THE PEACE MANUAL: OR, WAR AND ITS REMEDIES. BY GEO. C. BECKWITH. BOSTON: AMERICAN PEACE SOCIETY. 1847. THIS little work is designed to furnish the most important facts, arguments and explanations, on the main topics embraced in the cause of peace. I hope it will suffice for the satisfaction of most minds; and those who wish for something fuller or more thorough, can resort to the larger publications on Peace by the American Peace Society, such as its Prize Essays on a Congress of Nations, a splendid octavo of more than 700 pages, and its Book of Peace, containing in smaller compass still more matter from some of the ablest pens that ever wrote, and altogether the best thesaurus or encyclopedia of information on Peace that can be found in the English or any other language. I flatter myself that nearly every position taken in these pages, will secure the concurrence of all fair minds. I have sought with special care to present those aspects of the subject which I think best fitted to awaken a practical interest in the cause I plead, and to unite all good men in efforts for the abolition of war. For extracts from others, due credit is given, but none of course for anything taken from my own writings. The cause of peace aims solely to do away the custom of international war; and I trust there will be found in this book nothing that does not bear on this object, nor anything that interferes with the legitimate authority of government. As a friend of peace, I am of course a supporter of civil government, with all the powers requisite for the condign punishment of wrong-doers, the enforcement of law, and the preservation of social order. I deem government, in spite of its worst abuses, an ordinance of God for the good of mankind; nor can I, as a peace man, hold any doctrines incompatible in my view with its just and necessary powers over its own subjects. I condemn only THE GREAT DUEL OF NATIONS. G. C. B. 769782 |