A great deal hangs upon this question, and it is therefore necessary to pursue it farther. We say, then, first—that Christianity has not declared that we are ever at liberty to kill other men: secondly—that she virtually prohibits it, because her principles and the practice of our Saviour are not compatible with it: and, thirdly—that if Christianity allowed it, she would in effect and in practice allow war, without restriction to defence of life.
The first of these positions will probably not be disputed; and upon the second, that Christianity virtually prohibits the destruction of human life, it has been the principal object of this essay to insist. I would, therefore, only observe, that the conduct of the Founder of Christianity, when his enemies approached him “with swords and staves,” appears to apply strictly to self-defence. These armed men came with the final purpose of murdering him; but although he knew this purpose, he would not suffer the assailants to be killed or even to be wounded. Christ, therefore, would not preserve his own life by sacrificing another’s.
But we say, thirdly, that if Christianity allows us to kill one another in self-defence, she allows war, without restriction to self-defence. Let us try what would have been the result if the Christian Scriptures had thus placed human life at our disposal: suppose they had said—You may kill a ruffian in your own defence, but you may not enter into a defensive war. The prohibition would admit, not of some exceptions to its application—the exceptions would be so many, that no prohibition would be left; because there is no practical limit to the right of self-defence, until we arrive at defensive war. If one man may kill one, two may kill two, and ten may kill ten, and an army may kill an army:—and this is defensive war. Supposing, again, the Christian Scriptures had said, an army may fight in its own defence, but not for any other purpose. We do not say that the exceptions to this rule would be so many as wholly to nullify the rule itself; but we say that whoever will attempt to apply it in practice, will find that he has a very wide range of justifiable warfare; a range that will embrace many more wars than moralists, laxer than we shall suppose him to be, are willing to defend. If an army may fight in defence of their own lives, they may and must fight in defence of the lives of others: if they may fight in defence of the lives of others, they will fight in defence of their property: if in defence of property, they will fight in defence of political rights: if in defence of rights, they will fight in promotion of interests: if in promotion of interests, they will fight in promotion of their glory and their crimes. Now let any man of honesty look over the gradations by which we arrive at this climax, and I believe he will find that, in practice, no curb can be placed upon the conduct of an army until they reach it. There is, indeed, a wide distance between fighting in defence of life, and fighting in furtherance of our crimes; but the steps which lead from one to the other will follow in inevitable succession. I know that the letter of our rule excludes it, but I know the rule will be a letter only. It is very easy for us to sit in our studies, and to point the commas, and semicolons, and periods of the soldier’s career; it is very easy for us to say he shall stop at defence of life or at protection of property, or at the support of rights; but armies will never listen to us—we shall be only the Xerxes of morality throwing our idle chains into the tempestuous ocean of slaughter.
What is the testimony of experience? When nations are mutually exasperated, and armies are levied, and battles are fought, does not everyone know that with whatever motives of defence one party may have begun the contest, both, in turn, become aggressors? In the fury of slaughter, soldiers do not attend, they cannot attend, to questions of aggression. Their business is destruction, and their business they will perform. If the army of defence obtains success, it soon becomes an army of aggression. Having repelled the invader, it begins to punish him. If a war is once begun, it is vain to think of distinctions of aggression and defence. Moralists may talk of distinctions, but soldiers will make none; and none can be made; it is without the limits of possibility.
But, indeed, what is defensive war? A celebrated moralist defines it to be, war undertaken in consequence of “an injury perpetrated, attempted or feared,” which shows with sufficient clearness how little the assassin concerns the question, for fear respecting life does not enter into the calculation of “injuries.” So, then, if we fear some injury to our purses, or to our “honor,” we are allowed to send an army to the country that gives us fear, and to slaughter its inhabitants; and this, we are told, is defensive war. By this system of reasoning, which has been happily called “martial logic,” there will be little difficulty in proving any war to be defensive. Now we say that if Christianity allows defensive war, she allows all war—except indeed that of simple aggression; and by the rules of this morality, the aggressor is difficult of discovery; for he whom we choose to
