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is constituted in harmony with that law. As already remarked, wealth, the great object of national as well as of individual pursuit, can be produced only by industry, and can be accumulated only by the practice of economy. This law of Nature is as certain and unbending as that of gravitation. If the rulers of a nation, blind to this fact, attempt to fill their own coffers by imposing on their subjects taxes and fiscal restrictions which sap the foundations of industry and disappoint the calculations of prudence, they will defeat the object they pursue. If, coveting the wealth of a neighbouring State, they expend the accumulated savings of the industry of their subjects in wars of aggression, they will sacrifice the treasure which they already possess, and follow an impracticable method of acquiring more. If they fight for power, they will waste their own strength in vain if their enemy be strong; if he be weak and easily overcome, they will immolate their own morality, and with it their security and prosperity, in robbing and oppressing him.

In short, after doing their best to acquire riches and dominion, to spread prosperity and enjoyment around their own hearths, by an immoral course of action, they will discover that all their attempts have ended in vanity and vexation of spirit. They will be compelled to resort to the natural fountains of wealth-industry and economy-or to submit to that ruin which is inevitably connected with perseverance in injustice and aggression. This law of Nature admits of no exception. England owes her wealth and power to her steam-impelled machinery, her cultivated fields, and her economy, and not to her conquests and subject colonies.

The history of Rome is instructive on this subject. The Romans despised industry, and followed war and spoliation as their employments. Accordingly, at no period of their history did they present the spectacle of a moral, happy, and industrious people. Generally speaking, the nobles were steeped in luxury and vice. They became the instruments of public rapacity, and the victims alternately of ferocious mobs and of frantic tyrants. Under the Empire, the Roman plebeians were idle, ignorant, turbulent, and barbarous paupers-fed from the receptacles of public plunder, and ever ready to sell themselves and their country to the highest bidder. There were, indeed, some periods of tranquillity and of comparative virtue, but these occurred

exclusively under the sway of able and moral rulers. There also appeared, from time to time, individuals whose integrity, patriotism, and high intellectual attainments shed a lustre on their country's annals; but they also were moral.

The general course of action, however, of the Romans was immoral. Their abandonment of virtuous, intellectual, and industrial pursuits, and their reliance on spoliation for subsistence, in the course of time enervated both the minds and the bodies of the people, rendering them incapable of self-restraint, of social combination, and of vigorous action; while their cruel oppressions fostered a spirit of deadly hatred against them in surrounding nations. At length the cup of their iniquity was full; and the injured, uncorrupted, and comparatively virtuous barbarians burst upon them like a torrent of destruction, annihilated their empire, and extinguished their name.*

Moreover, the condition of animal supremacy, which leads to foreign aggression and its attendant crimes, is necessarily the parent of immoral and injurious action at home. The same fountain cannot give forth both bitter and sweet waters at the same time.

England for a long time protected the slave-trade. During the periods of her greatest sin in this respect, the same combination of faculties which perpetrated this outrage on humanity was working vigorously in her own institutions, and producing punishment for that offence. A general spirit of domineering and rapacity appeared in her statesmen, rendering them profligate in their public characters, and little mindful of the welfare of the people. A spirit of aggression and hostility towards other nations provoked retaliation; while injustice in taxation, and an oppressive harshness in the administration of the law, formed striking features of the history of that period. While these

* In November, 1843, I visited the Forum and the Coliseum in Rome, and saw the broken pillars, the ancient pavement, the three triumphal arches of Constantine, Titus, and Septimius Severus, the palace of the Cæsars, and other ruined remains of Roman grandeur. I felt a solemn satisfaction in seeing the power of the propensities, of which these are the mouldering monuments, thus humbled in the dust, and eloquently proclaiming to the world that no dominion that is based on evil can permanently endure. Rome was subverted by the same powers by which she conquered-animal propensity directed by vigorous intellect.

measures of injustice were publicly patronised by the Government, its servants vied with each other in injustice towards it, and its subjects dedicated their talents and their enterprise towards corrupting its officers and cheating it of its dues. Every trader who was liable to excise or custom duties evaded one-half of them, and did not feel that there was any disgrace in doing so.

In the American war, Great Britain desired to gratify her acquisitiveness and her self-esteem, in opposition to benevolence and justice, at the expense of her transatlantic colonies. This aroused the animal resentment of the latter, and the propensities of the two nations came into collision. Great Britain fought to support a dominion incompatible with the principles which regulate the moral government of the world, and in expectation of becoming rich and powerful by success in that enterprise; the Americans, on the other hand, striving to assert the supremacy of the higher sentiments, and to become free and independent. According to the principles which I am now illustrating, the greatest misfortune that could have befallen Great Britain would have been success, and the greatest advantage, failure in her attempt; and the result is now acknowledged to be in exact accordance with this view.

If Great Britain had subdued her colonies in the American war, she would have ruled them as slaves. This, in the first place, would have roused the animal faculties of the conquered party, and would have led them to give her all the annoyance in their power; and the expense of the fleets and armies requisite to repress that spirit would have far counterbalanced the profits she could have wrung out of dissatisfied subjects by extortion and oppression. In the second place, the very exercise of these lower faculties by herself, in opposition to the moral sentiments, would have rendered her government at home destructive of her own welfare. The same malevolent principles would have overflowed on her own subjects. The Government would have felt uneasy, and the people rebellious, discontented, and unhappy; and the moral law would have been amply vindicated by the suffering which would have everywhere abounded.

The consequences of her failure have been the reverse. America has sprung up into a great and moral nation, and contributes ten times more to the wealth of Great Britain, in her natural character of a friend, than she ever could have

done in that of a discontented colony. This advantage is reaped without any loss, anxiety, or expense; it flows from the Divine institutions, and both nations profit by it and rejoice under it. The moral and intellectual rivalry of America, instead of prolonging the ascendency of the propensities in Great Britain, tends strongly to excite the moral sentiments in her people and government; and every day that we live we are reaping the benefits of this improvement, in wiser institutions, in deliverance from abuses, and in a higher and purer spirit pervading every department of the administration of the country. Great Britain, however, did not escape the attempt to infringe the moral laws. The pages of her history during the American war are dark with suffering and gloom, and to this day we groan under the debt and difficulties then partly incurred.

The national debt of Britain has been contracted chiefly in wars, originating in commercial jealousy and in thirst for conquest in short, under the suggestions of combativeness, destructiveness, acquisitiveness, and self-esteem.* Did not our ancestors, then, impede their own prosperity and happiness by engaging in these conquests? and have any con sequences of them reached us, except the burden of paying nearly thirty millions of taxes annually as the price of the gratification of their propensities? Would a statesman who believed in the supremacy of the moral sentiments and

*Of 127 years terminating in 1815, England spent 65 in war and 62 in peace. The war of 1688, after lasting nine years, and raising our expenditure in that period 36 millions, was ended by the treaty of Ryswick in 1697. Then came the war of the Spanish succession, begun in 1702, and concluded in 1713, which absorbed 623 millions of our money. Next was the Spanish war of 1739, settled finally at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748, after costing us nearly 54 millions. Then came the seven years' war of 1756, which terminated with the treaty of Paris in 1763, and in course of which we spent 112 millions. The next was the American war of 1775, which lasted eight years. Our national expenditure in this war was 136 millions. The French revolutionary war began in 1793, lasted nine years, and exhibited an expenditure of 464 millions. The war against Buonaparte began in 1803, and ended in 1815; during these twelve years we spent 1,159 millions, 771 of which were raised by taxes and 388 by loans. Ín the revolutionary war we borrowed 201 millions; in the American, 104 millions; in the seven years' war, 60 millions; in the Spanish war of 1739, 29 millions; in the war of the Spanish succession, 32 millions; in the war of 1688, 20 millions;-total borrowed in the seven wars during 65 years, about 834 millions. In the same time we raised by taxes 1,189 millions; thus forming a total expenditure on war of TWO THOUSAND AND TWENTY-THREE MILLIONS OF POUNDS STERLING.-Weekly Review.

the intellect have recommended these wars as essential to national prosperity? If the twentieth part of the sums had been spent in effecting objects recognised by the moral sentiments-in instituting, for example, seminaries of education and penitentiaries, and in making roads, canals, railways, and public parks-how different would have been the present condition of the country!

After the American war followed that of the French Revolution. Opinions are at present divided on this subject; but my view of it is the following. When the French Revolution broke out, the domestic institutions of Great Britain were, to a considerable extent, founded and administered on principles in opposition to the supremacy of the moral sentiments. A clamour was raised by the nation for reform of abuses. If the principle be sound that every departure from the moral law, in nations as well as in individuals, carries its punishment with it from the hour of its commencement till its final cessation, and if the institutions of Great Britain were then to any extent defective, she could not have done better than to have abandoned them, and to have adopted purer arrangements. Her Government, however, clung to the suggestions of the propensities, and resisted every innovation. To divert the national mind from causing a revolution at home, they embarked in a war abroad, and for a period of twenty-three years let loose the propensities on France with headstrong fury and a fearful perseverance.

France, no doubt, threatened the different nations of Europe with violent interference with their Governments: a menace wholly unjustifiable, and one which called for resistance. But the rulers of that country were preparing their own destruction, in proportion to their departure from the moral law; and a statesman who knew and had confidence in the constitution of the moral world as now explained would have listened to her threats with composure, have prepared to repel actual aggression, and have left the exploding of French infatuation to the Ruler of the Universe, in unhesitating reliance on the efficacy of His laws. Great Britain preferred a war of aggression. If this conduct was in accordance with the dictates of the higher sentiments, we should now be reaping the reward of our obedience to the moral law, and plenty and rejoicing should flow down our streets like a stream.

But mark the contrast. This island exhibits the spectacle

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