The Guaranty of Dismemberment, when brought to the touchstone of the three essential conditions, is found wanting. Dismissing it as unsatisfactory, I come to that other guaranty where these conditions are all fulfilled, and we find security for Germany without offence to the just sentiments of France, and also a new safe-guard to civilization. Against the Guaranty of Dismemberment I oppose the Guaranty of Disarmament. By Disarmament I mean the razing of the French fortifications and the abolition of the standing army, except that minimum of force required for purposes of police. How completely this satisfies the conditions already named is obvious. For Germany there would be on the side of France absolute repose, so that Count Bismarck need not fear another invasion,—while France, saved from intolerable humiliation, would herself be free to profit by the new civilization.

Nor is this guaranty otherwise than practical in every respect, and the more it is examined the more will its inestimable advantage be apparent.

1. There is, first, its most obvious economy, which is so glaring, that, according to a familiar French expression, "it leaps into the eyes." Undertaking even briefly to set it forth, I seem to follow the proverb and "show the sun with a lantern." According to the "Almanach de Gotha," the appropriations for the army of France, during the year of peace before the war, were 588,852, 970 francs, [Footnote: Almanach de Gotha, 1870, p. 599.] or about one hundred and seventeen millions of dollars. Give up the Standing Army and this considerable sum disappears from the annual budget. But this retrenchment represents only partially the prodigious economy. Beyond the annual outlay is the loss to the nation by the change of producers into non-producers. Admitting that in France the average production of a soldier usefully employed would be only fifty dollars, and multiplying this small allowance by the numbers of the Standing Army, you have another amount to be piled upon the military appropriations. Is it too much to expect that this surpassing waste shall be stopped? Must the extravagance born of war, and nursed by long tradition, continue to drain the resources of the land? Where is reason? Where humanity? A decree abolishing the Standing Army would be better for the French people, and more productive, than the richest gold-mine discovered in every department of France. Nor can imagination picture the fruitful result. I speak now only in the light of economy. Relieved from intolerable burden, industry would lift itself to unimagined labors, and society be quickened anew.

2. Beyond this economy, winch need not be argued, is the positive advantage, if not necessity, of such change for France. I do not speak on general grounds applicable to all nations, but on grounds peculiar to France at the present moment. Emerging from a most destructive war, she will be subjected to enormous and unprecedented contributions of every kind. After satisfying Germany, she will find other obligations at home,—some pressing directly upon the nation, and others upon individuals. Beyond the outstanding pay of soldiers, requisitions for supplies, pensions for the wounded and the families of the dead, and other extraordinary liabilities accumulating as never before in the same time, there will be the duty of renewing that internal prosperity which has received such a shock; and here the work of restoration will be costly, whether to the nation or the individual. Revenue must be regained, roads and bridges repaired, markets supplied; nor can we omit the large and multitudinous losses from ravage of fields, seizure of stock, suspension of business, stoppage of manufactures, interference with agriculture, and the whole terrible drain of war by which the people are impoverished and disabled. If to the necessary appropriation and expenditure for all these things is superadded the annual tax of a Standing Army, and that other draft from the change of producers into non-producers, plainly here is a supplementary burden of crushing weight. Talk of the last feather breaking the back of the camel,— but never was camel loaded down as France.

3. Beyond even these considerations of economy and advantage I put the transcendent, priceless benefit of Disarmament in the assurance of peace. Disarmament substitutes the constable for the soldier, and reduces the Standing Army to a police. The argument assumes, first, the needlessness of a Standing Army, and, secondly, its evil influence. Both of these points were touched at an early day by the wise Chancellor of England, Sir Thomas More, when, in his practical and personal Introduction to "Utopia," he alludes to what he calls the "bad custom" of keeping many servants, and then says: "In France there is yet a more pestiferous sort of people; for the whole country is full of soldiers, that are still kept up in time of peace,—if such a state of a nation can be called a peace." Then, proceeding with his judgment, the Chancellor holds up what he calls those "pretended statesmen" whose maxim is that "it is necessary for the public safety to have a good body of veteran soldiers ever in readiness." And after saying that these pretended statesmen "sometimes seek occasion for making war, that they may train up their soldiers in the art of cutting throats," he adds, in words soon to be tested, "But France has learned, to its cost, how dangerous it is to feed such beasts." [Footnote: Utopia, tr. Burnet, (London, 1845,) Book I. pp. 29, 30.] It will be well, if France has learned this important lesson. The time has come to practise it.

All history is a vain word, and all experience is at fault, if large War Preparations, of which the Standing Army is the type, have not been constant provocatives of war. Pretended protectors against war, they have been real instigators to war. They have excited the evil against which they were to guard. The habit of wearing arms in private life exercised a kindred influence. So long as this habit continued, society was darkened by personal combat, street-fight, duel, and assassination. The Standing Army is to the nation what the sword was to the modern gentleman, the stiletto to the Italian, the knife to the Spaniard, the pistol to our slave-master,—furnishing, like these, the means of death; and its possessor is not slow to use it. In stating the operation of this system we are not left to inference. As France, according to Sir Thomas More, shows "how dangerous it is to feed such beasts," so does Prussia, in ever-memorable instance, which speaks now with more than ordinary authority, show precisely how the Standing Army may become the incentive to war. Frederick, the warrior king, is our witness. With honesty or impudence beyond parallel, he did not hesitate to record in his Memoirs, among the reasons for his war upon Maria Theresa, that, on coming to the throne, he found himself with "troops always ready to act." Voltaire, when called to revise the royal memoirs, erased this confession, but preserved a copy;[Footnote: Brougham, Lives of Men of Letters, (London and Glasgow, 1856,) p. 59,—Voltaire. See also Voltaire, _Memoires pour servir a la Vie de, ecrits par lui-meme, (edit/ 1784-89,) Tom. LXX. p. 279; also Frederic II., Histoire de mini Temps, OEuvres Posthumes, (Berlin, 1789,) Tom. I. Part. I. p. 78.] so that by his literary activity we have this kingly authority for the mischief from a Standing Army. How complete a weapon was that army may be learned from Lafayette, who, in a letter to Washington, in 1786, after a visit to the King, described it thus:—-

"Nothing can be compared to the beauty of the troops, to the discipline which reigns in all their ranks, to the simplicity of their movements, to the uniformity of their regiments….. All the situations which can be supposed in war, all the movements which these must necessitate, have been by constant habit so inculcated in their heads, that all these operations are done almost mechanically." [Footnote: Memoires, Tom. II. p. 133.]

Nothing better has been devised since the Macedonian phalanx or the Roman legion. With such a weapon ready to his hands, the King struck Maria Theresa. And think you that the present duel between France and Germany could have been waged, had not both nations found themselves, like Frederick of Prussia, with "troops always ready to act"? It was the possession of these troops which made the two parties rush so swiftly to the combat. Is not the lesson perfect? Already individuals have disarmed. Civilization requires that nations shall do likewise.

Thus is Disarmament enforced on three several grounds: first, economy; secondly, positive advantage, if not necessity, for France; and, thirdly, assurance of peace. No other guaranty promises so much. Does any other guaranty promise anything beyond the accident of force? Nor would France be alone. Dismissing to the arts of peace the large army victorious over Slavery, our Republic has shown how disarmament can be accomplished. The example of France, so entirely reasonable, so profitable, so pacific, and so harmonious with ours, would spread. Conquering Germany could not resist its influence. Nations are taught by example more than by precept, and either is better than force. Other nations would follow; nor would Russia, elevated by her great act of Enfranchisement, fail to seize her sublime opportunity. Popular rights, which are strongest always in assured peace, would have new triumphs. Instead of Trial by Battle for the decision of differences between nations, there would be peaceful substitutes, as Arbitration, or, it may be, a Congress of Nations, and the United States of Europe would appear above the subsiding waters. The old juggle of Balance of Power, which has rested like a nightmare on Europe, would disappear, like that other less bloody fiction of Balance of Trade, and nations, like individuals, would all be equal before the law. Here our own country furnishes an illustration. So long as slavery prevailed among us, there was an attempt to preserve what was designated balance of power between the North and South, pivoting on Slavery,—just as in Europe there has been an attempt to preserve balance of power among nations pivoting on War. Too tardily is it seen that this famous balance, which has played such a part at home and abroad, is but an artificial contrivance instituted by power, which must give place to a simple accord derived from the natural condition of things. Why should not the harmony which has begun at home be extended abroad? Practicable and beneficent here, it must be the same there. Then would nations exist without perpetual and reciprocal watchfulness. But the first step is to discard the wasteful, oppressive, and pernicious provocative to war, which is yet maintained at such terrible cost. To-day this glorious advance is presented to France and Germany.