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were opposed to the invasion, and many of the leading ones were, to say; we will defend our country when she is attacked; but our duty can never require of us to go on a warfare of conquest. This is not the purpose of government, and especially of our government, which is to secure the rights, and protect the lives, and liberty, and property of all. We can fight in a defensive, but not in an offensive war; in a defence of freedom, but not in a crusade for slavery. We will rather imitate the example of Lord Effingham in the British army, and Capt. Thrush in the navy, and retire from the service, than wound our consciences, and really wrong. our country by encouraging those who hold her destinies in their hand, to plunge into a career of rapine and blood. If this be treason, make the most of it. It is better to rebel against our country than against our God."

If our country be wrong in her internal policy, or administration of civil national affairs, does any press or person hesitate a moment to condemn the wrong, and uphold by word and deed, by the potent weapon of a freeman, the ballot-box, the cause of the right? No, never. Why then should so different a rule obtain in international affairs? Are not the questions of war and peace as momentous, as needful to be determined by the principles of right, as the measures of tariffs, internal improvements, or sub-treasury? The same laws bind us as citizens that bind us as men. If we are not at liberty to do wrong as men, we are not at liberty to do so as Americans. If it would be wrong to uphold an evil among ourselves, because it is the voice of the government, which is not always the voice of the people at the time, and which is often far from being the voice of God, shall we advocate the idea of vindicating, even to the death, our country's course, when we openly avow, or strongly suspect, she is in the wrong? Never, never. "For what shall it profit our country, if it gain the whole world at the expense of its soul?"

To “conquer a peace,"* another phrase often used, if have any ordinary meaning, signifies to destroy a peace, and overthrow it. During two long years of blood, and rapine, and demoralization, did this war subjugate the powers of peace. But at the last the sword settled nothing. Negotiation was more powerful than eighteen-pounders. The pen of the commissioner was mightier than the sword of the conqueror. Two wise men from Mexico and the United States, meeting amicably together, could, upon the basis of the late treaty, have easily secured to the United States, in the way of a business transaction, all the territory she wanted by means of the bonus of $20,000,000 she has now paid, without shedding one drop of human blood. The like has been done before, and it might have been done again.

"Take away the sword,

States can be saved without it."

Some other phrases referred to have been considered in other connections of this review, but we turn to another warmaxim.

The coat-of-arms of Great Britain has the motto, with heraldic devices, "Dieu et mon droit," "God and my right,” flanked by a lion on one side and a unicorn on the other. But where would Great Britain be, if she were treated herself on the principle which she thus holds forth as the highest expression of the spirit of her government? Suppose the nations of the world should insist on the utmost claims of right with her, where would be most of her riches and possessions? What would be the result of carrying out such a doctrine in the world but eternal war? Observe that it is

* Coleridge is said to be the original author of this self-contradictory phrase. Shakspeare better says,

"A peace is of the nature of a conquest;
For then both parties nobly are subdued,
And neither party loser."

not God and right, but my right; not yours, but mine; that selfish word, my. I will have my rights, whether you have yours or not. I will yield nothing, conciliate, compassionate nothing, but exact sternest justice.

So, likewise, we have a much commended saying among us, that we "will ask for nothing which is not right, and will submit to nothing which is wrong." Then we cannot live in this world. For we are often obliged to forego our rights, often obliged to yield to what is wrong in others. What would be our condition as a nation, as individuals, if we were treated one day by God as we propose in this rude and barbarous justice to treat mankind? We should not be at all. We should be non-existent. For we hang upon the skirts of the divine compassion; we live at the momentary merciful will of our God. If he treated us as we deserve, and were strict to mark our iniquities against us, who could stand before him? Could we as a people? could we as individuals? Not one moment. We are not so careful to render to others their dues and their rights, as not often to need their pardon for the wrong; we are not so particular in our conduct towards our Supreme Judge, as not daily and hourly to need his forbearance. We are to claim our right, but not with wrong; we are not, Shylock-like, to practise on a blind and inexorable justice alone. The apostle assures us that sometimes mercy is to rejoice against judgment; at any rate, that he is in imminent danger of having judgment without mercy, who has shown no mercy. It is a fearful declaration, and should make us pause, before we say that we will submit to no wrong; else we commit ourselves to a principle at war with nature, providence, and the whole structure of human society.

In truth, a great proportion of the difficulties in the world arise from this disposition to vindicate our own rights, let whose rights else suffer, and to push matters to the utmost verge of lawful allowance, rather than to pursue a mild and

forbearing policy.

We are men, mortal, erring, sinful. Who are we, to judge another man's servants? Who are we, to take into our hands the blazing thunderbolts of vengeance? "Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place to wrath.”

We profess to be a Christian nation, and we would feel aggrieved if we were denied this honorable name. And what is the law of our master, and how do we obey it? Is it not mercy, pardon, forbearance, forgiveness, from one end to the other of the Gospels? Did he not enrol it among the beatitudes? "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." Did he not say with emphatic reiteration, "Bless them that curse you, and pray for them that despitefully use you?" Did he not command us to "forgive our enemies, and to be merciful as our father in heaven is merciful?"

In short, it is right to be merciful, according to Christianity; it is not a weakness, but a duty. It is right sometimes to yield to a wrong, and overlook it, rather than commit a greater wrong by resistance and exaction. It is right sometimes to waive our rights, and generously to suffer ourselves, rather than to make others suffer, though they deserve it. It is not weakness, but strength, not shame, but honor, to forgive, not seven times only, but seventy times seven, if the offender turn and pray to be forgiven.

We cannot better conclude this chapter than by briefly adding, to what has been elsewhere said on the subject of preparing war by preparing for war, the late remarks of the Earl of Aberdeen, formerly Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, in the House of Lords, in England, —“ I am disposed to dissent from that maxim which has been so generally received, that, 'if you wish for peace, you must be prepared for war.' It may have applied to the nations of antiquity, and to society in a comparatively barbarous and uncivilized state, when warlike preparations cost but little; but in the state of society in which we now live, when the

warlike preparations of great powers are made at enormous expense, I say that so far from their being any security to peace they are directly the contrary, and tend at once to war. For it is natural that men, having adopted means they think efficient to an end, should desire to put their efficiency to the test, and to have some direct result from their labor and expense."

CHAPTER XXIII.

MARTIAL LITERATURE.

"Seven years' fighting sets a whole kingdom back in learning and virtue to which they were creeping, it may be a whole age."-JEREMY BENTHAM.

"The course of education from infancy to manhood, at present pursued, tends to inspire the mind with military ardor and a love of glory. Almost as soon as a boy is born, care is taken to give his mind a military turn."-WILLIAM LADD.

We have before us a list of forty-eight volumes, which are connected with the late war, and which generally approve highly of its occurrence. They consist of both prose and poetry, history and biography, travels and essays. They are deeply imbued with the martial spirit, and laud to the skies the achievements of the American arms in Mexico.

One of the unhappy consequences of this war is, that it has thus created a literature adverse to morals, refinement and religion. This war-literature has circulated through the newspapers and cheap works over the whole land. The lives of victorious generals, the bloody feats of prowess,