on the part of citizens of the»'4United States upon the Government
of Her Britannic Majesty, including the so-called “Alabama” claims, which may
have been presented to either Government for its interposition with the other,
since the 26th of July, 1853, the day of the exchange of the ratifications of the
Convention, concluded between Great Britain and the United States of America,
at London, on the 8th of February, 1853, and which yet remain unsettled.; as
well as any other such claims which may be presented within the time specified
in Article III. of this Convention [that is, two years from the first sitting of the
Commissioners], whether or not arising out of the late civil war in the United
States, shall be referred to four Commissioners to be appointed in the following
manner, &c.
This is all the introduction to the Commissioners’ notice which
the “Alabama” claims could secure throughout the document, at
Messrs. Johnson and Seward’s hands; and I leave it to the candid
reader’s judgment, whether such a mention by the way-side and in a
parenthesis, as it were, of reclamations so important to the individual
Isufferers, and to the American people at large, looks either manly or
Bstatesmanly. I say nothing about defining what “ so-called ‘■Alabama'
�24
MR. REVERDY JOHNSON:
claims ” is intended to embrace; whether, for instance, it takes in
devastations by the 44 Florida,” the “ Shenandoah,” and other similar
vessels; though one would think that if it is so intended, it should not
have been left to the generosity of our opponents to concede it, at
the hearing. But what a shuffling evasion and shame faced dodging
of the main issue to be tried, thus to treat it as if it were a matter
not to be named; or, rather, naming it the “so-called 'Alabama’
claims.” Were not the grievances sustained by the United States and
its citizens during the four long years’ practice of British Neutrality
and Rebel Equality worth but four words in the treaty of final settle
ment ? Or, shall we call this another case of 44 wisely omitting any
specification of the question to be decided ” ?
So far as Mr. Reverdy Johnson had any agency in providing for
this lame and impotent statement of the American grievance, I think
the spirit which inspired his diplomacy is well illustrated by a short
extract from one of his dispatches to the Secretary of State, written
after Mr. Johnson had entered upon the negotiation of the second
convention with Lord Clarendon. The dispatch bears date December
24, 1868, and was dictated at a time when the Minister had digested
his irritation at Mr. Seward’s telegraphic repudiation of his first
treaty, and when he had begun to indulge in hopeful visions of suc
cessfully negotiating a second. I quote only a short extract, which,
however, will fairly bear separation from the context:
[Johnson to Seward, December 24, N. Y. Times, ut swp.J
I am perfectly satisfied that every member of the Cabinet is most anxious to
bring the controversy in regard to the “ Alabama ” claims to a satisfactory termi
nation, and I trust, therefore, that you will be able to concur substantially in the
propositions which will be made in the dispatch to Mr. Thornton.
I can get the “ Alabama ” claims specifically mentioned as among the claims
to be submitted to the Commissioners; and this I think most important.
Wonderful! The representative of his country’s rights can even
get the American claims 44 wzenft'onerf ” in that submission which he is
about to make in perpetual foreclosure of their further prosecution !
And li this he thinks most important.” He does not purpose on this
occasion to 44 altogether omit any specification of the question to be
decided
but he is so fortunate as to hope for a mention of his case
in the Commissioners’ hearing. Fortunate Minister ! Could ambas
sadorial courage dare more! Could diplomatic finesse achieve a
greater triumph!
More seriously, did Mr. Reverdy Johnson believe the “so-called
4 Alabama ’ claims ” a sham and a humbug ? Or was he attempting
to cajole his countrymen by taking such official care of their interests,
�THE ALABAMA NEGOTIATIONS.
25
as the above, and then proclaiming to the world, in his numerous
after-dinner speeches, that the “Alabama” question was settled once
for all, and the good understanding of the two countries henceforth
irrevocably secured ?
In the second place—to continue my comments on Mr. Johnson’s
second convention—if the critic of this convention looks- for any re
cognition in it, much more for any satisfaction likely to grow out of
it, of that “ national wrong and injury to the United States,” resulting
from “ the violation of neutrality by the Queen’s proclamation and
kindred proceedings of the British Governments’ which we have seen
was insisted upon by Mr. Seward, as late as January 13, 1868, he will
find himself equally disappointed as in regard to the earlier conven
tion of November 10th. If Mr. Johnson had never so much as heard
that the United States “ exacted anything on its own account ”—to
quote again his'own language in the letter of the 17th of February—
(which it should be said, again, in 'his favor, Mr. Seward calls “ an
able and elaborate paper ”)—how could he be expected to do other
wise than keep silence upon this head? To be sure, he says in this
very same letter, that if it [the Recognition of Rebel Belligerence]
was not justified, as I confidently believe was the case, the act is one
which bears materially upon the question, whether the Government
is not bound to indemnify for the losses occasioned by the “Alabama,”
[and] “ upon this ground, independent of the question of proper
diligence, the obligation of Great Britain to meet the losses seems to
me to be most apparent! If so very apparent, would it not have been
worth at least a casual mention—sajS|for instance, as good as the
parenthetical allusion to the “ so-called {Alabama! claims ”—in a treaty
which was to discharge the two countries of all shadow of animosity
against each other forever ?
But since Mr. Johnson is so confident that the Government of the
United States “never exacted any thing on itl own account,” and, as
he says elsewhere in his letter of February 17th, “ the^depredations of
the Alabama were of property in which our nation had no direct pe
cuniary interest,” I should like to be informed if he never heard that
one of the ships sunk by the Alabama was the United States ship of
war the Hatteras—a gunboat of considerable size, seventeen of whose
officers and crew were killed and drowned, and a hundred and upward
of whom were made prisoners. Pray, has the United States no inter
est, pecuniary or national, in that act of war or piracy? Did it not
cost a naval engagement also with the “ Kearsarge,” and the wounding
of several of our seamen, to finally give the quietus to the “ Alaba4
�26
MB. EEVEBDY JOHNSON:
ma’s” depredations ? And, if the question is of direct pecuniary dam
age nationally, did not the chase of that marauding sea-rover and her
kindred consorts cost the United States millions of dollars of expense,
without reckoning the more remote destruction of that private com
merce whose value Mr. Reverdy Johnson finds it so difficult to esti
mate ?
Whether it is below the dignity of a great nation to make a
reclamation for its governmental losses, such as those just named, sus
tained by the United States in its national capacity, is one thing; but
that a substantial national claim on that score exists pecuniarily,
should it once be thought worth while by the United States to enforce
it, is as certain as that some of those destructive corsairs were negli
gently allowed to escape in violation of British municipal law, and that
all of them were afterward treated with unneutral hospitality in Brit
ish outports, in violation of the public law of nations.
But returning to Mr. Reverdy Johnson’s masterly inactivity in
negotiating, or rather in not negotiating, for a hearing of the points of
belligerent recognition and national indemnity, I must not overlook
an extraordinary admission of his, connected with his attempt to get
them included in the second treaty, by way of a supplementary com
mission, as already referred to, which is reported by Lord Clarendon
to the British Minister at Washington. In a dispatch to Mr. Thorn
ton, dated March 22d (Blue Book, ut sup., p. 45), Lord Clarendon
writes as follows:
Mr. Reverdy Johnson called upon me to-day to propose that an amendment, of
which I inclose a copy, should be made to Article I. of the convention, as he
thought it would satisfactorily meet the objections entertained by the Senate to
the convention, and would secure its ratification by that body.
I remarked to Mr. Johnson that his proposal would introduce an entirely new
feature into the convention, which was for the settlement of claims between the
subjects and citizens of Great Britain and the United States; but that the two
Governments not having put forward any claims on each other, I could only sup
pose that his object was to favor the introduction of some claim by the Government
of the United States for injury sustained on account of the policy pursued by Her
Majesty’s Government.
Mr. Reverdy Johnson did not object to this interpretation of this amendment,
but said that if claims to compensation on account of the recognition by the British
Government of the belligerent rights of the Confederates were brought forward by the
Government of the United States, the British Government might, on its part, bring
forward claims to compensation for damages done to British subjects by American
blockades, which, if the Confederates were not belligerents, were illegally enforced
against them.
That is to say—■“ If you, Lord Clarendon, will be so good as to let
governmental claims into the scope of the treaty, to satisfy those un
reasonable United States Senators, I, Reverdy Johnson, minister ple
nipotentiary and envoy extraordinary of the United States of America,
�THE ALABAMA NEGOTIATIONS.
27
will give my consent that the British Governiftent may come upon
the United States for damages for an illegal blockade of the Southern
ports, in case the Confederates were not made lawful belligerents by
President Lincoln’s two blockade proclamations.”
The same proposition, in effect, was more formally repeated by
Mr. Johnson to Lord Clarendon, three days later, in writing. (Par
liamentary Blue Book, ut sup., p. 46, Johnson to Clarendon, March
25.)
Pray, what could the American Minister have been thinking of in
thus suggesting arguments against his Government ? Had he forgot
ten which nation he represented ? and was he all the while supposing
himself a British envoy ? Or shall we say that such conduct is quite
in keeping with his retorting against his Government, by way of re
taliation for undervaluing his services, that it never had any case to
begin with, and that it had. obtained all that it had ever asked for?
Is not the latest suggestion—that made to Lord Clarendon—the worst
of the two ? For while the former might in some degree have been
palliated by wounded vanity, the latter seems a gratuitous going out
of his way to furnish weapons against the nation whose interests it
was his duty to protect.
And yet can the reader credit it, that when Lord Clarendon, a fort
night later,- was inquiring with particularity into Mr. Johnson’s au
thority to amend the convention, as we have already had occasion to
notice in another connection, Mr. Johnson could have said about this
proposition of his (which of course drew after it the apologetic sug
gestion of the United States being thereby made liable for all the con
sequences of an illegal blockade) as he did ?—“ I felt myself entirely
justified in making it by my instructions from the late Administration
of my Government” (Johnson to Clarendon, April 9,1869, Blue Book,
ut sup., p. 48.)
As one of Mr. Reverdy Johnson’s American constituents, I chalLnge the production of a single line of instructions for any'such un
called-for concession as this, even from the administration of Andrew
Johnson itself. That he cannot bring forward so much as a syllable
to that effect from President Grant’s administration, which alone he
undertook to speak for on the 22d and 25th of March last, I venture
to affirm with all possible positiveness short of actual knowledge;
and until the American Minister can justify himself by some such
authorization from the Executive then in office, what else can be said
of his extraordinary “official” communication to the British Govern
ment, except that he had lost his head, or was intentionally abusing
�28
MR. REVERDY JOHNSON I
his trust ? I believe the former the most rational as well as the most
charitable conclusion of the two, and I trust that’I have said enough
to persuade my reader of the same opinion.
But I pass from Mr. Reverdy Johnson’s individual sayings and
doings, and from the topic of Belligerent Recognition as inexcusably
omitted by him (or by him and Mr. Seward jointly) from the conven
tion of January 14th—inexcusably, at least, on their own showing—•
to briefly notice, in the third place, the equally important omission
from the same State-paper of all statement of principle or recognition
of national ground of indemnity to be effected by means of any award
which the Commissioners or Arbitrator might afterward make under
it in favor of the American private claimants.
Here I must take my text again from Mr. Seward’s dictum of Jan
uary 13, 1868, already quoted. I believe the matter will well bear
a moment’s further attention. Says Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams, just
a year before the signing of the Johnson-Clarendon Convention, “ the
lowest form of satisfaction for that national injury that the United
States could accept, would be found in an indemnity [I leave out the
words “ without reservation or compromise,” for present purposes]
by the British Government to those citizens of the United States who
had suffered individual injury,” etc.
Now, what satisfaction could it be of the “ national wrong and
injury,” felt by the people of the United States, for British unfriendly
neutrality during the civil war, that any sum of money, however
large, should have accrued by a fortunate cast of the Commissioners’
dice to the “ Alabama ” claimants, individually, so long as the Com
missioners did not attempt, and in fact were not authorized, to ad
judicate damages upon principle ?
Granting that the fortunate
recipients of the indemnity would be willing to accept their money
without asking whence or how it came (though most of them, I
believe, would imitate Mr. George B. Upton in being willing to post
pone their private remedy to the paramount claim of the public
wrong), what step forward would have been accomplished by the pro
cess toward conciliating international good-will, or, still more, toward
securing that future co-operation in an amended code of maritime law,
which the experience of the late war has shown to be so necessary to
the future peace of the two countries ? Upon both of these points,
but especially the latter, shall I not have the concurrence of our En
glish friends in the propriety of the rejection of the late treaty-? Are
they not desirous that their money, when paid, if an Alabama indem
nity is ever to be rendered (as I trust, in the interests of public law
�THE ALABAMA NEGOTIATIONS.
29
and an advanced civilization, one shortly will be), that it shall be paid
and accepted as a pledge of international satisfaction, and not as a
mere recompense for private loss ?
Thus, if a million of dollars is to be paid because of a defective
observance of neutral precaution in not preventing the original escape
of the “Alabama,” or the “ Florida,” from Liverpool, or of the “ Flor
ida” from Nassau; another million because of the burning of Amer
ican ships by British-built Confederate cruisers, without adjudication,
contrary to that code of maritime warfare which Lord Russell an
nounced on behalf of the British Government, at the outbreak of the
Rebellion, would be insisted on from the newly-created belligerents ;
another million because of the admission of unneutrally-equipped pri
vateers, or so-called public ships of war, into the ports of that neutral
power which had negligently tolerated their original outfit within its
own territory; and other millions or thousands, because of the viola
tion of’this or that just doctrine of international law;—if, I say, these
sums of money are awarded on these respective specific grounds, and
the United States as a Government accepts the money on behalf of its
citizens, thereby virtually giving a receipt in acknowledgment of the
moneys being paid upon such and such a principle—is not the transac
tion an infinitely more satisfactory one to the British taxpayer, than
as if neither tenet of public law nor conciliation of the wounded sen
sibilities of a great maritime competitor had once been taken into
account in the matter ?
For myself, speaking as a humble member of the great American
Republic, I cannot look upon the acceptance by the United States of
any “ Alabama ” indemnity, even in the shape of pecuniary redress
to individual sufferers, in any other light than as a pledge given by
the country to Great Britain—perhaps to the world—that it is itself
bound to make reparation on the same principles and to the same ex
tent, to other nations, for any similar injury, national or private, which
shall hereafter be brought home to its charge. In this sense, it seems
to me that the adequacy of any satisfaction to be exacted and recov
ered by the United States, certainly on national account, is to be esti
mated rather by the responsibility which its acceptance draws after it,
than by its absolute apparent magnitude in the first instance.
Thus, supposing the American Government were to exact and
recover that enormous demand for remote and consequential damages
for English intervention in the late war, which has been construed into
rather than out of Senator Sumner’s late speech—say to the extent of
half the expenses of the war—I cannot doubt that the acceptance of
SB.
�30
MR. REVERDY JOHNSON I
any such sum (provided it could once be collected of Great Britain by
threat of war or otherwise) would pledge the former country to a
responsibility which it would be altogether unwise and inexpedient to
enter into. At least, if the United States are hereafter to be called
into judgment upon the same principles, I do not well see how they
could long avoid becoming nationally bankrupt; certainly so unless
their foreign relations are hereafter to be conducted upon a system of
more scrupulous precaution than has been sometimes seen to prevail.
On the other hand, if the British Government, in making any “Ala
bama” redress—whether unsolicited, or in compliance with an arbi
trator’s award—are content to adapt their indemnity to a low grade of
Q neutral obligation, then, so far as its acceptance draws after it the corre
sponding obligation which I have imagined, the United States may con
sider themselves fortunate that they are thereby exonerated in future
from this or that principle of neutral restraint which Great Britain
has impliedly waived. As a lover of peace and well-wisher to civil
ization, I can only hope that that indemnity may cover as many prin
ciples as possible, and be large enough to fix those principles in the
perpetual remembrance of both countries.
Without attempting further exposition of Mr. Seward’s text of
“ the lowest form of satisfaction for the national injury that the United
States could accept,” I cannot dismiss Mr. Johnson’s charge, that we
have obtained all that we ever asked for, without adding my caveat
against the United States being impliedly estopped from hereafter
stating its case for national reparation in any different way, or to any
different extent, from that which has heretofore been put forward in
its official “ Alabama ” correspondence. Thus, supposing our late
Minister’s allegation to be altogether well founded, by what act or
declaration have the American Government cut themselves off from
demanding a just and adequate indemnity in reparation of public as
well as private injuries, if such reparation is ever to be made ? If,
for instance, the arming and equipment of the “ Florida ” was not
made in the first instance in the port of Mobile, as our diplomatists
have tacitly conceded, but, on the contrary, in Liverpool, or, at any
rate, within British jurisdiction in the Bahamas ; if the equipment of
the Alabama with a crew who were known to be “ going down ” in
the steam-tug Hercules “ to join the gunboat ” in Beaumaris Bay
near Liverpool (amounting to what Lord Russell has himself called
“ going to another port in Her Majesty’s dominion to ship a portion of
her crew ”), has never been sufficiently dwelt upon; if the non-compli
ance by the rebels with the British programme of Belligerent Recogj
�THE ALABAMA NEGOTIATIONS.
31
nition at any time during the war, and especially after the American
blockade had been rendered incontrovertibly complete (a period long
prior to the launching of the Alabama, the Georgia, and, much more,
the Shenandoah, as British official concessions establish), has not been as
yet made a part of the American grievance ; if, still more, the deliberate
refusal of the rebels to comply with that programme as manifestoed in
Secretary Benjamin’s “ Instructions to Confederate Cruisers,” published
in the English Confederate official organ in London, in November or De
cember of 1864, several weeks before the “ Shenandoah ” was supplied,
as a regular ship of war, with the forty-five men, the two hundred tons
of coal, and the extra provisions at Melbourne, which were the very
means by which she afterward destroyed our whaling fleet in the
North Pacific Ocean, has never yet been connected with the statement
of the “Shenandoah” claims
if, I say, these and numerous other
points, of perhaps equal or even greater magnitude, have heretofore
failed of their due setting forth on the national behalf, will it be con
tended by any one, even Mr. Johnson himself, that they may not now
be justly advanced by the United States, and “ listened to by the Brit
ish Government, or countenanced by other nations ” ?
For my own part, I think that the argument might as well be
made that no’ claim can be raised for any injury done to the United
States or its citizens by the depredations of the Alabama since Octo
ber 23, 1863 (nine months before she ended her career), because Mr.
Adams on that day proposed to Lord Russell, under Mr. Seward’s
instructions, “ that there was no fair and equitable form of conven
tional arbitrament or reference to which the United States will not be
willing to submit” the question of British responsibility for the
doings of that vessel. It has been British option thus far, until the
late negotiations were so rashly hurried through, to keep this “ Ala
bama ” controversy open; and if the American claim justly grows
the more it is examined and the longer its settlement is deferred, (I
will not say so much the worse for England, but; as I verily believe)
so much the better for civilization, and the establishment of a better
code of international law. Only, for the present, let it be acknowl
edged that the country is to sustain no prejudice for fair dealing
because of these abortive John son-Stanley, Johnson-Clarendon nego
tiations.
And this leads me to say a word, before concluding my already
too extended communication, upon a topic which, as much as anything
else, prompted the making of the communication at all. I mean the
point last suggested, that the United States may possibly have been
�32
Q
MB. REVERDY JOHNSON!
wanting, in some degree, in good faith toward England, in repudiating,
through the action of its Senate, a treaty which had been regularly en
tered into by its Minister at London, and then approved of by its
Executive at Washington. This is a suggestion which is naturally
brought to the notice of every American traveler in Europe, and
which forces itself all the more painfully upon his attention, when he
is informed that the Minister of his own Government has declared
that the treaty in question concedes all that the United States has ever
asked for.
The answer to this suggestion is so simple and conclusive, founded
on the constitutional right and duty of the United States Senate to
reject any treaty inconsistent with their views of its expediency for
the interests of the country, however strongly it may have been ap
proved of by the Executive, or agreed to by the foreign Minister, that
I can promise to be very brief in making it.
Of course it would be quite superfluous to remind any intelligent
American of the co-ordinate and independent power of the Senate of
the United States to reject any treaty submitted to them for ratifica
tion by the President. That the President, or, much more, the Secre
tary of State, or any diplomatic agent abroad, cannot undertake to
pledge beforehand the decision of the Senate in such a case, without
being thereby guilty of the heinous official impropriety, if not of an
impeachable offense, is also too well understood on the American side
of the water to need a moment’s elucidation. But to most Europeans,
and to many Englishmen who have been accustomed only to a
monarchical or imperial form of government, the idea of the treaty
making power not being exclusively vested in the Executive head of
the Government, presents an anomaly such as has hardly ever before
been considered.
To such, therefore, of my readers (if I shall be so fortunate as to
have any), I beg to commend the following short extract from Whea
ton’s Commentaries on the Law of Nations, which states the case as
to the Constitution of the United States in this particular so clearly as
to dispose of the point at once. I would only premise that the
American publicist wrote the passage more than twenty years ago,
for the text of both the French and English editions of his treatise,
and that, therefore, by this time, it ought to be within the knowledge
of Europeans generally.
, The municipal constitution of every particular State determines in whom re
sides the authority to ratify treaties negotiated and concluded with foreign pow
ers, so as to render them obligatory upon the nation. In absolute monarchies it is
the prerogative of the sovereign himself to confirm the act of his plenipotentiary
�THE ALABAMA. NEGOTIATIONS.
33
by his final sanction. In certain limited or constitutional monarchies, the consent
of the legislative power of the nation is in some cases required for that purpose.
In some republics, as in that of the United States of America, the advice and, consent
of the Senate are essential, to enable the Chief Executive Magistrate to pledge the na
tional faith in this form. In all these cases, it is, consequently, an implied condi
tion in negotiating with foreign powers, that the treaties concluded by the executive gov
ernment shall be subject to ratification in the manner prescribed by the fundamental
laws of the State.
Did not the two respective British Foreign Secretaries, who suc
cessively negotiated with Mr. Reverdy Johnson, know of this im
plied condition ” in the due ratification of any American treaty, of
which Mr. Wheaton speaks ? Not only were they apprised of it in
due season, but, as we have seen in the limited abstract of the official
correspondence which we have had occasion to make, both Messrs.
Seward and Johnson were constantly calling it to the notice of the
two Foreign Secretaries, by suggesting that this or that provision
must be adopted in order to secure the Senatorial sanction. It has
even appeared that the American Secretary of State notified the
British Minister at Washington, as one of the reasons foi’ rejecting the
first convention, that in the opinion of the President and cabinet, its
terms would not be satisfactory to the Senate. Whether this were
according to strict official etiquette or not, can there be any doubt that
the British Government were forced to give attention to this constitu
tional requisite in treating with the United States before entering into
the second convention ?
But last and most conclusive of all arguments, can any English
man suggest any shadow of unfairness toward his country in this
action of the United States Senate, in rejecting the second convention
of January 14th, when in the very instrument itself, as well as in every
other draft of a convention to which Mr. Johnson put his name on
behalf of the United States, these words were made a part of the
treaty: “ The present treaty shall be ratified by the President of the
United States, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate there
of” %
But notwithstanding all this, 1 think I hear some of our English
liberal friends still objecting : “ Perhaps this may be so, legally and
formally, but we do not see how the American Senate could equitably
and fairly accredit Mr. Reverdy Johnson to us by a unanimous vote,
and then, when we strike hands with him, reject the treaty with an
almost equal unanimity. It seems to us that they should have put us
on our guard against giving him our confidence, and not have led us
to think that they thought so differently of him from his namesake,
the President, who had appointed him.”
5
♦
�34
MR. REVERDY JOHNSON :
To which I reply : But how did the Senate know that Minister
Johnson was going to run such a career as he did ? Did they suppose
that when he was instructed only to sound the British Government, he
was about to take upon himself to settle the greatest foreign compli
cation on the national docket ? Did they suppose that Mr. Seward
was going to abdicate his functions, and let the new envoy carry off
the glory of composing a controversy which the Secretary of State
had made it his chief study to manage for six years ? Is it probable
that they imagined that any settlement of the “Alabama” would be
attempted by Mr. Seward himself in the dying hours of the Andrew
Johnson Administration, when that administration had so recently
come within one vote of being summarily deposed? Had not the
British Ministei* at Washington attended the Impeachment proceed
ing? And were not his Government at home duly warned, before en
tering into either convention with Mr. Reverdy Johnson, that that
Minister represented the most obnoxious Executive ever known to
the American Republic ?
If these questions are not enough to silence our murmuring Eng
lish friends, I beg to ask three more:
First. Could the unanimous confirmation of Mr. Reverdy John
son’s nomination, by the United States Senate in July, have encour
aged any false confidences, which were not sufficiently removed by
the equally unanimous repudiation of his doings, in November, by
the very administration which had originally proposed his nomina
tion? ■
Secondly. If Mr. Thornton’s report of the unanimous rejection by
President Johnson and his cabinet of Minister Johnson’s first treaty
had not sufficiently opened Lord Clarendon’s eyes in November, to
the overweening confidence of the American envoy in the success of
his mission, had not the Foreign Secretary’s vision been made suffi
ciently clear on that point as early as April 5th—ten days before the
Senate acted on the second treaty—when he notified the Minister,
that “ Her Majesty’s Government could not consider a communication
[from him] not made by the authority of the present [American]
Government?
And lastly. Are the United States Senate any more to be blamed
for repudiating Mr. Reverdy Johnson and his diplomacy, than was
Andrew Johnson’s Administration—which repudiation as we have
seen was overlooked and deemed satisfactory by the British Govern
ment—or than was the British Foreign Secretary, who it seems re
pudiated both the one and the other, ten days sooner than the Ameri
can Senate itself?
�THE ALABAMA NEGOTIATIONS.
35
If the reader, in being kind enough to answer these questions for
himself, will also kindly add, as I hope he will, that he will not trouble
me for further justification of American fairness, either equitable or
technical, in the matter of rejecting Mr. Reverdy Johnson’s second
treaty, I will relieve his much-taxed patience by only asking his
favorable verdict upon the following points, which embody the chief
-conclusions to which my argument has tended:
(1.) That our English opponents in the Johnson-Stanley, John
son-Clarendon negotiations were well aware, from the outset of those
negotiations, that no convention, however, strongly assented to by
the American Minister in London, or approved of by the American
Executive at home, could become a binding treaty upon the United
States, till it had been duly ratified by the consent of the American
Senate.
*
(2.) That there was nothing in the circumstances leading to the
negotiation of the second convention of January 14th, or in the tenor
of that convention itself, which even impliedly forbade the exercise
by the Senate of its ordinary constitutional function of rejecting any
treaty deemed unsatisfactory for the national good.
(3.) That the British Government, in dealing with the Administra
tion of Andrew Johnson—especially after November 3, 1868, when
the election of General Grant to the Presidency had set the seal of
popular approval upon Impeachment proceedings, or at least of con
demnation upon that Administration—were sufficiently put upon
notice, that any important treaty concluded with that obnoxious Exec
utive was more than ordinarily liable to Senatorial criticism and con
demnation.
(4 ) That the convention of January 14th was rightly rejected, on
its merits, by the United States Senate, as an entirely inadequate and
insufficient submission to arbitration of the American grounds of
claim in the “ Alabama ” controversy, either public or private, col
lective or individual.
(5.) That the United States Senate, in rejecting that treaty, ren
dered a favor to the British Government, itself, in preventing the
further prosecution of a scheme of settlement so defective in its
statement of the subject-matter of the dispute, and so totally devoid
of any recognition of principle upon which satisfaction might there
after be awarded or accepted.
(6.) That no discredit ought to attach to the United States from the
extraordinary and unfounded reflections of its late Minister respecting
the rejection of that treaty; because, as we have seen, he scarcely ever
�36
THE ALABAMA. NEGOTIATIONS.
at any time comprehended the nature and extent of his own powers,,
or if he did, rarely complied with them ; because, having his first
convention set aside for a violation of instructions, he sought to amend
his second by an interpolation which was, if possible, a greater breach
of official propriety, and which had to be repudiated by the British
Government itself; because he accompanied that attempt to save his
own work from disgrace with a concession which was at once unworthy
of the suggestion of an American Minister, and at the same time, so
far as appears, purely of his own invention ; because he convicts him
self, by his own showing, of having intentionally agreed to leave out
a most important part of the American claim, under the device of
"a omitting any specification of the point to be decided; because he con
sidered himself fortunate in getting any mention at all of the claim
he represented introduced into the terms of the treaty; and, finally,
because his whole ministerial treatment of the American case was
no better than “ a mush of concession” and such as it is most char
itable to believe resulted rather from ignorance or misapprecia
tion of its merits, or from failing faculties, than from a deliberate pur
pose to sacrifice the great interests, national and international, which
he undertook to represent.
Paris, August 20.
�
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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2018
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Mr. Beverdy Johnson: the Alabama negotiations, and their just repudiation by the Senate of the United States
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Bemis, George
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Place of publication: New York
Collation: 36 p. ; 23 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. The Alabama Claims were a series of demands for damages sought by the government of the United States from the United Kingdom in 1869, for the attacks upon Union merchant ships by Confederate Navy commerce raiders built in British shipyards during the American Civil War. [From Wikipedia, September 2017].
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Baker & Godwin
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1869
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G5238
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American Civil War
International relations
USA
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Alabama Claims
Conway Tracts
Great Britain-Foreign relations-United States
United States-Foreign relations-1861-1865
United States-Foreign relations-Great Britain
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Text
Cl 145
PRACTICAL REMARKS
ON
“THE LORD’S PRAYER.”
By A LAYMAN.
WITH
ANNOTATIONS BY A DIGNITARY OF THE
CHURCH OF ENGLAND.
“ Be not rash with thy mouth, neither let thy heart be hasty toput forth a word before the Elohim; for the Elohim is in heaven and
thou on the earth, therefore let thy words be few.”—Ecclesiastes.
“ When ye multiply prayer I do not hear.”—Isaiah.
“ Make not much babbling when thou prayest-”—Ecclesiasticus.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS
MOUNT PLEASANT. RAMSGATE.
1869.
Price Sixpence.
SCOTT,
�1
)
I
�THE LORD'S PRAYER.”
Matthew vi., 5-8, Jesus warns his disciples
neither to imitate the hypocrites who pray at
the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men,
nor the heathen, who think that they shall be heard for
their much speaking. This was, in effect, to pass before
hand the most severe yet truthful criticism on two
modes of prayer greatly in use among orthodox Chris
tians of the present day.a In publicity and repetition,
have they not left far behind them, both hypocrites
a The Censure pronounced by Jesus on those who Prayed
in Public.—The censure must have been intended to apply, not to
public congregational prayer, but to the parading before the public
individual, personal, prayer; for the prayer he taught his disciples is a
joint prayer, and, therefore, a prayer to be used in public. I wish that
we had two words for congregational and individual prayer; for, to
address God in a form of words prescribed for us is a very different
thing from addressing to him our own thoughts and feelings in our
own language. This last only is, strictly speaking, praying; the former
may, no doubt, on special occasions, so harmonise with the frame of
mind in which a member of a congregation happens to be, as to become
his prayer; but its common and almost universal character is that of a
religious rite. Its justification is, the necessity of a religious body
assembling, from time to time, and its being appropriate for such
assemblings. It may be observed that numbers (may I not say nearly
all'?) except on occasions of strong emotion, although desirous of
praying,—i.e., of addressing God in words of their own, expressive of
what they think and feel,—are incapable of doing so. I was once
requested by a clergyman,—a sensible, well-informed, and pious man,—
to give him a form for his private devotions, which would have been
like a schoolboy’s letter written to his parents under his master’s dicta
tion. Length and repetition are, no. doubt, censurable, and were cen
sured by our Lord.
�6
Practical Remarks on
and heathen ? After this good caution and advice,
Jesus gives to his disciples the celebrated form called
“ The Lord’s Prayer.”
What an idiot we should take that man to be
who, having a favour to ask, repeated his request
over and over again, in the very same terms.
Would the case be less absurd if, instead of
addressing his request to man, he addressed it to
God ? On the contrary, it would be still more so,
for we might hope to obtain from a man, by sheer
importunity, some favour he would have refused to
a single request, while there could be no hope of
inducing God to concede to wearisome iteration what
he would refuse to the first simple petition. Were it
otherwise, the people of Thibet and Mongolia are far
wiser in their generation than are many orthodox
Christians, who yet look on the Asiatic plan for
unceasing prayer only as a subject for laughter.
These people, firmly impressed with the idea of
the immense importance of continual prayer, make
revolving wheels, which are covered with forms of
prayer, and keep these wheels in constant move
ment ; the rolling action gives volubility to the prayer
far beyond anything they could do unassisted by the
machinery.
Compared with many others, “ The Lord’s
Prayer ” has at least the merit of brevity, but
when closely examined is found to contain many fair
subjects for criticism. A twofold interpretation for
several clauses of this prayer is possible. We first
take that interpretation which actually prevails
amongst orthodox Christians, and which they, not
unjustly, maintain to be countenanced by other pre
cepts of Jesus, and representations in the Bible. We
shall after it deal with the other interpretation, and
make such remarks as it suggests.
“ Our Father ”—The idea, which represents God
�The Lord's Prayer.
1
as the universal Father, is no less beautiful than true,
and had the idea been always present to the mind of
orthodox Christians, their religion would not have
been disfigured by so many cruel dogmas, nor tar
nished by so many crimes.
The address entitles God, Our Father “ which art
in heaven
or rather, “ who art in the heavens.”1*
b Our Father which art in Heaven.—The & ev rois ovpavois,
must, I think, have been a gloss, explanatory of irdrep ipxGiv. There
is, however, something like it in Luke x. 21, where Jesus is represented,
in addressing- his Father, as using, not the vocative, but the nominative
6 iraTTip, as if it were customary so to use a recognised title of God.
However this may be, a prevalent idea conveyed by the “ which art in
Heaven ” has been, as you observe, that of a local habitation, and this
among both Jews and Christians. Yet some, even of the Jews, must
have derived a truer conception of the Deity and his mode of existence,
if from no other source, from Solomon’s words on the dedication of
their Temple,—" The Heaven and Heaven of Heavens cannot contain
thee, how much less this house which I have builded ” (1 Kings viii. 27).
What does the word Heaven mean when God is said to be in Heaven?
I should say that it is a, positive expression with a negative signification,
—not on earth, not local, not dependent for existence on matter, space,
time. God is known to us in his absolute nature only by negatives, in
his relative nature by the results of his agency, including specially our
own human fabric. Herein consists the difficulty of addressing him;
which it is hard to do without substituting some positive idea for the
negative; and not only of addressing him, but of loving him, fearing
him, reverencing him. Hence, too, the tendency to idolatry even in
those who are convinced that God is not a material object. Hence,
again, the question whether (setting aside revealed commands) it is
designed that we should pray to him, love him, reverence him. My
reply is,—The promptings of our nature, innate aspirations (apart from
all reasoning) to do these things, are his implanting, his agency -, and
compliance with them has, therefore, his sanction. To believe that
there is such a Being is inseparable from the desire to make some effort
to hold communion with him, and to hope for some response ; to culti
vate appropriate feelings towards him, and to hope for something corre
sponding to them from him. Our reasoning faculty, likewise the result
of his agency, and so carrying with it his sanction to exercise it on
these very tendencies, puts stringent limitations on them, checks and
directs them, and especially teaches us to hesitate in determining what
is accomplished by prayer to God, loving him, reverencing him, &c., all
of which is at once unreasonable and natural. In this our intellectual
nature bows to our moral nature ; yet not so as to relinquish its control
over it. Both are of God; and the perfect reconciliation of the two
�Practical Remarks on
These words, though capable of an unblamable and
instructive exposition, yet if accepted (as generally)
in connection with prevalent biblical views, mischie
vously localise the abode of God.
Heaven is here understood to be a local region,
like Earth ; a region where the Most High sits on a
sapphire throne, and holds a court or levee in State
of those ministers without whose agency, it seems,
he is as much mutilated and inefficient, as a king
without messengers and civil servants. Origen was
aware of the mean ideas which Heaven here carried
to the popular mind, and refused to accept the phrase
in its ordinary acceptation.
The modern Christian, enlightened by the astro
nomy of Kepler and Newton, and by the philosophy
of Anaxagoras and Cicero, looks up to “ Heaven ” in
his devotions, not as a special locality, but as the
actual Universe, embracing Earth on all sides, as a
petty point lost in its immensity, and elevates his
conception of God by the vast distance of the stars :
so that, to our philosophic mind, God in Heaven
means God omnipresent, God dwelling in the entire
Universe.
But is it reasonable to suppose that, if Jesus had
held such a view, he would have taken no pains to
enlighten his followers ? It is rather to be feared
that the meaning of God in Heaven, prevalent in the
bible and among the Christian vulgar, was the sense
intended by Jesus.
“ Hallowed be thy name.” c—It might seem that
expressions of his will in this matter would seem to be among those
reserved points of knowledge which are at present beyond our compre
hension, such as the positive of eternity, the positive of infinity, uncreated
existence, the co-existence of God and Evil, of Creation and Eternity.
c Hallowed be tliy name.—Was not “name” shem an established
expression for any special revelation made by God of himself ? So,
among numerous instances, it is used in Exodus iii. 13, vi. 3. It is in
this sense I understand it here, the hallowing being a hallowing of God
�The Lord's Prayer.
9
this speaks one sense, one only; and that, a sense to
which every reverential mind bows assent. But was
this really what Jesus intended ? Unbiassed inquiry
shows that the whole prayer is in closest conformity
with the notions and precepts of the contemporary
Rabbis. It is therefore more reasonable to believe
that here also Jesus intended what they intended,
when they inculcated reverence for the sacred name.
They would not utter the name Jehovah at all, but
superstitiously altered it into the words which mean
Lord, in Hebrew and in Greek. Modern Christians
have propagated the confusion thus introduced, so
that God, Jehovah, Master, and Sir are alike possible
interpretations of the Greek kurios; to the great
convenience of Trinitarian disputants, and great
darkening of the Scriptures. It is to be feared that
Jesus, since he nowhere points at this error of the
national teachers, did but recommend and intensify a
scruple which had in it more of sanctimoniousness
than of reverence. In Ecclus. xxiii. 9, we find,
“ Use not thyself to the naming of the Holy One.”
Do orthodox Christians ever reflect on the number
of times they use the Holy name in their ordinary
forms, whether of worship or of state ? Those to
whom this command was addressed would not even
write the name of the Holy One.
“ Thy kingdom come.” d—No one can imagine that
revealed to us as “Our Father;” embracing in the term the idea of
what may be designated a Patriarchal sovereignty, and connected,
therefore, with the clauses of the prayer immediately following.
d Thy Kingdom Come.—It must certainly mean something yet to
come so long as the prayer is used. Your suggestion that it might have
been taken from a Rabbinical form is probably right; but the Rabbinical
form itself must have had its origin in Daniel ii. 44. In the Lord’s
Prayer it implies that Jesus had only announced and prepared mankind
for the perfect establishment of the promised kingdom, which will take
place at his second coming. This event the early Christians looked for
as “ at hand.” What did he mean by telling his disciples, when shortly
before his death he was partaking of the wine at supper with them,
�IO
Practical Remarks on
there was originality in this prayer. Of course, the
thought was familiar to the prophets, that an over
throw of the heathen monarchies was shortly to
come, and a righteous rule on earth to be established
under the saints of the Most High. This rule was
called the kingdom of God. That the heart of man
should long for this, is of course right; and longing
leads to aspiration. But can it be denied, that under
this prayer is conveyed the false and mischievous
notion, that hitherto God has not governed on earth,—
that the heathen nations were ruled over by devils
or by Satan, God’s enemy,—that God is ever going
to rule, and ever disappointing and postponing our
hope ? A philosophic Christian of Germany sees
“ God in historybut can any one pretend that in
this prayer, or anywhere else, Jesus so taught his
disciples to look on the actual history of the world ?
We do not see very clearly what this petition means.
The kingdom of God, whether we wish for it or not,
always was, is, and will be, “ come” ; it is as neces
sarily past and present, as future. If by “ thy king
dom,” another life is understood, it is a wish in which
there is nothing to blame, though our wishes are
equally powerless to hasten or to retard it. Perhaps
that “ kingdom” which Jesus led his followers to
believe would be realised by him on earth, soon after
his death, is meant here ; that kingdom which ortho
dox Christians are still waiting for more than eighteen
that he would not again taste wine until he drank it new with them in
“ my Father’s kingdom? ” He may have been speaking figuratively of
a future state after death; but the more obvious and likely interpreta
tion of the words is that he would soon return to renew his intercourse
with them in the future kingdom on earth. The petition in the prayer
admits of another application, although I hardly think one which was
intended. The human race is clearly moving on to some changes, as
great, perhaps, and as gradual, as those physical changes which have
brought the earth to its present improved condition. The result may be
a coming of “ God’s kingdom,” not through any change of the Divine
Ruler’s rule, but in the perfect recognition of it by his human subjects.
�’The Lord's Prayer.
11
hundred years after his death. The Jews have a
prayer called “ Kaddish,” a word signifying sanctification,—-the prayer is in the Chaldee language, and
is supposed to be as old as the time of the captivity.
Did Jesus take this phrase from the old Jewish
prayer ? The ancient Jewish writings furnish paral
lels to every other phrase in it. Perhaps, then, we
may take these passages, “ hallowed be thy name,
thy kingdom come,” as a reproduction of an old
Jewish thought, and an expression of hope of the
coming of the Messiah. Be this as it may, the
Jewish prayer is still in daily use, and is as follows:
11 May His great name be magnified and sanctified
throughout the world which He hath created accord
ing to his own good pleasure; may He establish
His kingdom while ye live, in your days especially,
even time quickly coming. Amen.”
“ Thy will be done, in earth as it is in heaven. ”e—
The general sense of this is identical with “ Thy king
dom come.” It adds the somewhat gratuitous idea that
Sin is not incident to the heavenly world, although,
according to the traditionary belief, Sin did break out
in heaven itself with an intensity so awful, that (at
least according to the doctrine now universal) no
Redemption was attempted, and no Person of the Tri
nity devoted himself to recover the rebellious angels.
But pass this by, and let us dwell on another side of
the prayer. Has not a vicious, morbid Resignation
e Thy Will be done, in Earth, as in Heaven.—This is, appa
rently, an expansion of the preceding clause, and explains what is
meant by the coming of God’s kingdom, in a manner which accords
well with the meaning last suggested. What is told us of fallen angels
is not, I think, inconsistent with the desire that God’s will may, some
day, be as perfectly observed on earth as it now is in heaven; but rather
suggests an analogy between the two—heaven as it once was, and earth
as it is now. The prayer would thus be that, as in heaven, when its
rebellious sinners were exiled, God’s will became perfectly recognised,
so it may be on earth, when earth’s sinners shall be banished.
�12
Practical Remarks on
prevailed among Christians, as a result of intended
submission to the will of God ? Have they not been
taught to regard as God’s will, not only things natu
rally inevitable, but also that which is nothing but
the fruit of human folly ? To practise resignation
to this as to the will of God is decidedly immoral.
“ Give us this day our daily bread.” f This does
not differ much from Prov. m., 8, 9, but it contains
an epithet which, without any cause, is translated
daily. The Greek is epiousios, a word unknown to
the Greek classics. There is but one analysis of it,
which the analogy of the Greek language permits,
viz., that which Professor Renan points out. In the
New Testament the word epiousa habitually means
“the morrow;” in Attic Greek it is “the on-coming”
(day). From this the adjective epiousios is legiti
mately derivable, which gives to this clause the
sense, “ Give us this day to-morrow's bread.” (See
Liddell and Scott’s Greek Lexicon, p. 491.) Renan
asserts that this very prayer is to be found among
Jewish formulas. If Jesus taught his disciples so to
pray, he taught a lesson widely different and wiser
than when he bade them to take no thought for the
morrow. Christians in general, on the contrary,
interpret this clause by his precept which follows
f Give us this Day our Daily Bread.—The right rendering of
eirtovcriov is “ sufficient.” I understand the clause, too, not as asking
God for the day’s sustenance, independently of those exertions through
which it has been provided, or is yet to be procured, but as acknow
ledging that he is still, and not the less, the giver of it, having created
that which becomes food for us, and endowed us with those faculties
through which we are enabled to procure it,—that he is the sustainer of
our life, through whatever fixed laws of our nature and of the world
he accomplishes his benevolent and fatherly purpose. Daily experience
would teach the disciples that he did not otherwise give them daily
bread. Note.—See ‘ Bishop Hinds’s Free Discussion of Sacred Topics,’
Part II., p. 93, where the meaning of the word is determined from its
relation t.o neptovcrios, and the analogy of other words similarly com
pounded of
and irepi.
�'The Lord's Prayer.
ij
presently in this same sermon on the Mount, and
understand that we are to be satisfied with to-day's
bread. The result of such doctrine is counteracted
by homely common sense ; nevertheless, the ten
dency of the religion has been to deprecate active
exertion for worldly good. If we can learn to dis
criminate between the wiser and the less wise, the
fanatical and the spiritual, of the books called
inspired, we may at length accept from Jesus the
prayer for to-morrow’s bread, if that be the real
sense of his words.
“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them
that trespass against us.”s There are more ways
than one of reading this petition. First, if we take
the version in Luke as our exposition, Jesus says:
“Forgive us our sins, for even we (kai gar hemeis)
forgive those who offend us ” That is to say, the
sinner (holding himself up as a pattern to his Maker),
remonstrates with his heavenly Lord, — “Surely,
s Forgive vs our Trespasses os we forgive them that
Trespass against us.—Agreeing- with you in interpreting this
clause as an acknowledgment that those who ask to be forgiven ought
to be forgiving, I do not look at its moral bearing in the same light.
What is expressed as true of our forgiving is, according to Gospel
teaching, equally true of repentance, faith, and other requirements.
The assertion of it in the prayer would seem to be owing, not only to
the opposition between this portion of our conduct and the forgiveness
we seek, but to the fact that neither Jews nor Gentiles regarded it as
any part of a good moral life. Its prominence in our Lord’s teaching,
and the strong language which he uses about it, is fairly attributable to
this peculiarity, without supposing that it has more to do with our for
giveness, in the Gospel scheme, than other portions of a good life. That
the expectation of obtaining forgiveness thus destroys the essence of
good moral conduct, which ought to be practised for its own sake,
involves us in a question which divided heathen as much as it has
Christian moralists. In our own literature we have Butler, &c., on one
side, and Paley, &c., on the other. The correct view, as it appears to
me, is that the hope of reward may, but does not necessarily, exclude
the love of virtue for its own sake, or debase the motive which directs
us to it. To give a homely illustration : A man marries a woman
because he loves and esteems her; but is well pleased to know that she
�Practical Remarks on
O Lord, thou canst not be less generous to me than
I am to my fellow-men,” which, though an excel
lent argument in a philosophic thesis (and over
whelming against the Christian hell), is not in a
tone at all suitable to prayer, even though it be
found in the Gospel of Luke. But in Matthew
vi. 14, 15, the clause is put in a different light.
There Jesus says that, according as we do or do not
forgive our enemies, God will or will not forgive us.
Hence he makes us pray, “ Forgive us (or not),
according as we forgive (or do not forgive).” It is
hard to admire or to imitate a prayer so couched.
Truly a heart utterly free from malice, and desiring
every enemy to be converted to God, to goodness,
and to true happiness, is such a heart as will find
pardon and peace with God. None the less is the
same likely to shrink from a prayer, that it may be
dealt with as it deals with others. Nor is it elevating
to any soul, rather it is debasing, to urge, “ Judge
not, that ye may not be judged; or, forgive, that ye
may be forgiven.” It rather teaches laxity and self
seeking under the guise of religion. It turns the
mind from doing (as Aristotle teaches) good because
it is good, and sets one on thinking, What we are to
by goodness.
“ Lead us not into temptation.” h If we take this
brings him a large fortune, or the advantage of influential relatives, who
may promote his worldly interest. He would have married her all the
same had she possessed none of these Worldly recommendations; but
he does not the less value them.
h Lead us not into Temptation ; but deliver us from Evil.
—It is true, as you observe, that temptation is our appointed lot as free
agents. Still temptation is a danger from which we naturally shrink,
and as naturally express our dread of it by praying to God so to order
our path of life that we may be spared trials which may prove too
strong for us ; and this notwithstanding that trial is inseparable from
our condition, and notwithstanding also that the Divine Providence is
exercised by general laws. So prayed Jesus, “ Father, save me from
this hour; but for this cause came I unto this hour.” No prayer—
�The Lord's Prayer.
15
to the letter, it is a request that God would suppress
the very conditions of our freedom ; those moral
trials through which we may raise ourselves to the
dignity of beings who, having gained a painful vic
tory, merit reward. To have no temptations, to know
no evil and, consequently, no good, is the state of
moral innocence of the animal creation and the infant
at the breast. But such innocence is not virtue.
Virtue consists in overcoming temptation ; still we
must never expose ourselves needlessly or out of
pure bravado to opportunities for evil doing, although
virtue cannot exist without experience of resistance.
And note here the inconsistency of the New Testa
ment to itself. The Apostle James, i. 2, 12, 13,
assures us that God tempts no one; which may
seem to supersede a prayer that he will not lead us
into temptation. But what is far worse, the whole
book, the whole Christian scheme is pervaded by the
frightful notion that the just and compassionate
“ Father in Heaven” lets loose upon weak, inex
perienced men and children a subtle rebel angel, a
tempter well versed in all our weakness, and oc
cupied day and night in seducing us. Luke might
bid us to pray, “ Let not Satan tempt us, FOR even we
deal not thus with our children.”
“ Deliver us from evil.”—From what evil ? The
evil we ourselves do ? This is to ask God to act in
our place, to do our work for us when he has given
us all that is necessary for doing it well ourselves.
Is it from the evil which we believe he permits the
devil to urge us to do, that we pray to be delivered ?
But it would be simpler and far more reasonable to
believe that God permits nothing so detestable. Is
it from the physical evil attached to our nature ?
indeed, not the simplest ejaculation—is free from this objection of
inconsistency. As I have before remarked, praying is at once natural
and unreasonable.
�16
Practical Remarks on
But this is to ask God both to give us the victory
without the trouble of the fight, and to overturn the
general laws by which he governs the Universe.
“ For thine is the kingdom, the power and the
glory, for ever.”1—In Chron. xxix. 11, we find,
“ Thine, 0 Jehovah, is the greatness, and the power,
and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty;
for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine ;
thine is the kingdom Jehovah, and thou art exalted
as head above all.” We find this prayer also in Luke
xi. 2-4, but in a slightly shortened form. The curi
ously different language which Matthew and Luke
cause Jesus to hold at the time he gives this prayer
to his disciples is worth noticing.
But after thus commenting on “ The Lord’s
Prayer” in detail, we must address ourselves to the
question, Has it been beneficial, was it wise, to give
to the disciples a form of prayer at all ? For what
is spiritual prayer ? Paul tells us, “We know not
what to pray for as we ought; but the Spirit itself
maketh intercession for us, with groanings that can
not be uttered.” This is to avow, that no two hearts
can pray entirely alike ; no full prayer can have lite
rary expression. Look at all the superstitions which
the Pater Noster has for ages caused. Did Jesus
foresee this ? It is hard to think so.
Prayer, as understood by Paul, is the upward
s pressure of spiritual aspiration or of painful need:
Prayer is the Soul’s sincere desire,
Unuttered or expressed,
The heaving of a hidden fire
That stirs within the breast.
Prayer is the utterance of a sigh,
The falling of a tear,
The upward lifting of an eye
When only God is near.—J. Montgomery.
> The Doxology.—There is little doubt that this made no part of the
prayer as dictated by our Lord.
�The Lord's Prayer.
Prayer, as inculcated in the Pater N osier, can be
only an external church document. Shall we adopt
the theory of a few, that Jesus intended merely to
give instruction in outline as to the proper topics of
prayer ? It may be. Certain it is, that Christians
systematically disobey his command in this very
matter. Jesus bade them not to use vain repetitions ;
yet not only does the Church of Rome cause the
Pater Noster to be gabbled over to the counting of
beads; the Protestant Church of England also
recites the Lord’s Prayer four times at a single meet
ing. Jesiis forbade his disciples to pray in public,
which he stigmatises as hypocrisy ; yet public prayer
is now practically identified with religion, and one
who refuses to attend it is treated as an infidel. Our
dissenters, who avoid the error of repeating the Lord’s
Prayer, are more and more forward in the other
more offensive error. At the corners of our streets,
and on the lawns and the sands of our wateringplaces, we are annoyed by men, standing aloft, pray
ing aloud or singing hymns, who fancy that hereby
they are fulfilling their Master’s precepts.
In this examination of “ The Lord’s Prayer ” we
have confined ourselves to pointing out what our
prayers should not be. What they should be may,
in part, be learned from the pamphlet, in this same
series, ‘ Basis of a New Reformation.’
�
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Practical remarks on "The Lord's Prayer"
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Collation: 17 p. ; 18 cm.
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Religious Practice
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Conway Tracts
Jesus Christ
Lord's Prayer
Prayer
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Text
PROPOSAL
FOR ESTABLISHING
A CHEAP, JUST, AND EFFICIENT MODE
OF
Elating itUnxbirs uf Wrfamtnf,
AND FOR
SECURING THE JUST AND EQUAL
REPRESENTATION OF THE WHOLE PEOPLE.
WILLIAM LOVETT.
LONDON
WATBELOW AND SONS, PEINTEES, CAEPENTEBs’ HALE, LONDON WALL.
1869.
��PROPOSAL, &c.
1. That for the purpose of obtaining an equal repre
sentation of the whole people in the Commons House of
Parliament, and for preventing as far as possible the
undue influence of great and wealthy families, or of
individuals who would seek to control the voter in his
choice, the United Kingdom be divided into a sufficient
number of Electoral Districts, each containing as nearly
as may be an equal number of inhabitants, and each
returning one representative to Parliament and no more.
2. That all persons of legal age, sound mind, and
untainted by crime, who have occupied any house,
lodgings or apartments in a house for three successive
calendar months, be eligible to vote for the repre
sentative to Parliament for the district they live in, and
for no other.
3. That preparatory to every general election the
returning officer of the district should cause a printed
form to be sent round to every householder in the
district, requesting him or her to fill up the same with
the names of all persons, of the age of 21 or upwards,
who have resided there for three months or more ; and
from which forms, when returned, he shall cause a list
of electors to be made out. That after proper publicity
�4
be given to this list, he should hold open courts of adju
dication in his district, for the purpose of hearing and
deciding on all objections, and from the list thus revised
he should cause a Voter’s Certificate to be sent round to
every person qualified to vote.
4. That to secure members of Parliament possessing
high intelligence and good moral character, all persons
seeking this high honour of legislating for a nation (or
for filling other important offices of State) should be
required to pass an examination, showing that they possess
the requisite knowledge and ability, and should hold a
diploma to that effect before they should be entitled to
offer themselves as candidates, or to take their seats in
Parliament, or be appointed to any important office.
5. That the knowledge requisite for members of
Parliament (or for the offices referred to) should be
clearly set forth in a special Act of the Legislature, and
the mode pointed out by which persons seeking such
high honour or place of trust, should present themselves
before Public Examiners, which (roverTi-merit should
appoint to meet at stated times and places ; and persons
who shall prove their ability and fitness before such
examiners, according to the provisions of such Act,
should obtain a diploma to that effect.
6. That every nomination for a member of Parliament
should be made by a written requisition, delivered to the
returning officer, and signed by at least one hundred
electors belonging to the district, who, in recommending
their candidate, should be required to certify to his
�5
moral character, and also that he holds a diploma of
having passed an examination to prove that he possesses
the requisite knowledge and ability required by law.
7. That to prevent all undue influence, bribery and
corruption in the election of members of Parliament,
the votes of the electors should be taken by Ballot;
the present expensive, unjust, and bribing mode of can
vassing for members should be abolished by law, and
persons punished for having recourse to it; and all
Committee or other meetings for the election of mem
bers held at Public Souses be done away with, as having
heretofore been the cause of much undue influence,
riot and disorder.
8. That to do away with the present disgraceful and
costly mode of electing members of Parliament, which
excludes the representatives of the working classes, and of
all persons, however competent, who have not the means
of purchasing their way to power ; it should be the duty
of Parliament to enact, that a sufficient number of
Pistrict Salls, or commodious buildings be erected in
every voting district, to be used as permanent hustings, or
voting places ; the same to contain a sufficient number
of committee rooms, and a large hall for public meetings
and voting place ; the rooms to be used for public meet
ings, lectures, evening schools, or other district purposes,
when not needed for the elections. That all candidates
for seats in Parliament should have the free use of such
halls during the election; such as the use of the large
hall, or balcony in front, from which to address the
electors in their turn, and the use of the committee rooms
�6
and voting place, so that the only expense needed to he
incurred by candidates would be that of printing their
litis and circulars. The erection and repair of such halls
should be paid for by the inhabitants of the district,
and be managed by them.
9. That previous to the day of election, the large
room in each of the said district halls should be fitted
up with moveable fittings, in order to secure secrecy in
voting, and justice and despatch in receiving and regis
tering the votes given for each candidate.
The plan of
the fittings in such voting place is shown in the model
to which this paper is attached.
10. That a sufficient number of lallot loxes be pro
vided for each voting place—one for each of the candi
dates nominated—and formed on a plan for securing
secrecy in voting, and at the same time for registering the
votes given, so that the deputy of the returning officer
might be able accurately to announce the state of the
poll at the end of the election, without the necessity of
any counting of the votes. The model of such a regis
tering ballot box is hereto attached.
11. That the returning officer of the district should
be required to appoint a deputy to set in front, behind the
ballot boxes, at each voting place on the day of election,
to see that the voting is conducted orderly and fairly,
and to cause all persons to be arrested that attempt to
vote unfairly, or seek to promote disturbance. It should
also be his duty to show the accredited friends of the
candidates the register of the ballot boxes before and after
�7
the voting, and to see that the correct numbers given
for each candidate are posted up on the outside of the
building, at the end of the election. In order that the
friends of the candidates should have the opportunity
of seeing that the voting is conducted fairly, they should
be provided with seats immediately behind the deputy
returning officer.
12. That every elector entering the voting place on
the day of election, should be required to show his
voter’s certificate to the registration clerk at the entrance
A ; and if it be found correct, he shall be allowed to
pass on and receive from the deputy returning officer’s
assistant a balloting ball at the entrance B ; when he
should enter the balloting place C, and with all despatch
drop his ball into the box of his favourite candidate ;
the name and colours of the candidate being placed on
each box to guide him. After he has thus given his
vote he should pass out of the balloting place by the
door D. The table before the deputy returning officer
should be inclined outwards, and the arrangements
within so constructed, that the ball, in whatever box
deposited, should roll down the middle of the table
in front of the deputy to be ready for the next voter ;
and thus, should any elector make use of any other
balloting ball than the one given to him, it will
roll out and lead to his detection before he leaves
the room.
The deputy might also be provided with
different coloured balls in the drawers of his table,
so that he might change the colour whenever he
thought proper, and thus more effectually guard against
unfair voting.
�8
13. That any person convicted of registering Ini in self
in more than one voting district; of forging or using
any forged voter’s certificate, or of trying to vote in any
other district than his own; or of going from house to
house, or place to place to canvass for the votes of
electors, or in any other way contravening the electoral
Act, should, for the first offence be subject to one year’s
imprisonment, and for the second the loss of his electral rights. Also that any candidate employing persons
to canvass for him, or should seek to secure his election
by bribery; or by intimidating or using any undue in
fluence over an elector, or otherwise contravening the
Act, shall be subject to one year’s imprisonment and the
loss of his seat for the first offence, and for the second,
the loss of his electoral rights, and to be for ever after
disqualified from having a seat in Parliament.
14. That in order to obtain properly qualified persons
as Legislators ; men disposed to devote their sole time
and attention to their parliamentary duties; instead,
as at present, often dividing their time between their
private business and their parliamentary duties ; or in
regarding the honour of their seats as passports to
fashionable society ; members of Parliament should be
paid for their services by a writ on the Treasury, the
same as any other officers of State.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
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Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Proposal for establishing a cheap, just and efficient mode of electing members of Parliament and for securing the just and equal representation of the whole people
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Lovett, William
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 8 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway.
Publisher
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Waterlow and Sons, printers
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1869
Identifier
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G5621
Subject
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Parliament
Suffrage
Rights
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Proposal for establishing a cheap, just and efficient mode of electing members of Parliament and for securing the just and equal representation of the whole people), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Chartism
Conway Tracts
Representative Government and Representation
William Lovett