rity to those of prime importance; and that, in this greater security to unalienable rights, the individuals receive an equiv alent for what they surrender. Hence, if the unalienable rights of individuals are infringed, by those who are elected to govern, the compact is violated, the design of government is subverted, and tyranny is exercised.

In view of these principles, on which our government was professedly established, I may ask, How can any individal be compelled to take the place of a slave either on board a ship of war, or in the ranks of an army? What equivalent

he receive for the loss of personal liberty and all the essential rights of man? Can six or eight dollars a month be regarded as a compensation for such an outrage on personal liberty? Shall the rulers of a free people be regarded as having power to make war whenever they please, and of compelling their constituents to leave their families and all they hold dear on earth, and to expose their morals, their health, their happiness and their lives in a war with their brethren of another country? If so, in what does our freedom consist? And what better is the condition of those who are the victims of conscription for having their lot cast in the United States-in a land of boasted liberty and equal rights? If a man must be a conscript and deprived of personal liberty, without any crime on his own part, why may he not as well be the conscript of one despotism as another? Military conscription is military despotism, by whatever name a government may be called which assumes the power.

If any one of our rulers regard it as a light thing thus to oppress and strip a citizen of every vestige of a freeman, let him imagine himself to have become the victim of this despotic policy, compelled into the ranks of an army and subjected to the caprice or cruelty of men accustomed to the exercise of a relentless tyranny; then say, whether he would not abhor a government which could thus trample on his unalienable rights? Let him also consider, whether, by encouraging such encroachments on personal and unalienable rights, he is not probably manufacturing chains for some of his own posterity?

Can it be reasonably pretended, that the government of a

free people, have a right to deprive one portion of the citi zens of personal liberty, and to employ them as machines for the protection of the other? If they may thus deprive a small number, they may a greater, and subject the whole country to martial laws and a military despotism, under the pretext of supporting republican institutions. Let it be understood, and remembered, and laid suitably to heart, by all who value republican liberty, that the more they encourage a spirit of war, the more they encourage a spirit of military despotism-the the greater must be the number of our citizens who shall be deprived of personal liberty and the unalienable rights of freemen, and the more speedy and inevitable will be the overthrow or subversion of our republican government.

Every intelligent citizen would shudder at the thought of having the whole population of our country subjected to martial laws and the caprice of military despots. On what rational principle then do we consent that any portion of our citizens should be thus deprived of their rights? The laws for our army and navy are very different from those by which freemen are governed. Our soldiers and our seamen are exposed to a penal code and to punishments which are perfectly incompatible with the dignity of freemen, and of any other men, except the most abandoned convicts. Not only so, like convicts, they are excluded from any voice in our elections; and what is still worse, they are denied the privilege of trial by jury-a privilege which the freemen of our country esteem as sacred. Yet these unfortunate soldiers and seamen are liable to the most barbarous punishments, and even to have their lives taken, without being allowed this inestimable privilegean impartial trial by jury. Indeed they are treated as an order of beings entirely distinct from free citizens; and they are as perfectly under the control of others as the enslaved blacks of the southern states.

Is it not then time for us as a people to awake, and to exercise some care, lest the number of such victims should be increased by encouraging the spirit of war? Is not our country already sufficiently disgraced and endangered by the number of its slaves? Is not a million and a half of human

beings a sufficient number to be held as slaves under an elective government and in a land of liberty and equal rights?

What class of men on earth have more cause to complain of a violation of personal rights than those who are seduced or compelled to serve in regular armies or in ships of war? If these unfortunate beings in every country should become truly convinced of their rights as men, of their just claim to liberty, and of the horrible and antichristian character of their employment; with what pathos and energy might they reply to the flattering war speeches, by which they are called on by their respective rulers and officers to fight for liberty and independence :

"You talk to us of fighting for liberty and independence; but what share have we in these blessings? By whatever name the form of government established in our country may be called, we are in the condition of slaves, the subjects of a military despotism. In respect to personal liberty and the rights of freemen, we enjoy them not, any more than the convicts in a state prison; and our uniform, like theirs, is not the badge of freedom but of servitude. Our condition has exposed us to form vicious habits and to commit many crimes. In some enormous vices we have been indulged with impunity but in other cases, for the slightest deviations, and even for unintended offences, we are exposed to the most cruel and degrading punishments-either by the inhumanity of martial laws, or the caprice and vindictive passions of unfeeling and tyranical

masters.

"You also talk to us of wrongs done by the rulers of another nation, and call on us to revenge them, by destroying their innocent subjects, or those of our brethren who have been deprived of their rights as we have of ours. But by reflecting on the nature of our past employment-on our degraded condition on the injustice we have experienced in being depriv ed of our rights as men, and on the unreasonableness of exposing our own lives to kill men who have done us no harm, and who are slaves as well as ourselves; we have lost all disposition to employ our arms any more in multiplying the mis'cries of mankind.

"We now appeal to the consciences of our rulers and offi.

cers and ask-Have we not far more cause of complaint against those who have deprived us of personal liberty, than a gainst any other men on earth? If it would be wicked to employ our arms against those who have done us this great injury, can it be right to employ them for the destruction of those who have never injured us at all, and who probably have no wish to injure us but what has been excited by their misguided or wicked rulers? We are fully convinced that if rulers were honest and peaceable men, they might settle their controversies without this wanton waste of human life. We are -willing to treat our rulers with proper respect, and we wish them no harm; but we are determined never more to stain our hands with innocent blood, either to revenge the alleged wrongs of the rulers of another nation, or to gratify the ambition of our own government. Let rulers but act the part of kind fathers towards their subjects, and they will not need a military guard to protect them against their children. Let the rulers of different nations treat each other, and the subjects of each other, as brethren; then they may dismiss their armies and beat their swords into ploughshares. Let them be what they ought to be; then, like other good and peaceable men, they can settle their disputes without recourse to war, murder and deyaṣtation. Here are our arms, take them and make them into ploughshares !"

CONSCRIPTION COMPARED WITH THE RIGHT OF " ACQUIRING PROPERTY."

IT has already been observed that the right of “acquiring property" is declared to be unalienable by our republican constitutions. In the exercise of this right every freeman has a voice in regard to the compensation he shall receive for any services he may be requested to perform. If rulers or private citizens desire the service of a freeman in any particular employment, he has a right to state his price, and they have a right to say whether they will give it or not: or they may - propose terms, and he has a right to say whether he will accept them or not. As he cannot compel them to comply with

his terms, they have no right to compel him to a compliance with theirs, and every instance of such compulsion is an inva. sion of liberty and the right of acquiring property.

If a proposed service be attended with great hardships, or great dangers as to life or health, the freeman has a right to be his own judge of these hardships and dangers, and to take into view the disadvantages which may probably result to himself or his family, by engaging in the service requested-and then to state his terms, or decline the service altogether, according to his own views of duty. For a freeman is not a slave.

One man can leave his business and his family with far less injury or disadvantage than another; and on the principles of justice and liberty, each has a right to demand a compensa tion which will balance the probable disadvantages it will be to him to change his situation in compliance with the request of

others.

On the supposition therefore that war is a lawful business, still, as it is attended with peculiar dangers and hardships, no freeman can reasonably be compelled to engage in it, nor be expected to engage without a satisfactory compensation.

The hardships and perils are not usually greater on the part of officers in an army, than on the part of soldiers; and while the great body of our citizens shall regard war as a lawful` calling, there can be no occasion for conscription.-If our rulers will offer a compensation for privates equal to the pay of a general, a colonel, or even a captain, they can obtain soldiers by contract.

Shall it then be supposed that the rulers of a free people have a right to create public dangers at pleasure by waging war, and then compel their constituents by the point of the bayonet to enter the ranks of an army in the condition of slaves, without the right of contracting for a compensation for their services? If this be the case with our citizens, what is the great difference between a free government and absolute despotism? -or between liberty and slavery?

On any plan of conscription which has been either practised or proposed, some men are liable to be compelled into the condition of military slaves, who are much more useful members of society, and more needed at home, than many of those