From a general comprehension of the War System, we perceive the unchristian character of the preparations it encourages and requires, nay, which are the synonyms of the system, or at least its representatives.
Charles Sumner
The Public Record
Charles Sumner was an American lawyer and statesman who represented Massachusetts in the United States Senate from 1851 until his death in 1874. Before and during the American Civil War, he was a leading American advocate for the abolition of slavery, and after the war he was a key figure in the Reconstruction era, during which he and other Radical Republicans successfully fought to end slavery and ensure basic rights for Black Americans. He continued advocating for racial equality until his death, lobbying in his final days for a civil rights bill that served as a model for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Historians credit Sumner with coining the phrase "equality before the law," which he first used as part of an early attempt to integrate Boston's public school system.
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I might exhibit this character by an examination of the Laws of War, drawn from no celestial fount, but from a dark profound of Heathenism.
The Constitution of our own country furnishes an illustration remarkable as a touch-stone of the whole system.
As a people is known by its laws, as a man is known by the company he keeps, as a tree is known by its fruits, so is the War System fully and unequivocally known by the Laws of War, by its diabolical ministers, typical of its preparations…
If War be a Christian institution, those who act as its agents should shroud themselves in colors congenial with their dreadful trade.
With sorrow and solemnity, not with gladness and pomp, they should proceed to their melancholy office.
When you hear the drum, And the vile squeaking of the wry-necked fife, Clamber not you up to the casements then, Nor thrust your head into the public street, To gaze on Christian fools with varnished faces; But stop my house's ears,--I…
If such be the condition of the public mind, the Government must recognize it.
The soul of all effective laws is an animating public sentiment.
This gives vitality to what else would be a dead letter.
In vain enact what is not inspired by this spirit.
No skill in the device of the system, no penalties, no bounties even, can uphold it.
A system so simple, practical, efficient, unostentatious, and cheap, especially as compared with the militia, would be in harmony with existing sentiment, while it could not fail to remedy the evils sometimes feared from present neglect of…
While divorcing the Police from the unchristian and barbarous War System, I confess the vital importance of maintaining law and order.
And it is the duty of Government to provide such means as are most expedient, if those established are in any respect inadequate, or uncongenial with the Spirit of the Age.
I do not intend to speak of War Debts, under whose accumulated weight these nations are now pressed to earth, being the terrible legacy of the Past.
It is larger than all the expenditure for agricultural labor, producing the food of man, upon the whole face of the globe.
It is larger, by a hundred millions, than the value of all the exports sent forth by all the nations of the earth.
It is larger, by more than five hundred millions, than the value of all the shipping belonging to the civilized world.
It is larger, by nine hundred and ninety-seven millions, than the annual combined charities of Europe and America for preaching the Gospel to the Heathen.
With untold prodigality of cost, it perpetuates the worst Heathenism of War, while, by charities insignificant in comparison, it doles to the Heathen a message of Peace.
At home it breeds and fattens a cloud of eagles and vultures, trained to swoop upon the land; to all the Gentiles across the sea it dismisses a solitary dove.
Every sloop-of-war that floats costs more than the largest public library in our country.
Thus did these Preparations unhappily become, as they too often show themselves, incentives to War.
Let us at all hazards prevent the extension of Slavery and the increase of the Slave Power.
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