Justice of the peace

“ The land is filled with widows and orphans; and mourning, lamentation and woe, have spread through all its extent. Oh! for a return of peace! When will the calamity be past? If some envoy from European power would lift up his voice, and in the name of humanity protest against the wrongs which we suffer, what relief would it afford! And if our enemy, whether yielding to necessity, or a sense of justice, should authorize a proclamation of peace to go through the land, how would our hearts leap for joy! ”

“ To quote again from the soldier who achieved illumination through the recent war, "My friends, there is no protection of rights in heaven. When we speak of rights we are blinded by the light of this world of rule and order and intellectual conceits. It is not justice we need, it is mercy." ”

“ We must understand, therefore, that particular citizens have conveyed their whole right of war and peace unto some one man or council; and that this right, which we may call the sword of war, belongs to the same man or council, to whom the sword of justice belongs. For no man can by right compel citizens to take up arms and be at the expenses of war, but he who by right can punish him who doth not obey. Both swords therefore, as well this of war as that of justice, even by the constitution itself of a city and essentially do belong to the chief command.
The power of judicature belongs to him. ”

“ And our whole history of more than one hundred years justifies the statement that our people are wedded and devoted to the idea of international justice as the rule upon which nations shall live together in peace and amity upon the earth. ”

“ Therefore, the true interpretation of peace is absence of war, where justice reigns, and the true Christian mission is to see that justice be done, for without it there can be no righteous peace. Such peace as can reign with injustice becomes the abettor of injustice.
While I believe in international conciliation and arbitration, peace and good will, I do not believe in unlimited arbitration. I do not believe that arbitration can ever be a universal panacea with which all evils can be cured without resort to firearms. ”

“ Do we in anywise interfere with any man's rights, Government, or make war upon any parties? No, but we are interested in the preservation of justice, equality and the rights of man in the developement of peace, the further establishment of correct, more elevated, refined and exalted principles, in placing ourselves in a position more in accordance with things as they exist in the heavens, for the welfare and happiness of the human family. ”

“ The spirit of prosecuting this war should be to accomplish a lasting peace,—not to make treaties, but to punish their violation. While justice and mercy should characterize the acts of our government, there should be no weakness, no imbecility. ”

“ Can there be in our age any peace that is not honorable, any war that is not dishonorable? The true honor of a nation is conspicuous only in deeds of justice and beneficence, securing and advancing human happiness. In the clear eye of that Christian judgment which must yet prevail, vain are the victories of War, infamous its spoils. ”

“ We look upon this shaken earth, and we declare our firm and fixed purpose—the building of a peace with justice in a world where moral law prevails.
The building of such a peace is a bold and solemn purpose. To proclaim it is easy. To serve it will be hard. ”

“ The great lesson of the War and the even more important lesson of the Peace thus brought home to me the truth that justice as well as charity begins at home. It is impracticable to hope for peace and justice in international affairs unless the conditions for internal peace and justice within the nations have already been substantially obtained. ”

“ We invite all who believe in peace, in law and order and justice, in the reliance upon judicial rather than warlike processes for the defense of the individual and the state, to unite with us in the movement for judicial settlement. What we propose is to place National morality on a plane with the standard of individual morality, which has brought about the reign of law and order in the enlightened nations. This plane of morality would do away with public war as it has done away with private war. ”

“ What is at stake now is the peace of the world. What we are striving for is a new international order based upon broad and universal principles of right and justice—no mere peace of shreds and patches. ”

“ When peace shall be obtained which is based in righteousness, 340which flows forth from justice established and exalted in the midst of the nation, which grants to all classes of men their inalienable rights, we will sing pæans of joy over it; but if we are to have a peace based on a compromise with iniquity, which will be as deceptive as the apples of Sodom, involving our children in disasters more dire than those which have befallen us, every lover of truth, and justice, and good government will hang his head in shame. ”

“ Only those nations which love righteousness and do justice shall rise above the wreck of all oppressors, and take part in the enjoyment of that destined era of righteousness and peace, when nations shall not “learn war any more.” ”

“ Accordingly, whereas to-day we seek, as we say, to do justice, seeking to preserve the peace and to adjust controversies peaceably simply as means thereto and incidents thereof, primitive legal systems make peace the end. ”

“ Nor does the use of the word, War, contradict this larger acceptation of it. For though some times it is only applied to the quarrels of states, yet that is no objection, as it is evident that a general name is often applied to some particular object, entitled to peculiar distinction. Justice is not included in the definition of war, because the very point to be decided is, whether any war is just, and what war may be so called. Therefore we must make a distinction between war itself, and the justice of it. ”

“ It has come, come in its completeness, and with the pride and inspiration of these days of achievement quick within us, we turn to the tasks of peace again,-a peace secure against the violence of irresponsible monarchs and ambitious military coteries and made ready for a new order, for new foundations of justice and fair dealing.
We are about to give order and organization to this peace not only for ourselves but for the other peoples of the world as well, so far as they will suffer us to serve them. It is international justice that we seek, not domestic safety merely. ”

“ It is true that Bahá’ís are not pacifists since we uphold the use of force in... It is true that Bahá’ís are not pacifists since we uphold the use of force in the service of justice and upholding law. But we do not believe that war is ever necessary and its abolition is one of the essential purposes and brightest promises of Bahá’u’lláh’s revelation. ”

“ We wish peace, but we wish the peace of justice, the peace of righteousness. We wish it because we think it is right and not because we are afraid. ”

“ There are to be no conquests, no domination of recalcitrant populations, no bitter insistence upon vindictive penalties, and there must be something in the nature of a world-wide League of Nations to keep the peace securely in future, to “make the world safe for democracy,” and maintain international justice. ”

“ What gives you the authority to establish a peace of justice is the fact that none of the peoples of whom you are the delegates has had any part in the injustice. Humanity can place confidence in you because you are not among those who have outraged the rights of humanity. ”

“ The duty of holding a neutral conduct may be inferred, without anything more, from the obligation which justice and humanity impose on every nation, in cases in which it is free to act, to maintain inviolate the relations of peace and amity toward other nations. ”

“ Germany has once more said that force, and force alone, shall decide whether justice and peace shall reign in the affairs of men, whether right as America conceives it or dominion as she conceives it shall determine the destinies of mankind. ”

“ Nations may enter into a solemn undertaking to refer all differences or disputes that may arise to arbitration or to other peaceful settlement. If they can be got to adhere to such a general agreement, international law and public right will take the place of private force, and wars of aggression and defense will no longer happen. But what will ensure the fulfilment of their undertaking by all the signatory Powers? Public opinion and a common sense of justice are found inadequate safeguards. ”

“ It remains only that, faithful to ourselves, entangled in no connections with the views of other powers, and ever ready to accept peace from the hand of justice, we prosecute the war with united counsels and with the ample faculties of the nation until peace be so obtained and as the only means under the Divine blessing of speedily obtaining it. ”

“ And I do, moreover, earnestly appeal to all American citizens that they, in loyal devotion to their country, dedicated from its foundation to the principles of liberty and justice, uphold the laws of the land and give undivided and willing support to those measures which may be adopted by the constitutional authorities 131in prosecuting the war to a successful issue and obtaining a secure and just peace. ”

“ Now, the simplest standard, perhaps, of judging of the justice of either is, if we may so speak, to ask, Is the proclamation of war or the treaty of peace so entirely founded on truth, so perfectly correspondent to the righteous and judicial character of God, that man need not fear to lay them before the Judge of the whole world for His ratification? If such be the case, then most assuredly are they right and righteous, whatever be their consequences, or whatever be the judgment that men may pass upon them. ”

“ Unless through the League of Nations, or through any other means, justice prevails in international relations, the history of her tribulations is not yet closed, for only underPg 348 a régime of justice may the weak hope to live in freedom and in peace. ”

“ Nothing, in the mean time, will contribute so much to the preservation of peace, and the attainment of justice, as a manifestation of that energy and unanimity of which, on many former occasions, the people of the United States have given such memorable proofs, and the exertion of those resources for national defence, which a beneficent Providence has kindly placed within their power. ”

“ The first necessities of an eternal peace are that the surface of the earth should be shared between States of the same standard of civilisation, and that the moral ideas of the governing classes in all the States of the world should undergo such an alteration and progressive development as would create the conviction that arbitral awards and decisions of courts of justice are alone adequate means for the settlement of international differences. ”

“ The preservation of peace and the guaranteeing of man's basic freedoms and rights require courage and eternal vigilance: courage to speak and act - and if necessary, to suffer and die - for truth and justice; eternal vigilance, that the least transgression of international morality shall not go undetected and unremedied. ”

“ If nations, as hath been observed in the preceding section, must adjust their policy on the prospect of war from abroad, they are equally bound to provide for the attainment of peace at home. But there is no peace in the absence of justice. ”

“ Whatever may be the ultimate solution, there is abundant evidence of the growing conviction among belligerents and neutrals alike that the [247] hope of the world lies in the substitution of law and order for international anarchy. The neutral conference, therefore, feels justified in hoping that the end of this war will witness the institution of an international order of justice which shall make possible an enduring peace for all mankind. ”

“ The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Ginn, now the World, Peace Foundation, and the American Peace Society, and later the Society for the Judicial Settlement of International Disputes, the League to Enforce Peace, and many other organizations in America and in Europe were actively engaged in considering ways and means to prevent war, to strengthen the bonds of international good-will, and to insure the more general application of the principles of justice to disputes between nations. ”

“ A court of justice has long been recognized by American statesmen as the cornerstone of world peace. It is clear to anyone who thinks that some provision must be made for the settlement of legal disputes. ”

“ Our object now, as then, is to vindicate the principles of peace and justice in the life of the world as against selfish and autocratic power and to set up amongst the really free and self-governed peoples of the world such a concert of purpose and of action as will henceforth insure the observance of those principles. ”

“ and whoever tramples upon the plea for justice temperately made in the name of peace only outrages peace and kills something fine in the heart of man, which God put there when we got our manhood. ”