War
[From the
Herald of Freedom of May 22, 1846]
At last the
Country is involved in this favorite pastime of Kings. They are at War. The
Government has involved the People in it. It has proclaimed War, and, so far as
I can judge, has provoked it and brought it on. I don't mean any particular
party has done it. All have done it - especially the party in power. I don't
believe there was any cause for it. I don't believe the miserable occasion
existed, that commonly exists. There was probably no more occasion for this
strong country going to war with feeble Mexico, than for a six-foot Bully to
have a fight with any feeble school boy. The great strong brute might
exasperate the boy and put upon him, till he would have to show quarrel, if he
had any resentment and spirit in him. And after the brute had got the boy to
strike, he'd feel justified in falling upon him and smashing him up.
The nation ought to have more
sense than to go to War, with any people - strong or weak. But a nation never
has any sense. It is never anything but a great "Board." A great,
wooden corporation. It has no sense, of course, any more than a smaller
"board" has. If the nation had half wit, it would never get in such a
scrape as War. It will do the country more than it can recover in a hundred years of successful
industry after it is over.It would be as ruinous to the People, as a seven
years' Lawsuit would be to a middling farmer. Look at some of the lesser
results. The killings. Thousands of people get shot to death. Thousands get
crippled for life with the hideous hardships and exposures of "the
service." Multitudeds come home with an eye less than they went - or an
arm or a leg, and go hobbling without, to the grave - compensated with a chance
of telling what battles they were in, and with drink to make 'em forget their
misery. Some of 'em will get a pension, along towards the grave, to buy the
drink with. Then there is lots of widows - to say nothing of orphans. They say
Marblehead is full of widows - wives of fishermen lost at sea. Last war, it is
said, they were mightily multiplied by the fishermen going into the navy and
army. The whole country will be one Marblehead. It will be marble-hearted, at
least. War will indurate the general heart to petrifaction The press will harden
it like the petrifying waters, in certain regions, turn every thing within
their flow - things and animals, into adamant. And the widows will be nearly
all poor folks's widows. The people killed will be generally working people,
that will be missed by the country. The great folks wouldn't be. If they
perished, they could easily be supplied - or if they wa'n't, the loss wouldn't
be severe.
A breath can make them, as a breath has made
But a brave peasantry - the country's pride,
When once destroyed - can never be supplied.
[Goldsmith?]
I don't call them
Peasantry, but the destruction of the working people is so much taken right out
of a country. War's widows are generally theirs. Now and then an officer gets
shot. His widow is looked after by the government. Congress will grant her a
pension. The soldier's widows get their pensions in the Poor House. There
doesn't occur any widows of Congress-men - or Secretaries or Presidents. War
doesn't bereave their ladies. It is fighting makes the widows, not declaring
the war. Congressmen declare the war and leave the people to fight it. It is
the blood of the people that gets shed. It is their women that are made the
widows and not the ladies of the Congress-men. A Statesman's Lady gets bereaved
once in a while - but it is by her
Lod's drink - or his duel. He hardly ever falls in battle. All he has to do
with War is to declare it, and vote the lives and the money of the people to
carry it on. Orphans, the war will make, acres of orphans. Motherless, as well
as fatherless - for your war-widowhood is of the decaying sort. It thins off
the widows, "worst kind." They don't "stay" widows long.
That makes out the orphanage complete, on both sides. And a whole orphan -
fatherless and motherless - is a pretty sight. War multiplies them. It breeds
them.
There will be glory got,
too. And it is time the country got a little glory. It is some time - getting
to be - since we got any glory. Glory is amazing wholesome for these Republics!
It made the old ones we read of, last. It will probably make this one immortal.
And territory too. There wants a little territory. It is some time since there
was any territory annexed. It might be well to have a little. This Mexico lays
dreadful handy to the United States - all of it. And they are rather scant for
land. Rather narrow contracted. If they could get the rest of the strip,
between the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific, it would be handy. And they tell of
Jewelry and Gold in the Meeting-houses off there in Mexico. It would be a
pretty thing enough - if our people could get hold of some of them. May be they
might be put into some of our meetin' houses. Oh there is no telling the
profits of these wars!! England may be coaxed into the scrape. And that would
help the matter. The more the merrier. We can afford to lick all creation -
only get us mad enough. And we can be got so, after a while * * * *
Are the People aware that
we are in that dreadful predicament, called War? That infernal, barbarous
predicament - that relic habitude of barbarous ages and savage people! Do the
New Hampshire people know the fact, and that slaughter is now mutually dealing
out, on our South-western border, and the war fever beginning to inflame the whole
country? The mad Government has applied a torch that may conflagrate the
civilized globe. All our Christendom is combusitible, ready for explosion. They
have touched match to the border of it. It wouldn't be strange, if in six
months the world was in a blaze. The fire may not spread. It depends something
on the wind. Lesser "matters" have "kindled" the greatest
"fires." The fire has been set, as regardlessly as woodmenever put
brand to a piece of clearing in a dry time. But it is vain for Truth to lift up
its cry. Let them fight - as many as will.
Nathaniel
Peabody Rogers