Imatges de pàgina
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tic by training up its fubjects to the knowledge and exercife of arms, but that it would ere long be forced to give way to defpotifm in fome other shape; and that the country would be liable to what is even worfe than a fettled and conftitutional defpotifm-to perpetual rebellions, and to perpetual revolutions; to fhort and violent ufurpations; to the fucceffive tyranny of governors, rendered cruel and jealous by the danger and inftability of their fituation.

The fame purposes of ftrength and efficacy which make a flanding army neceffary at all, make it neceffary, in mixed governments, that this army be fubmitted to the management and direction of the prince: for however well a popular council may be qualified for the offices of legislation, it is altogether unfit for the conduct of war; in which, fuccefs ufually depends upon vigour and enterprize; upon fecrecy, difpatch, and unanimity: upon a quick perception of opportunities, and the power of feizing every opportunity immediately. It is likewife neceffary that the obedience of an army be as prompt and active as poffible; for which reafon it ought to be made an obedience of will and emulation. Upon this confideration is founded the expediency of leaving to the prince not only the

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government and deftination of the army, but the appointment and promotion of its officers? because a design is then alone likely to be executed with zeal and fidelity, when the perfon who iffues the order, chooses the inftruments, and rewards the fervice. To which we may fubjoin, that, in governments like ours, if the direction and officering of the army were placed in the hands of the democratic part of the conftitution, this power, added to what they already poffefs, would fo overbalance all that would be left of regal prerogative, that little would remain of monarchy in the conflitution. but the name and expence; nor would thefe probably remain long.

Whilst we defcribe, however, the advantages of ftanding armies, we must not conceal the danger. Thefe properties of their conftitutionthe foldiery being feparated in a great degree from the rest of the community, their being clofely linked amongst themfelves by habits of fociety and fubordination, and the dependency of the whole chain upon the will and favour of the prince-however effential they may be to the purposes for which armies are kept up, give them an afpe& in no wife favourable to public liberty. The danger however is diminished by

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maintaining, upon all occafions, as much alliance of intereft, and as much intercourfe of fentiment, between the military part of the nation and the other orders of the people, as are confiftent with the union and difcipline of an army. For which purpose officers of the army, upon whose difpofition towards the commonwealth a great deal may depend, fhould be taken from the principal families of the country, and at the fame time alfo be encouraged to establish in it families of their own, as well as be admitted to feats in the fenate, to hereditary diftinctions, and to all the civil honours and privileges that are compatible with their profeffion: which circumftances of connection and fituation will give them fuch a fhare in the general rights of the people, and fo engage their inclinations on the fide of public liberty, as to afford a reafonable fecurity that they cannot be brought, by any promises of perfonal aggrandizement, to affift in the execution of measures which might enflave their pofterity, their kindred, and their country.

FINI S.

DEC 2 6 1917

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in the mouth of a prince, are ftately and impofing terms; but the ideas they infpire are infatiable. It may be always glorious to conquer, whatever be the juftice of the war, or the price of the victory. The dignity of a fovereign may not permit him to recede from claims of homage and refpect, at whatever expence of national peace and happiness they are to be maintained, however unjust they may have been in their original, or in their continuance however ufelefs to the poffeffor, or mortifying and vexatious to other ftates. The purfuit of honour, when fet loofe from the admonitions of prudence, becomes in kings a wild and romantic paffion: eager to engage, and gathering fury in its progrefs, it is checked by no difficulties, repelled by no dangers; it forgets or defpifes those confiderations of fafety, eafe, wealth, and plenty, which, in the eye of true public wifdom, compose the objects to which the renown of arms, the fame of victory, are only inftrumental and fubordinate. The purfuit of intereft, on the other hand, is a fober principle; computes cofts and confequences; is cautious of entering into war; ftops in time: when regulated by thofe univerfal maxims of relative juftice, which belong to the affairs of communities as well as of

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private perfons, it is the right principle for nations to proceed by; even when it trefpaffes upon thefe regulations, it is much lefs dangerous, be- ] caufe much more temperate, than the other.

II. The conduct of war.-If the cause and end of war be juftifiable, all the means that appear neceffary to the end are juftifiable alfo. This is the principle which defends thofe extremities to which the violence of war ufually proceeds: for fince war is a contest by force between parties who acknowledge no common fuperior, and fince it includes not in its idea the fuppofition of any convention which should place limits to the operations of force, it has naturally no boundary but that in which force. terminates, the deftruction of the life against which the force is directed. Let it be obferved, however, that the licence of war authorizes no acts of hoftility but what are neceffary or conducive to the end and object of the war. Gratuitous barbarities borrow no excufe from this plea of which kind is every cruelty and every infult that ferves only to exafperare the fufferings, or to incenfe the hatred of an enemy, without weakening his ftrength, or in any manner tending to procure his fubmiflion; fuch as the flaughter of captives, the fubjecting of them E € 4

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