tr

492 CONCLUSION.

During the same period, too, France is stated to have sufferedfrom sixty-two thousand conflagrations, conspiracies, and insur-rections. Dr. Franklin was accustomed to say, “that he al-most believed there never had been a good war, or a bad peace.”Again, says he, “ At length we are in peace, God be praised,and long, very long, may it continue. All wars are follies, veryexpensive and very mischievous ones. When will mankind beconvinced of this, and agree to settle their differences by arbitra-tion ? Were they to do it, even by the cast of a die, it wouldbe better than by fighting and destroying each other.” Wash-ington says, “ It is time for the age of knight-errantry and madheroism to be at an end. Young military men, who want to reapthe harvest of laurels, care not, I suppose, how many seeds ofwar are sown ; but, for the sake of humanity, it is devoutly to bewished, that the manly employment of agriculture, and the human-izing benefits of commerce, would supersede the waste of war andthe rage of conquest; that the swords might be turned into plough-shares, the spears into pruning-hooks, and, as the Scripture ex-presses it, the nations learn war no more.”

The spirit and design of our institutions are essentially andpreeminently peaceful; as much so, perhaps, as the present con-dition of human nature, and of human affairs, can well permit.No sentiment has been more universal, from the establishment ofthe independence of the country, than that its essential interestconsists in cultivating amicable relations with all nations. Theentire American people have sanctioned this sentiment in themost emphatic of all ways, to wit, by declaring, on the face of themost elaborate, solemn, and authoritative instrument (the Con-stitution of the United States) which they have ever enacted,that its great objects are, “ to form a more perfect union, estab-lish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the commondefence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings ofliberty to themselves and their posterity.” Only one of theseobjects has any reference to war whatever, and that is limited towar in self-defence.

THE END.