Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles
TextThe strengthening of our blockade by the vessels of the northern patrol fleet was therefore the first and, as it proved, the only lasting result of Cámara's move. What the object was of that singular "vagabondaggio," as it is not inaptly called by an Italian critic, is to the author incomprehensible, to use also the qualifying word of the same foreign writer. That the intention was merely to provoke us to some "eccentric" movement, by playing upon our fears about our forces at Manila, would be perfectly reconcilable with going as far as Port Said, and remaining there for some days, as was done, in difficulty, actual or feigned, about getting coal; but why the large expense was incurred of passing through the canal, merely to double the amount by returning, is beyond understanding. It may have been simply to carry bluff to the extreme point; but it is difficult not to suspect some motive not yet revealed, and perhaps never to be known.
Possibly, however, the measures taken by ourselves may have had upon the Spanish Government the effect which, in part, they were intended to produce. A squadron of two battleships and four cruisers, drawn from Admiral Sampson's fleet, was constituted to go to Manila by way of Suez, under the command of Commodore Watson, until then in charge of the blockade on the north coast of Cuba. Colliers to accompany these were at the same time prepared in our Atlantic ports. Upon the representations of the Admiral, he was authorized to suspend the sailing of the detachment until all the armored vessels were fully coaled, in order to ensure maintaining before Santiago for a considerable period the five that would be left to him. To this modification of the first order contributed also the darkness of the nights at that moment; for the moon, though growing, was still young. But, as our object was even more to prevent Cámara from proceeding than to send the reinforcement, it was desired that these dispositions should have full publicity, and, to ensure it the more fully, Watson was directed to go in all haste to Santiago with his flagship, the Newark, to take over his new command, the avowed objective of which was the Spanish coast, then deprived of much of its defence by the departure of Cámara's ships, and most imperfectly provided with local fortifications. Had Cámara gone on to the East, Watson would have followed him, and, although arriving later, there was no insuperable difficulty to so combining the movements of our two divisions—Dewey's and Watson's—as to decide the final result, and to leave Spain without her second division of ships.
Cámara's delay at the Mediterranean end of the Canal, which extended over several days, suggested either doubts as to the reality of his rumored destination, or a belief that the equipment and preparation—in coal especially—for so distant an expedition had been imperfect. This contributed to postpone Watson's departure, and the first passage of the Canal (July 2nd) by the Spaniards coincided in date very closely with the destruction of their other division under Cervera. After the action off Santiago the battleships needed to be again supplied with ammunition, and before that could be effected Cámara was on his way back to Spain.
This abandonment by the enemy of their projected voyage to Manila concurred with the critical position of the army before Santiago to postpone the project of reinforcing Dewey, who no longer needed battleships so far as his immediate operations were concerned. Besides, the arrival of both the Monterey and the Monadnock was now assured, even if the enemy resumed his movement, which was scarcely possible. When Santiago fell, however, it was felt to be necessary to re-establish our fleet in the Pacific, by way either of the Straits of Magellan or of the Suez Canal. The latter was chosen, and the entire battle fleet—except the Texas, rejected on account of her small coal endurance—was directed to join the movement and to accompany some distance within the straits the two battleships which, with their smaller cruisers and colliers, were to go to Manila. The preparations for this movement were kept secret for quite a time, under the cover of an avowed intention to proceed against Puerto Rico; but nothing, apparently, can wholly escape the prying curiosity of the Press, which dignifies this not always reputable quality with the title of "enterprise." No great harm resulted; possibly even the evident wish of the Government for secrecy, though thus betrayed, may have increased the apprehension of the enemy as to the damage intended to their coasts.
On the latter point the position of our Government, as understood by the writer, was perfectly simple. In case the enemy refused peace when resistance was obviously and utterly hopeless, bombardment of a seaport might be resorted to, but with the utmost reluctance, and merely to compel submission and acquiescence in demonstrated facts. It is not possible to allow one's own people to be killed and their substance wasted merely because an adversary will not admit he is whipped, when he is. When our fleet reached the Spanish coast that case might have arisen; but probably the unwillingness of our Government so to act would have postponed its decision to the very last moment, in order to spare the enemy the final humiliation of yielding, not to reasonable acceptance of facts, but to direct threat of violence. The purpose of bombardment, so freely asserted by the Press, was one of the numerous baseless discoveries with which it enlightened its reader during the hostilities,—mixtures of truth and error, so ingeniously proportioned as to constitute an antidote, than which none better could then be had against its numerous indiscretions.
The determining factor in this proposed movement of the battle fleet as a whole was the necessity, or at least the advantage, of reinforcing Dewey, and of placing two battleships in the Pacific. It was not thought expedient now to send them by themselves, as at first proposed, for the reason already given in another instance in this paper; that is, the impropriety of taking even a small risk, if unnecessary. Cámara's two ships had now returned to Spain, and there were besides in the ports of the Peninsula other armed vessels, which, though evidently unfit for a distant voyage, might be good for some work in the Straits of Gibraltar, where our two ships must pass. That the latter would beat them all, if assembled, we quite believed, as we had hoped that the Oregon might do had she met Cervera; but the Oregon could not be helped without neglecting more immediately pressing duties, whereas, at the end of July, there was nothing to detain our heavy ships in the West Indies. It was determined, therefore, to keep them massed and to send them across the ocean. It was probable, nearly to the extent of absolute certainty, that neither before nor after the separation of the division bound for the East would the entire Spanish Navy venture an attack upon the formidable force thus confronting its ports. To ensure success without fighting is always a proper object of military dispositions; and, moreover, there were reasons before alluded to for maintaining in perfect integrity vessels whose organized fighting efficiency had now been fully vindicated to the world. Even during peace negotiations, one's position is not injured by the readiness of the battle fleet. In short, it should be an accepted apothegm, with those responsible for the conduct of military operations, that "War is business," to which actual fighting is incidental. As in all businesses, the true aim is the best results at the least cost; or, as the great French admiral, Tourville, said two centuries ago, "The best victories are those which expend least of blood, of hemp, and of iron." Such results, it is true, are more often granted to intelligent daring than to excessive caution; but no general rule can supersede the individual judgment upon the conditions before it. There are no specifics in warfare.
To this main reason, others less immediately important concurred. The ships would be taken out of a trying climate, and removed from the chance of hurricanes; while the crews would receive a benefit, the value of which is avouched by naval history, in change of scene, of occupation, and of interests. The possibility of the enemy attempting to divert us from our aim, by sending vessels to the West Indies, was considered, and, although regarded as wildly improbable, provision against it was made. As Nelson wrote to his commander-in-chief before the advance on Copenhagen: "There are those who think, if you leave the Sound open, that the Danish fleet may sail from Copenhagen to join the Dutch or French. I own I have no fears on that subject; for it is not likely that whilst their capital is menaced with an attack, nine thousand of her best men should be sent out of the kingdom." It was still less probable that Spain in the present case would attempt any diversion to the West Indies, and the movement of our heavy-armored vessels to her shores could now justly be considered to cover all our operations on this side of the Atlantic. The detailed arrangements made for frequent communication, however, would have kept the Department practically in touch with our fleet throughout, and have enabled us to counteract any despairing effort of the enemy.
THE PEACE CONFERENCE AND THE MORAL ASPECT OF WAR
To determine the consequences of an historical episode, such as the recent Peace Conference at The Hague, is not a matter for prophecy, but for experience, which alone can decide what positive issues, for good or for ill, shall hereafter trace their source to this beginning. The most that the present can do is to take note of the point so far reached, and of apparent tendencies manifested; to seek for the latter a right direction; to guide, where it can, currents of general thought, the outcome of which will be beneficial or injurious, according as their course is governed by a just appreciation of fundamental truths.
The calling of the Conference of The Hague originated in an avowed desire to obtain relief from immediate economical burdens, by the adoption of some agreement to restrict the preparations for war, and the consequent expense involved in national armaments; but before its meeting the hope of disarmament had fallen into the background, the vacant place being taken by the project of abating the remoter evils of recurrent warfare, by giving a further impulse, and a more clearly defined application, to the principle of arbitration, which thenceforth assumed pre-eminence in the councils of the Conference. This may be considered the point at which we have arrived. The assembled representatives of many nations, including all the greatest upon the earth, have decided that it is to arbitration men must look for relief, rather than to partial disarmament, or even to an arrest in the progress of preparations for war. Of the beneficence of the practice of arbitration, of the wisdom of substituting it, when possible, for the appeal to arms, with all the misery therefrom resulting, there can be no doubt; but it will be expected that in its application, and in its attempted development, the tendencies of the day, both good and bad, will make themselves felt. If, on the one hand, there is solid ground for rejoicing in the growing inclination to resort first to an impartial arbiter, if such can be found, when occasion for collision arises, there is, on the other hand, cause for serious reflection when this most humane impulse is seen to favor methods, which by compulsion shall vitally impair the moral freedom, and the consequent moral responsibility, which are the distinguishing glory of the rational man, and of the sovereign state.
One of the most unfortunate characteristics of our present age is the disposition to impose by legislative enactment—by external compulsion, that is—restrictions of a moral character, which are either fundamentally unjust, or at least do not carry with them the moral sense of the community, as a whole. It is not religious faith alone that in the past has sought to propagate itself by force of law, which ultimately is force of physical coercion. If the religious liberty of the individual has been at last won, as we hope forever, it is sufficiently notorious that the propensity of majorities to control the freedom of minorities, in matters of disputed right and wrong, still exists, as certain and as tyrannical as ever was the will of Philip II. that there should be no heretic within his dominion. Many cannot so much as comprehend the thought of the English Bishop, that it was better to see England free than England sober.
In matters internal to a state, the bare existence of a law imposes an obligation upon the individual citizen, whatever his personal conviction of its rightfulness or its wisdom. Yet is such obligation not absolute. The primary duty, attested alike by the law and the gospel, is submission. The presumption is in favor of the law; and if there lie against it just cause for accusation, on the score either of justice or of expediency, the interests of the Commonwealth and the precepts of religion alike demand that opposition shall be conducted according to the methods, and within the limits, which the law of the land itself prescribes. But it may be—it has been, and yet again may be—that the law, however regular in its enactment, and therefore unquestionable on the score of formal authority, either outrages fundamental political right, or violates the moral dictates of the individual conscience. Of the former may be cited as an instance the Stamp Act, perfectly regular as regarded statutory validity, which kindled the flame of revolution in America. Of the second, the Fugitive Slave Law, within the memory of many yet living, is a conspicuous illustration. Under such conditions, the moral right of resistance is conceded—nay, is affirmed and emphasized—by the moral consciousness of the races from which the most part of the American people have their origin, and to which, almost wholly, we owe our political and religious traditions. Such resistance may be passive, accepting meekly the penalty for disobedience, as the martyr who for conscience' sake refused the political requirement of sacrificing to the image of the Cæsar; or it may be active and violent, as when our forefathers repelled taxation without representation, or when men and women, of a generation not yet wholly passed away, refused to violate their consciences by acquiescing in the return of a slave to his bondage, resorting to evasion or to violence, according to their conditions or temperaments, but in every case deriving the sanction for their unlawful action from the mandate of their personal conscience.
And let it be carefully kept in mind that it is not the absolute right or wrong of the particular act, as seen in the clearer light of a later day, that justified men, whether in the particular instances cited, or in other noteworthy incidents in the long series of steps by which the English-speaking races have ascended to their present political development. It is not the demonstrable rightfulness of a particular action, as seen in the dispassionate light of the arbiter, posterity, that has chiefly constituted the merit of the individual rebel against the law in which he beheld iniquity; the saving salt, which has preserved the healthfulness of the body politic, has been the fidelity to Conscience, to the faithful, if passionate, arbiter of the moment, whose glorious predominance in the individual or in the nation gives a better assurance of the highest life than does the clearest intellectual perception of the rightfulness, or of the expediency, of a particular course. One may now see, or think that he sees, as does the writer, with Lincoln, that if slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. It was not so clear half a century ago; and while no honor is too great for those early heroes, who for this sublime conviction withstood obloquy and persecution, legal and illegal, it should be never forgotten that the then slave States, in their resolute determination to maintain, by arms, if need be, and against superior force, that which they believed to be their constitutional political right, made no small contribution to the record of fidelity to conscience and to duty, which is the highest title of a nation to honor. Be it by action or be it by submission, by action positive or by action negative, whatsoever is not of faith—of conviction—is sin.
The just and necessary exaltation of the law as the guarantee of true liberty, with the consequent accepted submission of the individual to it, and the recognized presumption in favor of such submission, have tended to blind us to the fact that the individual, in our highest consciousness, has never surrendered his moral freedom,—his independence of conscience. No human law overbears that supreme appeal, which carries the matter from the tribunal of man into the presence of God; nor can human law be pleaded at this bar as the excuse for a violation of conscience. It is a dangerous doctrine, doubtless, to preach that there may be a "higher law" than obedience to law; but truth is not to be rejected because dangerous, and the time is not long past when the phrase voiced a conviction, the forcible assertion of which brought slavery to an end forever.
The resort to arms by a nation, when right cannot otherwise be enforced, corresponds, or should correspond, precisely to the acts of the individual man which have been cited; for the old conception of an appeal to the Almighty, resembling in principle the mediæval trial by battle, is at best but a partial view of the truth, seen from one side only. However the result may afterwards be interpreted as indicative of the justice of a cause,—an interpretation always questionable,—a state, when it goes to war, should do so not to test the rightfulness of its claims, but because, being convinced in its conscience of that rightfulness, no other means of overcoming evil remains.
Nations, like men, have a conscience. Like men, too, the light of conscience is in nations often clouded, or misguided, by passion or by interest. But what of that? Does a man discard his allegiance to conscience because he knows that, itself in harmony with right, its message to him is perplexed and obscured by his own infirmities? Not so. Fidelity to conscience implies not only obedience to its dictates, but earnest heart-searching, the use of every means, to ascertain its true command; yet withal, whatever the mistrust of the message, the supremacy of the conscience is not impeached. When it is recognized that its final word is spoken, nothing remains but obedience. Even if mistaken, the moral wrong of acting against conviction works a deeper injury to the man, and to his kind, than can the merely material disasters that may follow upon obedience. Even the material evils of war are less than the moral evil of compliance with wrong.
"Yes, my friend," replied to me a foreign diplomatist to whom I was saying some such things, "but remember that only a few years ago the conscience of your people was pressing you into war with Great Britain in the Venezuelan question." "Admitting," I replied, "that the first national impulse, the first movement of the conscience, if you like, was mistaken,—which is at least open to argument,—it remains that there was no war; time for deliberation was taken, and more than that can be asked of no conscience, national or personal. But, further, had the final decision of conscience been that just cause for war existed, no evil that war brings could equal the moral declension which a nation inflicts upon itself, and upon mankind, by deliberate acquiescence in wrong, which it recognizes and which it might right." Nor is this conclusion vitiated by the fact that war is made at times upon mistaken conviction. It is not the accuracy of the decision, but the faithfulness to conviction, that constitutes the moral worth of an action, national or individual.
The general consciousness of this truth is witnessed by a common phrase, which excludes from suggested schemes of arbitration all questions which involve "national honor or vital interests." No one thing struck me more forcibly during the Conference at The Hague than the exception taken and expressed, although in a very few quarters, to the word "honor," in this connection. There is for this good reason; for the word, admirable in itself and if rightly understood, has lost materially in the clearness of its image and superscription, by much handling and by some misapplication. Honor does not forbid a nation to acknowledge that it is wrong, or to recede from a step which it has taken through wrong motives or mistaken reasons; yet it has at times been so thought, to the grievous injury of the conception of honor. It is not honor, necessarily, but sound policy, which prescribes that peace with a semi-civilized foe should not be made after a defeat; but, however justifiable the policy, the word "honor" is defaced by thus misapplying it.
The varying fortunes, the ups and downs of the idea of arbitration at the Conference of The Hague, as far as my intelligence could follow them, produced in me two principal conclusions, which so far confirmed my previous points of view that I think I may now fairly claim for them that they have ripened into opinions, between which word, and the cruder, looser views received passively as impressions, I have been ever careful to mark a distinction. In the first place, compulsory arbitration stands at present no chance of general acceptance. There is but one way as yet in which arbitration can be compulsory; for the dream of some advanced thinkers, of an International Army, charged with imposing the decrees of an International Tribunal upon a recalcitrant state, may be dismissed as being outside of practical international politics, until at least the nations are ready for the intermediate step of moral compulsion, imposed by a self-assumed obligation—by a promise. Compulsory arbitration as yet means only the moral compulsion of a pledge, taken beforehand, and more or less comprehensive, to submit to arbitration questions which rest still in the unknown future; the very terms of which therefore cannot be foreseen. Although there is a certain active current of agitation in favor of such stipulations, there is no general disposition of governments to accede, except under very narrow and precise limitations, and in questions of less than secondary importance.
Secondly, there appears to be, on the other hand, a much greater disposition than formerly to entertain favorably the idea of arbitration, as a means to be in all cases considered, and where possible to be adopted, in order to solve peaceably difficulties which threaten peace. In short, the consciences of the nations are awake to the wickedness of unnecessary war, and are disposed, as a general rule, to seek first, and where admissible, the counterpoise of an impartial judge, where such can be found, to correct the bias of national self-will; but there is an absolute indisposition, an instinctive revolt, against signing away, beforehand, the national conscience, by a promise that any other arbiter than itself shall be accepted in questions of the future, the import of which cannot yet be discerned. Of this feeling the vague and somewhat clumsy phrase, "national honor and vital interests," has in the past been the expression; for its very indeterminateness reserved to conscience in every case the decision,—"May another judge for me here, or must I be bound by my own sense of right?"
Under these circumstances, and having reached so momentous a stage in progress as is indicated by the very calling together of a world conference for the better assuring of peace, may it not be well for us to pause a moment and take full account of the idea, Arbitration, on the right hand and on the left? Noble and beneficent in its true outlines, it too may share, may even now be sharing, the liability of the loftiest conceptions to degenerate into catchwords, or into cant. "Liberty, what crimes have been wrought in thy name!" and does not religion share the same reproach, and conscience also? Yet will we not away with any of the three.
The conviction of a nation is the conviction of the mass of the individuals thereof, and each individual has therefore a personal responsibility for the opinion he holds on a question of great national, or international, moment. Let us look, each of us,—and especially each of us who fears God,—into his own inner heart, and ask himself how far, in his personal life, he is prepared to accept arbitration. Is it not so that the reply must be, "In doubtful questions of moment, wherever I possibly can, knowing my necessary, inevitable proneness to one-sided views, I will seek an impartial adviser, that my bias may be corrected; but when that has been done, when I have sought what aid I can, if conscience still commands, it I must obey. From that duty, burdensome though it may be, no man can relieve me. Conscience, diligently consulted, is to the man the voice of God; between God and the man no other arbiter comes." And if this be so, a pledge beforehand is impossible. I cannot bind myself for a future of which I as yet know nothing, to abide by the decision of any other judge than my own conscience. Much humor—less wit—has been expended upon the Emperor of Germany's supposed carefulness to reject arbitration because an infringement of his divine rights; a phrase which may well be no more than a blunt expression of the sense that no third party can relieve a man from the obligations of the position to which he is called by God, and that for the duties of that position the man can confidently expect divine guidance and help. Be that as it may, the divine right of conscience will, among Americans, receive rare challenge.
It has been urged, however, that a higher organization of the nations, the provision of a supreme tribunal issuing and enforcing judgments, settling thereby quarrels and disputed rights, would produce for the nations of the earth a condition analogous to that of the individual citizen of the state, who no longer defends his own cause, nor is bound in conscience to maintain his own sense of right, when the law decides against him. The conception is not novel, not even modern; something much like it was put forth centuries ago by the Papacy concerning its own functions. It contains two fallacies. First, the submission of the individual citizen is to force, to the constitution of which he personally contributes little, save his individual and general assent. To an unjust law he submits under protest, doubtless often silent; but he submits, not because he consents to the wrong, whether to himself personally or to others, but because he cannot help it. This will perhaps be denied, with the assertion that willing, intelligent submission to law, even when unjust, is yielded by most for the general good. One has, however, only to consider the disposition of the average man to evade payment of taxes, to recognize how far force daily enters into the maintenance and execution of law. Nations, on the contrary, since no force exists, or without their volition can exist, to compel them to accept the institution of an authority superior to their own conscience, yield a willing acquiescence to wrong, when they so yield in obedience to an external authority imposed by themselves. The matter is not helped by the fact of a previous promise to accept such decisions. The wrong-doing of an individual, in consequence of an antecedent promise, does not relieve the conscience thus rashly fettered. The ancient warning still stands, "Suffer not thy mouth to cause thy flesh to sin." For the individual or the nation, arbitration is not possible where the decision may violate conscience; it therefore can be accepted only when it is known that interest merely, not duty, will be affected by the judgment, and such knowledge cannot exist antecedent to the difficulty arising.
There is a further—a second—fallacy in the supposed analogy between the submission of individuals to law, and the advocated submission of states to a central tribunal. The law of the state, overwhelming as is its power relatively to that of the individual citizen, can neither bind nor loose in matters pertaining to the conscience. Still less can any tribunal, however solemnly constituted, liberate a state from its obligation to do right; still less, I say, because the state retains, what the individual has in great part lost, the power to maintain what it believes to be right. Many considerations may make it more right—I do not say more expedient—for a man or for a nation, to submit to, or to acquiesce in, wrong than to resist; but in such cases it is conscience still that decides where the balance of justice turns distinctly to the side of wrong. It is, I presume, universally admitted, that occasions may arise where conscience not only justifies, but compels, resistance to law; whether it be the Christian citizen refusing to sacrifice, or the free citizen to subject himself to unconstitutional taxation, or to become the instrument of returning the slave to his master. So also for the Christian state. Existing wrong may have to be allowed, lest a greater wrong be done. Conscience only can decide; and for that very reason conscience must be kept free, that it may decide according to its sense of right, when the case is presented.
There is, therefore, the very serious consideration attendant upon what is loosely styled "compulsory" arbitration,—arbitration stipulated, that is, in advance of a question originating, or of its conditions being appreciated,—that a state may thereby do that which a citizen as towards the state does not do; namely, may voluntarily assume a moral obligation to do, or to allow, wrong. And it must be remembered, also, that many of the difficulties which arise among states involve considerations distinctly beyond and higher than law as international law now exists; whereas the advocated Permanent Tribunal, to which the ultra-organizers look, to take cognizance of all cases, must perforce be governed by law as it exists. It is not, in fact, to be supposed that nations will submit themselves to a tribunal, the general principles of which have not been crystallized into a code of some sort.