Must the extravagance born of war, and nursed by long tradition, continue to drain the resources of the land?

A decree abolishing the Standing Army would be better for the French people, and more productive, than the richest gold-mine discovered in every department of France.

Relieved from intolerable burden, industry would lift itself to unimagined labors, and society be quickened anew.

Beyond this economy, which need not be argued, is the positive advantage, if not necessity, of such change for France.

If to the necessary appropriation and expenditure for all these things is superadded the annual tax of a Standing Army, and that other draft from the change of producers into non-producers, plainly here is a supplementary burden of…

Talk of the last feather breaking the back of the camel,--but never was camel loaded down as France.

Beyond even these considerations of economy and advantage I put the transcendent, priceless benefit of Disarmament in the assurance of peace.

Disarmament substitutes the constable for the soldier, and reduces the Standing Army to a police.

The argument assumes, first, the needlessness of a Standing Army, and, secondly, its evil influence.

All history is a vain word, and all experience is at fault, if large War Preparations, of which the Standing Army is the type, have not been constant provocatives of war.

Pretended protectors against war, they have been real instigators to war.

So long as this habit continued, society was darkened by personal combat, street-fight, duel, and assassination.

The Standing Army is to the nation what the sword was to the modern gentleman, the stiletto to the Italian, the knife to the Spaniard, the pistol to our slave-master,--furnishing, like these, the means of death; and its possessor is not…

As France, according to Sir Thomas More, shows “how dangerous it is to feed such beasts,” so does Prussia, in ever-memorable instance, which speaks now with more than ordinary authority, show precisely how the Standing Army may become the…

And think you that the present duel between France and Germany could have been waged, had not both nations found themselves, like Frederick of Prussia, with “troops always ready to act”?

Thus is Disarmament enforced on three several grounds: first, economy; secondly, positive advantage, if not necessity, for France; and, thirdly, assurance of peace.

Dismissing to the arts of peace the large army victorious over Slavery, our Republic has shown how disarmament can be accomplished.

The example of France, so entirely reasonable, so profitable, so pacific, and so harmonious with ours, would spread.

Nations are taught by example more than by precept, and either is better than force.

Other nations would follow; nor would Russia, elevated by her great act of Enfranchisement, fail to seize her sublime opportunity.

Instead of Trial by Battle for the decision of differences between nations, there would be peaceful substitutes, as Arbitration, or, it may be, a Congress of Nations, and the United States of Europe would appear above the subsiding waters.

The old juggle of Balance of Power, which has rested like a nightmare on Europe, would disappear, like that other less bloody fiction of Balance of Trade, and nations, like individuals, would all be equal before the law.

So long as slavery prevailed among us, there was an attempt to preserve what was designated balance of power between the North and South, pivoting on Slavery,--just as in Europe there has been an attempt to preserve balance of power among…

Too tardily is it seen that this famous balance, which has played such a part at home and abroad, is but an artificial contrivance instituted by power, which must give place to a simple accord derived from the natural condition of things.

Why should not the harmony which has begun at home be extended abroad?