Martyria Part 13

Scurvy and the vicious forms of zymotic disease, which depend upon starvation and vitiated atmosphere, raged unchecked. The medical care does not seem to have made any impression upon them, because of the limitations of their materia medica, and the want of attention and accommodations for the patients.

There does not seem to have been any sanitary regulations, nor the simplest hygienic precautions adopted by the prison authorities. No proper military arrangements to enforce order among the turbulent or insane, to protect the weak from the strong in the struggle for a morsel of bread, a bone, or a rag of clothing; no proper system of nurses to a.s.sist the feeble within the stockade or the hospital, and administer to their wants.

Filth was deposited everywhere, because the enfeebled and dying wretches had not sufficient strength to crawl down to the quagmire by the banks of the stream. In the midst of these horrible circ.u.mstances, men met their fate with singular calmness and stoicism. Nature strangely appears to conform and temper the asperities of fate to men and animals alike.

XXI.

It is often asked why the prisoners did not revolt, and with the mighty energy of despair wrench down the gates, and strangle with their hands the few thousand of rebel guards. To burst through the ma.s.sive timbers of the gates and the outer lines of palisades, and then force the encircling row of ramparts, which were bristling with troops and cannon, required something more than courage. This gigantic strength, this desperation of vigor, was not possible for the prisoners; for the food, and the external impressions--whether of the heat, cold, or horror--had too much impoverished the blood,--the blood, which imparts force to human volition.

XXII.

In the summing up of the condition to which life was exposed in this stockade, and reviewing the vicious influences at work, we may come to some definite conclusion as to the true causes of the results. It is evident from the comparisons and estimates of the dietary that the want of food alone was sufficient to cause a great number of deaths. It is also evident from the statements relative to ratio of density, to exposure, to deadly miasms, and exhalations from decomposing animal matter, that these conditions were alone sufficient to cause excessive mortality, even if the alimentation had been generous and proper.

This terrible mortality, without the influence of epidemics, is without parallel, and is without excuse, save on the principle that war is for mutual destruction, that the captor has the right of disposal, and that the captives must be put to death. The philanthropist may console himself with the idea that climate, with its unseen but powerful agencies, has been the author of the destruction of this army of men; but the surgeon and man of science will recognize the true causes, and express their opinion in but one word, and that word is MURDER: that it was deliberate destruction; but whether with the conscience of the Tartar, or with premeditated free-will, it matters little,--the result is the same.

BOOK SEVENTH.

"h.o.m.o sum; humani nihil a me alienum puto."--_Terence._

"Since no man has a natural right over his fellow-creature, and since force produces no right, conventions then remain as the base for all legitimate authority among men."--_Rousseau._

I.

"War," exclaims the author of the "Social Contract," "is not exactly a relation of man to man, but a relation of state to state, in which the individuals are enemies only by accident, and not as men, neither even as citizens, but as soldiers,--not exactly as members of the country, but as its defenders. In fine, every state can have as enemies only other states, and not men, on account of the interference of things of diverse natures, which cannot fix any true relation.

"This principle is even conformed to maxims established in all times, and to the constant practice of all civilized people. The declarations of war are more as warnings to the powers than to their subjects. The stranger--either king, or individual, or people--who seizes, kills, or detains the subjects, without declaring the war to the ruler, is not an enemy, he is a brigand.

"Even in open war, a just ruler seizes property in an enemy's country, all that which belongs to the public; but he respects the person and the property of the individual; he respects the rights upon which his own are founded.

"The intent of the war being the destruction of the hostile state, we have the right to kill the defenders so often as they have arms in their hands; but as soon as they lay them down, and surrender, ceasing to be enemies, or instruments of the enemy, they become again simply men, and we have no longer a right to their lives. Sometimes we may destroy a state without killing a single one of its members; but war does not confer any right which is not necessary to its end.

"These principles are not those of Grotius: they are not founded upon the authorities of poets: but they are derived from the nature of things, and are founded upon reason. With regard to the right of conquest, it has no other foundation than the law of the most force. If war does not give to the conqueror the right to ma.s.sacre the vanquished people, that right, which he has not, does not establish that to enslave. We have no more right to kill an enemy than to make him a slave. The right to enslave does not then come from the right to kill. This is then an unjust exchange, to compel him to purchase life at the price of liberty, upon which we have no right.

"In establishing the right of life and death upon the right of slavery, and the right to enslave upon the right of life and death, is it not clear that we fall into a wicked circle?"

II.

Says Mirabeau, in his beautiful essay on "Despotism," "We can destroy the life of a man for a frightful crime; but that is not to appropriate my existence when it is forced from me. Consider, upon this subject, how absurd is the opinion of the pretended philosophers who have established force as t.i.tle; who have set up a right of conquest, and recognized to the conquerors the legitimate power to grant life or put to death.

"It is not true that the right of life and death, exercised by a man upon another man, has ever been anything else than an act of frenzy; for your enemy reduced to slavery can be yet useful to you, provided you preserve his life,--and this is less than the right that he has upon you, and the relation which binds you together; but the ma.s.sacre of a man is nothing more than to dishonor and disgust humanity, * * * the right of life and death, * * * and what other has the Creator to exercise over our existence?

"From man to man the rights then are always respective. Personal propriety cannot surrender itself, liberty cannot alienate itself. This first gift of nature is imprescriptible; and men, even in their delirium, cannot renounce it."

III.

"Opinion makes the law." If human laws are uncertain and contradictory, it is not the fault of nature, since man has invented or discovered rules in the science of physics which are constant and invariable, like those of geometry and chemistry.

Whatever renders the laws of society invariable, inoperative, is due to the inherent weakness of their basis, and not to the eternal principles of truth and justice. All human laws must be founded on that fundamental and immutable law of nature, "Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." This precept of divine origin is the great balance of the human mind; and it is the secret spring of the progress of nations, as well as the social development of individuals: for without this principle the world would be nothing but a vast arena, in which all cla.s.ses of people would be arrayed against each other in deadly conflict; impelled by the force of pa.s.sion and appet.i.te, error and prejudice would soon banish the influence of truth and reason. The weaker families would soon be consumed by the stronger in the wars of avarice and religion.

"The laws of nature," writes M. Regis, "are the dictates of right reason, which teach every man how he is to use his natural right; and the laws of nations are the dictates, in like manner, of right reason, which teach every state how to act and behave themselves toward others."

"As G.o.d," says Blackstone, "when he created matter, and endowed it with a principle of mobility, established certain rules for the perpetual direction of that motion, so when he created man, and endued him with free will to conduct himself in all parts of life, he laid down certain immutable laws of human nature whereby that free will is in some degree regulated and restrained, and gave him also the faculty of reason to discover the purport of those laws."

This law of nature being coeval with mankind, and dictated by G.o.d himself, is of course superior in obligation to any other. It is binding all over the globe, in all countries and at all times: no human laws are of any validity if contrary to this; and such of them as are valid, derive all their force and all their authority, mediately or immediately, from this original.

Human laws originate in the wisdom of man, and are designed to regulate their behavior to one another, and are enforced by human authority and worldly sanctions.

The fear of punishment and revenge are not strong enough to control the l.u.s.ts and pa.s.sions of men.

The true idea and comprehension of the majesty and mercy of the law is infused by the spirit of philosophy.

IV.

"The existence of states," says Montesquieu, "is like that of man, and the first have the right to make war for their proper preservation; the latter have the right to kill in the case of natural defence. In the case of natural defence I have the right to kill, since my life is my own, as the life of him who attacks me belongs to himself. * * * From the right of war follows that of conquest, which is the consequence: it ought then to follow the spirit. * * * It is clear when the conquest is made, the conqueror has no longer the right to kill, since he is no longer in the position of natural defence, or for his proper preservation.

"That which has made them think thus (right to kill), is that they have believed that the conqueror had the right to destroy society, whence they have concluded that they had that to destroy the men who composed it, which is a false consequence extracted from a false principle. Because the society should perish, it does not follow that the men who form it ought also to perish. Society is a union of men, and not men: the citizen can perish and the man remain. From the right to kill in conquest, politics have derived the right to enslave; but the consequence is as badly founded as the principle."

There are certain rules that arise from the principle of self-preservation, and form what Wolff calls "the voluntary law of nations." "Hence it follows that all nations have a right to repel by force what openly violates the law of the society which nature has established among them, or that directly attacks the welfare and safety of that society. At the same time care must be taken not to extend this law to the prejudice of the liberty of nations."

V.

The right of jurisdiction belongs only to those societies which have united for the purpose of maintaining the natural rights of each individual.

The ablest writers have maintained that society has not the right of life and death, and whoever arrogates that power commits a "divine _lese majeste_." "The object, the interest, and the function of all government are, then, to maintain the harmony of society established upon the moral relations of justice, and upon the physical order that no human power can change, and to protect all those who compose that society." Louis XI., that Tiberius of France, caused to be put to death more than four thousand persons, and nearly all without process of law.

We see pa.s.sionate men defending palpable errors with fanaticism and metaphysical temerity, as though they were divine dogmas. Thus Slavery would legalize frightful tyranny, and declare permanent proscriptions, with the same ease that it consigned thousands to starvation. "If liberty," says the author of the "Essai sur le Despotisme," "is the first of resorts for man, Slavery must alter all the sentiments, blunt all the sensations, and denaturalize them; stifle all talent, blend all shades, corrupt all the orders of state, and scatter discord, the germ of anarchy and revolutions. Man is only wicked when a superst.i.tious inst.i.tution or a tyrannical government gives the example of ferocity, and supplies him with fear for motive and cupidity for pa.s.sion. But it is necessary to distinguish with men the character acquired from natural inclination: we are, of all beings, the most susceptible of modifications, and above all, of extreme pa.s.sions. An enslaved people are always vile: they can be wicked and cruel, because they are irritable, gloomy, and ignorant; and when, although instruction will not be the only rampart of liberty against tyranny, it will always be the first safeguard of man against man; but the slave is a mutilated man."

Every writer will admit this whose pen is not enslaved by fear, or rendered venal by interest.

VI.

The right of making prisoners of war, and depriving them of their liberty, and of the power and opportunity of farther resistance, is undoubted, for it is founded on the principles of security and self-defence. But when the soldier has laid down his arms, and submitted to the will of the conqueror, the right of taking his life ceases, unless he should forfeit the right himself by some new crime; and the savage errors of antiquity, in putting prisoners to death, have long been renounced by civilized nations.

Among the European states prisoners of war are seldom ill-treated; and when the number of prisoners is so great as not to be fed, or kept with safety, it has been the custom to parole them, either for a certain length of time, or for the war. All authorities agree that they cannot be made slaves, although under certain circ.u.mstances they may be set at labor on the public fortifications and works.

Prisoners of war are retained to prevent their returning to the field of conflict, and there are times when they may be detained and refused all ransom, when, for instance, it is obvious that the parole will not be regarded by the opposing commanders, and when their exchange would throw a preponderance of weight into the ranks of the antagonist. It would have been very dangerous for the Czar Peter the Great to have exchanged his Swedish prisoners for an equal number of unequal Russians; but whilst retained they were treated with kindness.