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. We are now in the wrong. We must do all in our power 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_.[211] [211] Tacitus, Agricola, c. 30.