It is true that the term _defensive_ is always applied to wars in our day. And it is creditable to the moral sense that nations are constrained to allege this seeming excuse, although its absurdity is apparent in the equal pretensions of the two belligerents, each claiming to act on the defensive. It is unreasonable to suppose that war can arise in the present age, under the sanctions of International Law, except to determine an _asserted right_. Whatever its character in periods of barbarism, or when invoked to repel an incursion of robbers or pirates, "enemies of the human race," war becomes in our day, _among all the nations parties to existing International Law_, simply a mode of litigation, or of deciding a _lis pendens_. It is a mere TRIAL OF RIGHT, an appeal for justice to force. The wars now lowering from Mexico and England are of this character. On the one side, we assert a _title_ to Texas, _which is disputed_; on the other, we assert a _title_ to Oregon, _which is disputed_. Only according to "martial logic," or the "flash language" of a dishonest patriotism, can the Ordeal by Battle be regarded in these causes, on either side, as _Defensive War_. Nor did the threatened war with France in 1834 promise to assume any different character. Its professed object was to obtain the payment of five million dollars,--in other words, to determine by this _Ultimate_ _Tribunal_ a simple question of justice. And going back still farther in our history, the avowed purpose of the war against Great Britain in 1812 was to obtain from the latter power an abandonment of the claim to search American vessels. Unrighteous as was this claim, it is plain that war here was invoked only as a _Trial of Right_. * * * * * It forms no part of my purpose to consider individual wars in the past, except so far as necessary by way of example. My aim is higher. I wish to expose an irrational, cruel, and impious _custom_, sanctioned by the Law of Nations. On this account I resort to that supreme law for the definition on which I plant myself in the effort I now make. After considering, in succession, _first_, the character of war, _secondly_, the miseries it produces, and, _thirdly_, its utter and pitiful insufficiency, as a mode of determining justice, we shall be able to decide, strictly and logically, whether it must not be ranked as crime, from which no true honor can spring to individuals or nations. To appreciate this evil, and the necessity for its overthrow, it will be our duty, _fourthly_, to consider in succession the various prejudices by which it is sustained, ending with that prejudice, so gigantic and all-embracing, at whose command uncounted sums are madly diverted from purposes of peace to preparations for war. The whole subject is infinitely practical, while the concluding division shows how the public treasury may be relieved, and new means secured for human advancement. I.