Prize essays on a Congress of nations Volume 3; for the adjustment of international disputes, and for the promotion of universal peace without resort ... the substance of the rejected essays
(This historic book may have numerous typos and missing te...)
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1840 Excerpt: ...fortresses are maintained, immense armies are kept on foot, and numerous fleets are supported even in time of peace, merely because such fleets, armies and navies are maintained by the surrounding nations. It seems to be an established maxim, whether a just one or not we will not here undertake to say, that no nation in Europe can greatly reduce its military establishment without incurring danger from other nations. The excessive expense, therefore, attending these establishments must be perpetually incurred, and the people be burdened and distressed by taxation, unless the nations in the neighborhood of each other can be brought into the measure of a simultaneous reduction. But this measure, which so nearly concerns all civilized nations, both the governments and the people, is very difficult to be effected. No nation is willing to take the first step in any considerable reduction of military force, without a full assurance that the surrounding nations will take the same step; and such an assurance seems necessarily to imply a meeting of the nations concerned, and a mutual consultation. It was probably in consequence of his conviction of the embarrassments and miseries attending large military establishments, that Henry IV of France, proposed, about the year 1610, the plan which has already been spoken of, for preventing the recurrence of wars in Europe. His plan was to constitute, by means of an European congress, a sort of pacific and confederated European commonwealth. He proposed that delegates should be appointed by the several European nations, and that these, when assembled together, should act as a court of inquiry and arbitration in any controversies, that might from time to time arise among the states by whom they were commissioned. If this wise ...
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