ORATION II.

MY FRIENDS AND BROTHERS,

I TRUST We have, each and all, come to the reconsideration of this great question with the resolve to pursue the inquiry as calmly and candidly, and yet as earnestly, as we commenced it. And I warn you that your earnestness and candour will be put to the proof as we approach a conclusion. If I do not mistake, you will see that this inquiry, the further it is pushed, the more completely will it involve the whole subject of morals, the more vitally will it be seen to wind its influence around every relation of man to his fellow-man. Bear with me, then, if I call upon you, pointedly, to be determined to be honest with yourselves when you perceive the extremity in which a defence of the right to kill in selfdefence may place you; bear with me, if I entreat you not to suffer the very foundation of morals to be undermined within you-but to have the high courage, in spite of sneers and opprobrium, to maintain a severe truth, rather than let go your hold on the rules of right and wrong.

I hasten to meet another of the difficulties sent me by a friendly correspondent, namely-" Whether it does not, at once, show the evil of the non-resistance theory, if an invasion of our island by foreigners is supposed to take place at a period when its inhabitants have all resolved not to take life in self-defence?"

I must profess surprise, not at the fact of this question having been put to me in one quiet letter, but, that more

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than one of my brethren, the Chartist speakers, have put it to me with emphasis, at the meetings to which I referred in the first address. How often is a mere hypothesis set up with the belief that it entirely overthrows some position which is taken by another party; and yet when this hypothesis is considered but for a moment, it is seen that it supposes an impossibility; and, therefore, cannot be used to overthrow anything. An invasion of our island never will take place at a period when its inhabitants have all resolved not to take life in self-defence. When every Englishman has resolved never to fight more, every Frenchman will have taken the same resolution; every German, every American,—the inhabitants of every other nation as far advanced in civilization as ourselves, will have espoused the same great principle of brotherhood. Until that period arrives, preparations for hostility will be met by similar preparations; and this state of things must continue until the spirit of peace has overcome the spirit of war, and a system of arbitration, as the first great step in the new international civilization, be established. I do not trespass on the patience of my dissentient brethren, by pursuing my extreme theory,' as it is called, into the period of futurity, when the triumph of the principles of brotherhood may have rendered even boards of arbitration unnecessary. I only argue that this 'extreme theory' is the true theory of civilization, and that its principles, by virtue of their truth, must progress, until they issue in a beneficent triumph. But in order that they may progress, their practice must commence somewhere, and by some men. To repeat my two fundamental propositions, I argue-" That the most perfect idea we can form of civilization, is that of all mankind become a universal brotherhood, and in that state enjoying the fruits of nature, and the benefits of science; and that for this perfect civilization to be reached, the principles which, only, can create it, must be personally and individually exemplified in the lives of its advocates." And, again, I repeat a former question "How is offensive war to be

destroyed, unless you destroy the spirit which leads to it ?"

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But, an immediate invasion ?" say some- an invasion, suppose, by Russia or France ?" I might reply, that to suppose an invasion by Russia is a very idle supposition, and that to believe the mock-heroic threats of a party in France will ever be put into execution, is, I venture to say, nearly as idle; but, I answer directly, and without dread of censure, because I believe my position to be right, that it would be morally wrong for me or any other Englishman to take the life of any foreigner, making a part even of an invading army. I have just spoken of censure, but is it possible that I can be met, with even a murmur of disapprobation from you, my fellows and brothers of the working-class, who have so often lately proclaimed your resolution neither to form part of a militia, or to find substitutes? This would be the office of a militia, to withstand an invading army. If any of you object to my avowal of opinion, you ought to have considered a little more deeply ere you made your late resolve. I did not hear any of you say, in the late anti-militia meetings, that you would readily enter a volunteer corps to fight the French if they came; but I heard you say you had nothing to fight for, no privileges to conserve, and therefore you would not fight at all. You will remember I went with you, in your resolution, when the wording of my amendment was not carried, and I still am with you as far as you advance on the right path; but I humbly conceive there are higher reasons for which you ought to declare you would not take the life even of an invading foreigner: that you ought to consider every human being as your brother; that you ought not to commit an irreparable injury upon your brother in order to avoid one; that the life of your brother ought to be sacred in your estimation; that, as men who desire and pant for the removal of the bad civilization under which your order especially has suffered for ages, you ought to strive to bring

nearer the establishment of the universal brotherhood, by personally exemplifying its holy principles.

"But the cowardice-the slavish cowardice of meanly standing by to see our country invaded, and submitting to it! Is the speaker really a patriot who recommends this?"

Patience, my brother! Your position and mine, if we espouse the non-resistance principle here, would soon prove whether we were courageous or cowardly. Our declaration, beforehand, would scarcely leave us at liberty to stand by and see our country invaded. And our declaration would be made beforehand. We should not be likely to leave the rest of our countrymen in doubt as to the part we intended to take; and it is most likely, if there were only a few of us, the dungeon and the severest treatment would be our portion, for daring to say we would not fight. I speak of an immediate invasion: one that should take place, say, in a month, or a quarter of a year; that is to say, within so short a period as to throw up to the surface all the latent fever of the old war-spirit among the aristocracy, the clergy, the gentry, and the least civilized of the middle and working classes. No quarter would be given us under such circumstances: it would soon be proved whether we are cowards or not. I seek not to coax you who dissent, into the adoption of the maxim that it is wrong to shed human blood in self defence. I tell you the martyrspirit must be breathed, by all who give up the right to take away human life, under any circumstances.

But, in turn, let me appeal to the wisdom, the prudence, of all who thirst to see the false civilization of the world banished, and to behold its true civilization begun. This is not the period to expect an immediate invasion by any foreign foe: many men in England are resolving not to fight; societies for Peace are still more numerous in America; they are not unknown in France; the abolition of the Corn Laws, and the progress of Free Trade, will render the ascendancy of Peace principles probable, even for self-interest, among commercial nations.