The two duties are incompatible, according to all the experience of history.
Editor's note · Context
Sumner asserts that two specific duties cannot coexist based on historical experience.
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In this contest, we may borrow from the ancient Greek, who, when his hands were cut off, fought with his stumps, and even with his teeth.
It is a cause which, though long kept in check throughout our country, as also in Europe, now confronts the people and their rulers, demanding to be heard.
Their existence is a disgrace to civilization; for it implies the common consent of nations to the Arbitrament of War, as regulated by these laws.
Nay, more,--if it would be criminal in these several clusters of States to reëstablish the Institution of War as Arbiter of Justice, then is it criminal in the Commonwealth of Nations to continue it.





