Private war

“ Public war was not, like private war, branded as a social crime, because the one tribunal which might have decided the questions at issue without bloodshed was both dishonest and weak. Private war was not only a contempt of competent jurisdiction but a sin against social order. Yet down to the close of the period, the habit of private war was in a great part of Europe unbroken and unrepressed: in the empire the successive proclamations of the peace were inoperative ”

“ To be considered war, the contention must be going on between States. In the Middle Ages wars were known between private individuals, so-called private wars, and wars between corporations, as the Hansa for instance, and between States. ”

“ They resort to war and prepare for it because the will of the nation is with them, and this throws us back on the private citizens, who finally are individually and collectively responsible for the actions of the State. In the everlasting battle between good and evil, private soldiers are called upon to fight as well as the captains, and it is only through the intensive cultivation by individuals and races of the higher moral and intellectual qualities, until in intensity they outweigh the mood and passion of the rest, that war will finally become obsolete as the court of appeal. ”

“ Still, it was by the conflicts of rulers that the great nations have been formed out of a chaos of struggling clans; that peace and order, therefore, have been substituted for violence, throughout broad territories; that law has taken the place of private war; moreover, that the privileges of selfish orders have been suppressed through the development of a larger and more civilised national organisation ”

“ If you are honest about it, as we are, and opposed to private war, why, condemn and repress private war in respect to the private character of the property attacked, as well as private war in respect to the vessels that make the aggressions. ”

“ And in order to arrive at these results, the Rights of War are ours, to be employed in our discretion. Nor is it to be forgotten that these rights are without any of those limitations which modern times have adopted with regard to the private property of enemies in international war, and that, on reason and principle, which are the foundations of all Public Law, every rebel who voluntarily becomes an enemy is as completely responsible in all his property, whether real or personal, as a hostile Government or Prince, whose responsibility to this extent is unquestioned. ”

“ Private citizens are no longer murdered, enslaved, or carried off to distant parts, and the inoffensive individual is as little disturbed in his private relations as the commander of the hostile troops can afford to grant in the overruling demands of a vigorous war. ”

“ As in a war of conquest or aggression nothing is allowed to stand in the way of victory, and all private rights are subordinated to the alleged public weal, so, in this war against filth, disease, and misery let nothing stand in the way—neither private interests nor vested rights—and we shall certainly conquer. ”

“ By public conventions therefore he means those, which cannot be made but by the authority and in the name of the sovereign power, thus distinguishing them not only from the private contracts of individuals, but ALSO from the PERSONAL contracts of sovereigns themselves. And indeed private injuries and contracts, no less than public treaties frequently prove the origin of wars. ”

“ As your Excellency will observe, these measures, while depriving the enemy of important resources, respect the rights of neutrals and will not in any way jeopardize private property, as even the enemy owner will only suffer from the suspension of the enjoyment of his rights during the term of hostilities. ”

“ It is too true, however disgraceful it may be to human nature, that nations in general will make war whenever they have a prospect of getting anything by it; nay, absolute monarchs will often make war when their nations are to get nothing by it, but for the purposes and objects merely personal, such as thirst for military glory, revenge for personal affronts, ambition, or private compacts to aggrandize or support their particular families, or partisans. ”

“ This theory maintains that the only participants in war should be the armed representatives of the state, thus non-belligerent nationals of the enemy country and their private property should be exempt from military attack. ”

“ It may seem a work of supererogation to attempt even the most casual listing of the variety of ways in which the war has enforced this lesson of the interdependence, the interweaving of interests and occupations, and the consequent necessity of agencies for public oversight and direction in order that the interdependence may become a public value instead of being used for private levies. ”

“ Private interests manipulate government.
There is created in every country an economic force [102] in private hands directly interested in war and in the preparation for war; directly interested in assisting to bring about a general atmosphere advantageous to an industry which, were wars to cease or the expenditure on armaments to be substantially reduced, would suffer accordingly. What the successful prosecution of an ordinary commercial undertaking requires this industry also requires. The demand for the article must be created. ”

“ ARTICLE 40.—As private property should be respected, the enemy will demand from parishes or the inhabitants only such payments and services as are connected with the necessities of war generally acknowledged, in proportion to the resources of the country. ”

“ There is something inherently wrong, something out of accord with the ideals of representative democracy, when one portion of our citizenship turns its activities to private gain amid defensive war while another is fighting, sacrificing, or dying for national preservation. ”

“ But what have the aldermen, the common council, or indeed all people of any substance to do with the war, but to pay taxes? The hardships and fatigues of war that are personally suffered, fall upon them that bear the brunt of every thing, the meanest indigent part of the nation, the working slaving people: For how excessive soever the plenty and luxury of a nation may be, some body must do the work, houses and ships must be built, merchandises must be removed, and the ground tilled. ”

“ Let those who began the war say what the war is for. Is it to overthrow this Government and to dismember its territory? Is it to acquire dominion over as large a portion of what constitutes the possessions of the American people, and over as large a share of its population, as the policy or the military power of the interest that establishes for itself an independent Government, for its own protection, can accomplish? ”

“ Not only states, which either have wars to maintain, or precarious possessions to defend at a distance; not only a prince jealous of his authority, or in haste to gain the advantage of discipline, are disposed to employ foreign troops, or to keep standing armies; but even republics, with little of the former occasion, and none of the motives which prevail in monarchy, have been found to tread in the same path. If military arrangements occupy so considerable a place in the domestic policy of nations, the actual consequences of war are equally important in the history of mankind. ”

“ Now, unhappily, there arises a conflict in our own country, which presents the case of an armed military rebellion—a revolt of certain portions of population, maintaining, if you please, to a certain extent, the mastery over a certain portion of our soil, using against us the actual means and processes of war, and compelling from our Government, in maintaining dominion against their aggressive assaults, the means of military power, naval and land forces, and all the authority and violence of war. ”

“ We must now consider what is our duty toward ourselves and toward our Allies. The minute a nation by declaration of war engages in hostilities with an enemy nation it becomes the duty of the government and the people of that government to commence striking at that enemy with every means which is at its disposal—moral, financial, economic, and military. ”

“ But we are fighting the fight which is the fight of all freemen everywhere—against the wantonness of military power, against the spirit that tears up treaties and makes peaceful agreement between nations impossible—against a cruelty and barbarism in war which brings our civilisation to shame. We have a right to your sympathy—you who are the heirs of Washington and Lincoln, the trustees of liberty in the New World as we, with France, are in the Old. ”

“ My learned friends have spoken of privateering as if it were one of the recognized, regular, suitable public methods of carrying on hostilities between nations, and as if it fell within the general protection which makes combatants in the field, fighting as public enemies, and against public enemies, amenable only to the laws of war. ”

“ The State has always been, in fact, the organiser of the war of conquest, the dispenser of its fruits, and the raison d'être of the dominating groups which profit by the enterprises—the cost of which is borne by the general body of society.
Politicians adopt the other point of view; they argue about social conflicts in exactly the same manner as diplomats argue about international affairs; all the actual fighting apparatus interests them very little; they see in the combatants nothing but instruments. ”

“ Why then, my lords, is the nation condemned to support, at once, a double burden; to pay at home an army which can be of no use, and to hire auxiliaries, perhaps, equally unactive; to make war, if any war be intended, at an unnecessary expense, and to pay, at once, a fleet which only floats upon the ocean, an army which only awes the villages from which it is supported, and a body of mercenaries, of which no man can yet conjecture with what design they have been retained. ”

“ Then, we see that, to escape war, we must either establish a great nation, which occupies an extent of territory, and has a fund of power sufficient to protect itself against border strifes, and against the ambition, the envy, the hatred of neighbors; or else one which, being small, is exposed to war from abroad to subjugate it, or to the greater peril to its own liberties, of war made by its own Government, thus establishing principles and introducing interests which are inconsistent with liberty. ”

“ But all governments which have ever existed, including our own, make war upon those who forcibly question their authority, undermine their power, violate their laws, outrage the persons or property of their citizens. These are acts of hostility against a state, and are prevented or redressed by force—the element of war. Therefore, in principle, the daily operations of a government in time of peace are not to be distinguished from its movements in war; and in war as well as in peace each government is responsible for the manner in which it exercises its authority. ”

“ If, then, we are a small nation, surrounded on all sides by other nations, with no natural barriers, with competing interests, with occasions of strife and collision on all sides, how can we escape war, as a necessary result of that miserable situation? But war strengthens the power of Government, weakens the power of the individual, and establishes maxims and creates forces, that go to increase the weight and the power of Government, and to weaken the rights of the people. ”

“ The "National war of defense" has the surprising effect of creating, even in the neutral nations, a general transformation of ownership and relative power, always in direct line with expansionistic tendencies. ”

“ If the Governments of the world deny you the right of meeting, where are your weapons of warfare? On the one side armies on armies of men marshalled and equipped with all the arts and engines of war; on the other side a helpless multitude with their hands in their pockets, or paying a penny a week subscription to the great association that is to overcome by passive suffering the power of the combined treasuries of the world! ”

“ Who does not know that a great civil war is subject to the same rules of public law as a foreign war? Is it not a principle of common-sense as well as a principle approved by every publicist of note since the world has had a literature, that the victor in a civil war, as well as in an international conflict, has a right to protect himself against immediate and prospective danger? ”

“ In this state of extreme danger, we have no alternative left, but an abject submission to the will of those overbearing tyrants, or a total separation from the crown and government of Great Britain, uniting and exerting the strength of all America for defence, and forming alliances with foreign powers for commerce and aid in war. ”

“ That is true, replied the old Courtier; but this same English nation, who thus voluntarily part with their riches for a war, which they think useful to the state, often lose all their advantages at a peace. A Lord who wants to make his way to the administration by a system of pacification, intrigues with the king, gains his confidence, and has his creatures. These set forth, that sieges and battles ruin the state, that commerce is hurt by them, and that industry perishes. ”

“ The rule which declares that war makes all the citizens or subjects of one belligerent enemies of the Government and of all the citizens or subjects of the other, applies equally to civil and to international wars. ”

“ Our arms having been everywhere victorious, having subjected to our military occupation a large portion of the enemy's country, including his capital, and negotiations for peace having failed, the important questions arise, in what manner the war ought to be prosecuted and what should be our future policy. ”

“ I challenge any man in or out of this House to defend it on the principles of public equity, if he will only suppose that it is Russia that is waging the war, and not England. I say no man in this House will dare to apply to such a war the principles which you apply elsewhere. ”

“ Property of the enemy, if at sea, may be captured as prize of war, but the property of a friend cannot be lawfully captured, provided he observes his neutrality. Public war, duly declared or recognized as such by the war-making power, imports a prohibition by the sovereign to the subjects or citizens of all commercial intercourse and correspondence with citizens or persons domiciled in the enemy country. ”