which can be earned in scenes of human strife. But if it be right to persevere in defence, it must be wrong to persevere in offence. If the Mexicans are right in defending their homes, we certainly are wrong in invading them.

The present war is offensive in essence. As such it loses all shadow of title to support. The acts of courage and hardihood which in a just cause might excite regard, when performed in an unrighteous cause, have no quality that can commend them to virtuous sympathy. The victories of aggression and injustice are a grief and shame. Blood wrongfully shed cries from the ground drenched with the fraternal tide.

The enormous expenditures lavished upon this war, now extending to fifty millions of dollars, we have been told recently on the floor of the Senate that they were near one hundred millions, are another reason for its cessation. The soul sickens at the contemplation of this incalculable sum diverted from purposes of usefulness and beneficence, from railroads, colleges, hospitals, schools, and churches, under whose genial influences the country would blossom as a rose, and desecrated to the wicked purposes of unjust war. In any righteous self-defence even these expenditures would be readily incurred. The saying of an early father of the Republic, which roused its enthusiasm to unwonted pitch, was, "Millions for Defence, not a cent for Tribute." Another sentiment more pertinent to our times would be, "Not a cent for OFFENCE."

And why is this war to be maintained? According to the jargon of the day, "to conquer a peace." But if we ask for peace in the spirit of peace, we must begin by doing justice to Mexico. We are the aggressors. are now in the wrong, We must do all in our power

We

to set ourselves right. This surely is not by brutal effort to conquer Mexico. Our military force is so far greater than hers, that even conquest must be without the wretched glory which men covet, while honor is impossible from successful adherence to original acts of wrong. "To conquer a peace" may have a sensible signification, when a nation is acting in self-defence; but it is base, unjust, and atrocious, when the war is of offence. Peace in such a war, if founded on conquest, must be the triumph of injustice, the consummation of wrong. It is unlike that true peace won by justice or forbearance. It cannot be sanctioned by the God of Christians. To the better divinities of heathenism it would be offensive. It is of such a peace that the Roman historian, whose pen is as keen as a sword's sharp point, says, "Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus, IMPERIUM; atque, ubi solitudinem faciunt, PACEM appellant": With lying names, they call spoliation, murder, and rapine, Empire; and when they have produced the desolation of solitude, they call it Peace.1

The present course of our country, I have said, is opposed to those principles which govern men in private life. Few, if any, of the conspicuous advocates for the maintenance of this war would hesitate, if found wrong in any private transaction, to retreat at once. With proper apology they would repair their error, while they recoiled from the very suspicion of perseverance. Such should be the conduct of the Nation; for it cannot be said too often, that the general rules of morals are the same for individuals and states. "A commonwealth," says Milton, "ought to be but as one huge Christian personage, one mighty growth and stature of an honest man, as big and 1 Tacitus, Agricola, c. 30.

compact in virtue as in body. For look what the grounds and causes are of single happiness to one man, the same ye shall find them to a whole state; by consequence, therefore, that which is good and agreeable to the state will appear soonest to be so by being good and agreeable to the true welfare of every Christian, and that which can be justly proved hurtful and offensive to every true Christian will be evinced to be alike hurtful to the state."1

I adopt the sentiments of Milton, and ask, Is not perseverance in wrong-doing hurtful and offensive to every Christian? Is not perseverance in wrong-doing hurtful and offensive to every Christian commonwealth? And is it not doubly so, when the opposite party is weak and the offender strong?

There are other considerations, arising from our fellowship with Mexico, which plead for her. She is our neighbor and sister republic, who caught her first impulse to independence from our example, rejecting the ensigns of royalty to follow simpler, purer forms. She has erred often, and suffered much, under the rule of selfish and bad men. But she is our neighbor and sister still, entitled to the rights of neighborhood and sisterhood. Many of her citizens are well known in our country, where they established relations of respect and amity. One of them, General Almonte, her recent minister at Washington, was a favored guest in the social circles of the capital. He is personally known to many who voted the supplies for this cruel war upon his country. The representative from Boston refers to him in terms of personal regard. Addressing any of these friends, how justly might this Mexican adopt the words of Franklin, in his remarkable letter to Mr. Strahan, of the British Parliament!

1 Of Reformation in England, Book II.: Prose Works, Vol. I. p. 29.

"PHILADELPHIA, 5 July, 1775.

"MR. STRAHAN, You are a member of Parliament, and one of that majority which doomed my country to destruction. You have begun to burn our towns and murder our people. Look upon your hands: they are stained with the blood of your relations! You and I were long friends: you are now my enemy, and I am yours,

"B. FRANKLIN.”
"1

The struggle in Mexico against the United States, and that of our fathers against England, have their points of resemblance. Prominent among these is the aggressive character of the proceedings, in the hope of crushing a weaker people. But the parallel fails as yet in an important particular. The injustice of England roused her most distinguished sons, in her own Parliament, to call for the cessation of the war. It inspired the eloquence of Chatham to those strains of undying fame. In the Senate of the United States there is a favorite son of Massachusetts, to whom has been accorded powers unsurpassed by those of any English orator. He has now before him. the cause of Chatham. His country is engaged in unrighteous war. Join now in asking him to raise his eloquent voice in behalf of justice, and of peace founded on justice; and may the spirit of Chatham descend upon him!

cause.

Let us call upon the whole country to rally in this And may a voice go forth from Faneuil Hall tonight, awakening fresh echoes throughout the valleys of New England, swelling as it proceeds, and gathering new reverberations in its ample volume,-traversing the whole land, and still receiving other voices, till it reaches our rulers at Washington, and, in tones of thunder, demands the cessation of this unjust war!

1 Works, ed. Sparks, Vol. VIII. p. 155.

WHITE SLAVERY IN THE BARBARY

STATES.

A LECTURE BEFORE THE BOSTON MERCANTILE LIBRARY ASSOCIATION, FEBRUARY 17, 1847.

Mutato nomine, de te

Fabula narratur.- HOR. Sat. I. i. 69, 70.

And thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest them which do such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God? Rom. ii. 3.

There are individuals in the United States who hold more of their fellow-creatures in slavery than either of the Barbary Powers.— HUMPHREYS, Valedictory Discourse before the Cincinnati of Connecticut, p. 34.