capital punishment to be retained as a means of preserving an
incalculably greater number of lives than it sacrifices. On these grounds,
though in opposition to early and strong conviction, we are constrained to
express the belief that, in our time and country, the capital punishment
of the murderer is needed for the security of the public, and is justified
as a life-saving measure.

In *enforced military service*, also, legal authority exposes the lives of
a portion of the citizens for the security of the greater number. It is an
unquestionable truth that, in its moral affinities, war is generated by
evil, is allied to numberless forms of evil, and has a countless progeny
of evil. But it is equally true that war will recur at not unfrequent
intervals, so long as the moral evils from which it springs remain
unreformed. Such are the complications of international affairs, that the
most righteous and pacific policy may not always shield a people from
hostile aggressions; while insurrection, sedition, and civil war may
result not only from governmental oppression, but from the most salutary
measures of reform and progress. In such cases, self-defence on the part
of the nation or the government assailed, is a right and an obligation,
due even in the interest of human life, and still more, in behalf of
interests more precious than life. Moreover, even in a war of unprovoked
aggression, the aggressive nation does not forfeit the right of
self-defence by the unprincipled ambition of its rulers, and, war once
declared, its vigorous pursuit may be the only mode of averting disaster
or ruin. Thus war, though always involving atrocious wrong on the part of
its promoters and abettors, becomes to the nations involved in it a
necessity for which they are compelled to provide.

This provision may, in some cases, be made by voluntary enlistment; but in
most civilized countries, it has been found necessary to fill and recruit
the army by conscription, thus forcibly endangering the lives of a portion
of the citizens, in order to avert from the soil and the homes of the
people at large the worse calamities of invasion, devastation, and
conquest. So far as this is necessary, it is undoubtedly right, and the
lives thus sacrificed are justly due to the safety and well-being of the
whole people. But in making this admission, we would say, without
abatement or qualification, that war is essentially inhuman, barbarous,
and opposed to and by th