cers and ask-Have we not far more cause of complaint against those who have deprived us of personal liberty, than against any other men on earth? If it would be wicked to employ our arms against those who have done us this great injury, can it be right to employ them for the destruction of those who have never injured us at all, and who probably have no wish to injure us but what has been excited by their misguided or wicked rulers? We are fully convinced that if rulers were honest and peaceable men, they might settle their con troversies without this wanton waste of human life. We are willing to treat our rulers with proper respect, and we wish them no harm; but we are determined never more to stain `our hands with innocent blood, either to revenge the alleged wrongs of the rulers of another nation, or to gratify the ambition of our own government. Let rulers but act the part of kind fathers towards their subjects, and they will not need a military guard to protect them against their children. Let the rulers of different nations treat each other, and the subjects of each other, as brethren; then they may dismiss their armies and beat their swords into ploughshares. Let them be what they ought to be; then, like other good and peaceable men, they can settle their disputes without recourse to war, murder and devastation. Here are our arms, take them and make them into ploughshares!"

CONSCRIPTION COMPARED WITH THE RIGHT OF " ACQUIRING PROPERTY."

IT has already been observed that the right of "acquiring property" is declared to be unalienable by our republican constitutions. In the exercise of this right every freeman has a voice in regard to the compensation he shall receive for any services he may be requested to perform. If rulers or private citizens desire the service of a freeman in any particular employment, he has a right to state his price, and they have a right to say whether they will give it or not or they may propose terms, and he has a right to say whether he will accept them or not. As he cannot compel them to comply with

his terms, they have no right to compel him to a compliance with theirs, and every instance of such compulsion is an invasion of liberty and the right of acquiring property.

If a proposed service be attended with great hardships, or great dangers as to life or health, the freeman has a right to be his own judge of these hardships and dangers, and to take into view the disadvantages which may probably result to himself or his family, by engaging in the service requested--and then to state his terms, or decline the service altogether, according to his own views of duty. For a freeman is not a slave.

One man can leave his business and his family with far less injury or disadvantage than another; and on the principles of justice and liberty, each has a right to demand a compensation which will balance the probable disadvantages it will be to him to change his situation in compliance with the request of others.

On the supposition therefore that war is a lawful business, still, as it is attended with peculiar dangers and hardships, no freeman can reasonably be compelled to engage in it, nor be expected to engage without a satisfactory compensation.

The hardships and perifs are not usually greater on the part of officers in an army, than on the part of soldiers; and while the great body of our citizens shail regard war as a lawful calling, there can be no occasion for conscription —If our rulers will offer a compensation for privates equal to the pay of a general, a colonel, or even a captain, they can obtain soldiers by contract.

Shall it then be supposed that the rulers of a free people have a right to create public dangers at pleasure by waging war, and then compel their constituents by the point of the bayonet to enter the ranks of an army in the condition of slaves, without the right of contracting for a compensation for their services? If this be the case with our citizens, what is the great difference between a free government and absolute despotism? -or between liberty and slavery?

On any plan of conscription which has been either practised or proposed, some men are liable to be compelled into the condition of military slaves, who are much more useful memhers of society, and more needed at home, than many of those

who are, appointed to command them; yet the disparity be tween officers and soldiers in an army, is about the same as that between slave-drivers and slaves. Is it not then a manifest absurdity to suppose that the rulers of a free people have a right to make such distinctions between their constituents as the following; to select favourites and give them the power of slave-drivers, with a compensation from 50 to 200 dollars a month; and then compel others to leave their families in wretchedness, poverty and despair-and to enter the ranks of an army, and expose their health, their lives and their everJasting happiness, for the paltry sum of five or six dollars a month! and that too while many of these conscripts could earn at home three or four times the wages allowed by the government, and would be exposed to lose a far greater sum by leaving their business! Shall freemen be exposed in this manner to be driven from all the comforts of domestic life, and exposed to all the contaminating vices, plagues and dangers of a military camp?

No man is compelled to be a contractor for our armies. The government advertises for contractors; those who are willing to engage, state their terms, and the business is settled not by conscription but by contract. No man is compelled to serve as a general, a colonel, a major or as a commissioned officer; the government proposes such a compensation as insures a sufficient number of applicants. Besides, the officer, if dissatisfied with the service, may resign his commission and return to his family. But the unfortunate conscript soldier is not only compelled into military service, on terms to which he never consented, but he is compelled, by the severest penalties to serve the time appointed by the government, unless sooner dismissed by the king of terrors.

My republican brethren, "these things ought not so to be." We have already incorporated too many of the fatal principles of military despotism with our republican institutions-enough to devour all our rights as freemen, unless we awake and attend to the things which belong to our peace.

If we allow our rulers the power of raising armies by conscription, the next step may be to raise money by arbitrary contributions. The latter however is the less evil of the two,

and not at all more repugnant to republican principles. In some cases many of our citizens have shown a sufficient jealousy for their rights. It is not long since a number of members of congress failed of a re-election, because they had giv en their votes for raising their own wages, or for changing their six dollars a day for a salary of fifteen hundred dollars a year. But this act was a light thing when compared with voting our country into the horrors of war, and consigning thousands of fellow citizens to slavery and slaughter.

As many of our citizens understand the remedy for encroachments on their liberties, may we not hope that, in future, they will apply it by a judicious use of the right of suffrage that in the exercise of this right they will have due regard to men of pacific principles-to men who are republicans in heart, as well as in profession?—and that they will suffer men to retire peaceably to private stations, who have so little regard to unalienable rights, as to evince a disposition to devote their fellow citizens by thousands to conscription, vassalage and death?

But, in justice to a majority of our rulers, as well as a majority of other citizens, it probably should be supposed that, having derived their opinions from tradition and custom, they have never seriously reflected on the enormity of the principles of war, nor on the absolute tyranny of conscription; that they have not been aware how far the rights of our citizens have already been violated by the wars in which we have been engaged; that, when they shall have duly reflected on the subject, they will be convinced of the incompatibility of the whole system of war with republican principles, and also that, as a nation, we must sink under the weight of a military despotism, or save ourselves by adopting the principles of peace. For, on due reflection, it must be clear to every intelligent mind, that we may as reasonably expect to keep our fires from going out by using water for fuel, as to support republican institutions by encouraging a spirit of war, and military establishments.

THE WARS AND WAR DEBT OF GREAT BRITAIN.

In a work published at Edinburgh, in 1817, entitled « Pictures of War," we find the following statements :—

"Since the year 1000, there have been twenty-four different wars between England and France-twelve between England and Scotland-eight between England and Spain, and seven in other countries in all fifty-one wars!

"Those with France alone occupied upwards of 250 years; and perhaps it might be shown by calculation, that out of 8 centuries since the year 1000, there have not been 100 years in all of general peace as it respects England." "At the conclusion of the war which ended in 1697, the nationaľ debt was 24 millions and a half. At the conclusion of the last war in 1815, the national debt amounted to no less than one thousand and fifty millions !”

It cannot be doubted that the revenue of Great Britain has been more than sufficient to cancel all the expenditures of her government, excepting what has been devoted to the purposes of war and military establishments. Hence the whole of

the present enormous debt may be set to the account of war, and may be termed "the price of blood."

That our readers may have a more correct and impressive view of this sanguinary debt, the result of some calculations will be presented.

The one thousand and fifty millions sterling, is four thou sand six hundred and sixty six millions, six hundred and sixty six thousand, six hundred and sixty six dollars and two thirds.

The interest of this debt at six per cent is two hundred and eighty millions of dollars annually

Suppose this amount of interest to be paid annually in silver, it would require 17 men, 12 hours in every day to count the money at the rate of 60 dollars each, every minute.

To count the principal at the same rate in one year would require 295 men.

Admitting 17 dollars to be one pound avoirdupois, the. whole debt is equal to one hundred and twenty-two thousand, five hundred and forty-nine tons of silver.

Supposing this silver to be all transported in waggons, one ton to a waggon-and allowing four rods for each team, the teams would occupy a distance of 1531 miles.