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several of the New England States, but also at the South, in London, Switzerland, and elsewhere. It appears, further, from facts and documents presented to your Committee by the memorialists, an extensive correspondence on this subject has been carried on, for some time past, between societies and individuals in various parts of the United States, Great Britain, France, Switzerland, Prussia, Holland, some of the German States, and elsewhere; meetings have been held, societies formed, addresses made, and resolves adopted; from which there appears to be a very wide-spread and prevailing sentiment in faver of a general cooperation for the attainment of the great and all-important design of substituting arbitration instead of arms, as a last resort, for the decision of international disputes. Several of the courts of Europe have been addressed on the subject of peace by the Count de Sellon.

"Not that the memorials referred to this Committee contemplate the total discharge of your navy, the entire dismantling of your forts, the immediate disbanding of your regular troops, or the disorganizing of your militia. The sword of justice must be uplifted still. The armed police of nations must remain on the alert. The court-room does not supersede the necessity of the watch-house. Yet the trial by jury has superseded, and may well supplant the trial by combat; and arbitration, or a Court of Nations, may be made the final resort, instead of an appeal to arms.

"The Committee deem the subject to which their attention has been called, to be one of the highest importance to the welfare of our republican institutions, if it be not essential to their perpetuity, or even their very existence. It will not be thought necessary, for them, here to show the ground of this belief. Nor are the benefits to be derived from the contemplated measure, to be regarded in a political point of view merely, neither are they restricted to this country alone. The object of the proposition in view, is coextensive with the existence of our race. It pertains to man, not exclusively in his social and political intercourse, but in his universal relation, as a rational and accountable being. The Committee consider this cause, as involving the condition of private character, the improvement of public morals, the advancement of civilization, the refinement of social intercourse, the cultivation of the arts, the extension of the sciences, the enlargement of liberty, the security of freedom, the firm establishment of constitutional government, the more general diffusion of the Christian faith, and the highest welfare of the human race.

"Just in proportion as man advances in civilization, in the cultivation of his moral and spiritual nature,-persuasion and argument take the place of the scourge and the rod, the trial by jury is substituted for the trial by battle, and the arbitration of friends is preferred for the settlement of a controversy, to the chance of personal rencounter. And why are we to stop midway in this career? Why not settle differences between communities, as between individuals, by moral means? Why not go on to more perfect civilization, to a fuller development of our spiritual and immortal faculties, till in all questions of difference, they shall be permitted to sit in the seat of judgment, and the sound of war shall no longer be heard among the nations? A long period of comparative peace has now prevailed in the civilized world, and with each successive year of its continuance, we believe there will be found an increasing unwillingness to resort to the strife of battle among the people who have so long been exempted from its scourge. And now is the time, as we believe, to propose, with the greatest prospect of success, the measure contemplated in the order referred to this Committee.

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The proposition is not to be regarded as the introduction of a new idea, but the extension only of a principle which is already, to a limited degree, in successful operation in every civilized community. Laws are enacted, and courts of justice are appointed for the settlement of disputes between individuals, towns, counties, and states, and the rightfulness of their cognizance and

jurisdiction is universally acknowledged. Why not, then, extend the same principle so as to embrace within its operation nations also? With an enlightened public opinion, and a wise, discreet and humane government, the latter result is no less attainable than the former. The formation of a code of international law, and the establishment of a Court of Nations, which shall meet the end in view, as effectually as existing courts and laws secure the object for the attainment of which they were established, will neither be denied nor doubted by any mind competent to the comprehension of those general principles on which all law is founded, and by which all judicial action is accomplished. The principle, the adoption of which is now sought, is acknowledged, virtually at least, in the formation of the constitution of the United States, in the establishment of the United States supreme court, and in the confederation of the states of Germany. That which Maximilian I. accomplished for those states, and that which the founders of our federal constitution effected for these United States, a Congress of Nations, clothed with proper power, may bring about for the benefit of every state and every nation that shall have the wisdom, policy, and humanity to avail itself of the provision.

"The expediency of arbitration, in very many cases, has been, and is, fully and widely acknowledged. The disposition to resort to it, is manifestly increasing among the nations, and the awards, in most instances, have been acknowledged far better for both parties than would have been an appeal to arms for the forcible maintenance of their rights. The question which now presents itself is, whether the present mode of reference, by the election of an individual who shall act as umpire, restricted by no positive rules, guided by no certain law, influenced by no general system, is as advantageous as would be a system of adjudication, founded upon a well-digested code of international arbitration? It is conceived the question admits of but one answer; and that will be promptly in the negative.

"The Committee think that the time for the proposal of this Congress has arrived. They think the movement not unworthy the countenance of our national government. They believe their fellow-citizens of all ranks would feel a just pride in seeing the Legislature of Massachusetts foremost in proposing this great and philanthropic scheme. They therefore unanimously recommend the adoption of the following resolves:

"Resolved, That a resort to war, for the purpose of adjusting national disputes, is a practice derived from the barbarism of former ages, is incompatible with the true spirit of Christianity, and at variance with the present state of civilization, throughout a large part of the world, and that, while it is fraught with the most deplorable evils to mankind, moral, political, and physical, it rarely accomplishes the object for which it is waged.

Resolved, That the great importance of the subject renders it the duty of all civilized communities, to unite in the adoption of any practicable plan, calculated to effect so noble an object, as the abolition of war, and the preservation of peace among the nations of the earth.

Resolved, That the institution of a Congress of Nations, for the purpose of framing a code of international law, and establishing a high court of arbitration, for the settlement of controversies between nations, is a scheme worthy of the careful attention and consideration of all enlightened governments.

Resolved, That his excellency the Governor of this Commonwealth, be requested to transmit a copy of these resolves, with the accompanying report, to the President of the United States, and to the Executive of each of the States, to be communicated to their respective Legislatures, inviting their cooperation in the proposed object."

2. Memoir of Lovejoy. By J. C. & O. LOVEJOY.

by John Quincy Adams. 1838.

With an Introduction,

The day has not come for the community at large to appreciate the character of Lovejoy; but no candid mind can rise from the perusal of the volume before us, without a strong impression of his excellence as a man and a Christian. His mind was cast in no ordinary mould; and, whatever may be thought

of his resorting to carnal weapons for the defence of his rights, the time must come when his eminent worth will be fully acknowledged.

ELIJAH P. LOVEJOY was born Nov., 1802, at Albion, Me., and graduated at Waterville College, in 1826. In 1827, he went to St. Louis, Missouri, as a teacher; but in 1828, he engaged in editing a political newspaper, till 1832, when he became hopefully pious, and immediately turned his attention to the Christian ministry. In the spring of 1832, he commenced his theological studies in the seminary at Princeton, N. J., and was licensed the year following as a preacher of the gospel. In the autumn of 1833, he went, by invitation, to take charge of a religious newspaper at St. Louis, and commenced the St. Louis Observer in November, which was continued there till his frank and fearless honesty provoked Papists and slaveholders to drive him from the place to Alton, Ill., in June, 1836, the third year of the paper. At Alton, the demon of slavery still hunted him, and, after destroying his press three times,—in July, 1836, in August and September of 1837,-brought on the well-known tragedy of last November.

The details of that atrocious affair, we shall not repeat. The mob resolved that the paper should not be printed at Alton; but the friends of law and order persisted in sustaining Lovejoy in his purpose to maintain his ground; and armed themselves, after consultation with the mayor of the city, to defend the press in the store where it was temporarily deposited. The mob fired on the persons in the store, and they returned the fire, and killed one of the assailants. The mob, maddened with rum, renewed the assault, set fire to the building, and, as Lovejoy came out, lodged five balls in his body.

We shall not, after what has already been quoted from peace men among abolitionists, dwell on the mistake of Lovejoy and his associates, in taking the rifle to defend their property, or vindicate any of their rights. We have no sympathy with those who applaud our revolutionary war, and insist on the lawfulness of violence unto death, in any case, yet, with a strange inconsistency, condemn the fallen Lovejoy. If the heroes of our revolution were right, Lovejoy was right; for he merely applied their principles to his own case. We believe he acted contrary to the gospel; but human laws justify mortal violence in such a case. In the view of our own laws, he was right, and wrong only on the principles of that gospel, which forbids our returning evil for evil.

We are concerned with this book only in its incidental bearing on our cause; but from the preface of ex-president Adams, we give the following pertinent extract, which we commend to the special attention of those, who are so much engrossed with the evils of slavery, as to forget, and withhold their coöperation from efforts to remove the far greater evils of war:

"Government, whether civil, ecclesiastical, or military, is not the only nor the most pernicious agent of tyranny and oppression. The laws of war, and the institutions of domestic slavery, have been far more effective instruments for converting the bounties of the Creator to the race of man into a curse, than all the tyrannies of emperors and kings that ever existed upon earth. War is

a perpetual violation of the right of human beings to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and slavery is no more than the base-born progeny of war. The Christian system of morals, as delivered by its Founder, prohibits war, not in direct, but in implied, unqualified terms. This prohibition has not yet had its full development among the nations which profess the Christian faith. They receive the law, and acknowledge its obligations, without yielding obedience to its precepts. But the Christian nations, in their practice among themselves, have, in many important respects, mitigated, and in others, wholly abolished the most cruel usages and established laws of ancient war, among which hereditary slavery was by far the most oppressive. In the wars of Christian nations between themselves, it has long since been totally abolished. The Mahometan and heathen nations still continue to make slaves of their prisoners of war, and Christians, after discarding for ever the practice of enslaving one another, have but recently begun to reflect upon the necessary consequence in the reasoning of moral principle, that the same precept which forbids them from holding as a slave their Christian brother, equally interdicts them from defiling themselves with the pollution of heathen or Mahometan bondage.

"The first cries of conscience against the engraftment of African slavery upon the Christian communities of the European colonies in America, were heard precisely at the time when the contest of liberty began between Great Britain and her own colonists in North America. They were raised by Anthony Benezet, a native of France, who had become an inhabitant of Pennsylvania. From him they passed to Granville Sharpe, in England. The labors of these two humble, obscure, powerless Christian philanthropists, first awakened the civilized world to the atrocious immorality of slavery and the slave trade. Little less than a century has elapsed since this struggle of right against oppression commenced, and it has resulted in a conventional agreement of all the Christian nations, identifying the African slave trade with the crime of piracy.” If public opinion on such subjects has been so speedily changed to so great an extent, is it not possible to effect, ere-long, such a change in regard to war as shall soon banish it from every Christian land?

Receipts from June 15 to July 15, 1838, for the American Peace Society.
Braintree and Weymouth, Union Society, by Rev. Jonas Perkins,.
East Abington, subscription, by hand of Rev. L. Alden,.

$27 00

28.50

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Spencer, Amos Brown, balance to constitute Rev. Levi Packard a life-member,..

3.00

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Brooklyn, Conn., subscription to constitute Rev. Geo. Tillotson a life-member,.. 23 50 New Britain, Conn., S. A. Tracy, for Advocate,....

150

Pomfret, Conn., sundry individuals,.

5 00

West Killingly, Conn., subscription to constitute Rev. Roswell Whitmore a lifemember,....

27 00

Windham Co., Conn., Peace Society, Dr. Wm. Hutchins, Treasurer......................

20.00

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