First Unitarian Society of Minneapolis

Rev. Kendyl Gibbons
First Unitarian Society of Minneapolis
October 17, 2004

In all circumstances, at all times, war is to be deprecated. The evil passions which it excites, its ravages, its bloody conflicts, the distress and terror which it carries into domestic life, the tears which it draws from the widow and fatherless, all render war a tremendous scourge.

There are indeed conditions in which war is justifiable, is necessary. It may be the last and only method of repelling lawless ambition, and of defending invaded liberty and essential rights. In these cases we must not shrink from war; though even in these we should deeply lament the necessity of shedding human blood. In such wars our country claims and deserves our prayers, our cheerful services, the sacrifice of wealth and even of life. In such wars, we have one consolation, when our friends fall on the field of battle; we know that they have fallen in a just cause. Such conflicts, which our hearts and consciences approve, are suited to call forth generous sentiments, to breath patriotism and fortitude through a community. Could I view the war in which we are engaged in this light, with what different feelings, my friends, should I address you! But, in our present state, what can I say to you? I would, but I cannot address you in the language of encouragement. We are precipitated into a war, which, I think, cannot be justified, and a war which promises not a benefit that I can discover, to this country or the world.

A solemn question now offers itself. What conduct belongs to a good citizen in our present trying condition? To this subject I call your serious attention.

I am sensible that may whom I address consider themselves as called to oppose the measures of our present rulers. Let this opposition breathe nothing of insubordination, impatience of authority, or love of change. Government, though often perverted by ambition and other selfish passions, still holds a distinguished rank among those influences by which humanity has been rescued from barbarism, and conducted through the ruder stages of society to the habits of order, the diversified employments and dependencies, the refined and softened manners, the intellectual, moral, and religious improvements of the age in which we live.

Because I wish to guard you against that turbulent and discontented spirit, which precipitates free communities into an anarchy, and thus prepares them for chains, you will not consider me as asserting that all opposition to government, whatever be the occasion, or whatever the form, is to be branded as a crime. The citizen has rights as well as duties. Government is instituted for one and a single end, the benefit of the governed, the protection, peace and welfare of society; and when it is perverted to other objects, to purposes of avarice, ambition, or party spirit, we are authorized and even bound to make such opposition, as is suited to restore it to its proper end, to render it as pure as the imperfection of our nature and state will admit.

There have, indeed, been times, when sovereigns have demanded subjection as an inalienable right, and when the superstition of subjects has surrounded them with a mysterious sanctity, with a majesty approaching the divine. But these days have past. Under the robe of office, we, my hearers, have learned to see a man like ourselves. There is no such sacredness in rulers, as forbids scrutiny into their motives, or condemnation of their measures. In leaving the common walks of life, they leave none of their imperfections behind them. Power has even a tendency to corrupt, to feed an irregular ambition, to harden the heart against the claims and sufferings of humankind. Rulers are not to be viewed with a malignant jealousy; but they ought to be inspected with a watchful, undazzled eye. Their virtues and services are to be rewarded with generous praise; and their crimes, and arts, and usurpations, should be exposed with a fearless sincerity to the indignation of an injured people. We are not to be factitious, and neither are we to be servile. With a sincere disposition to obey, should be united a firm purpose not to be oppressed.

It becomes us to rejoice, my friends, that we live under a constitution, one great design of which is, to prevent the necessity of appealing to force, to give the people an opportunity of removing, without violence, those rulers from whom they suffer or apprehend an invasion of rights. This is one of the principal advantages of a republic over an absolute government. In a despotism, there is no remedy for oppression but force. The subject cannot influence public affairs, but by convulsing the state. With us, rulers may be changed, without the horrors of a revolution. A republican government secures to its subjects this immense privilege, by confirming to them two most important rights - the right of suffrage, and the right of discussing with freedom the conduct of rulers. The value of these rights in affording a peaceful method of redressing public grievances, cannot be expressed, and the duty of maintaining them, of never surrendering them, cannot be too strongly urged. Resign either of these, and not way of escape from oppression will be left you, but civil commotion.

From the important place which these rights hold in a republican government, you should consider yourselves bound to support every citizen in the lawful exercise of them, especially when an attempt is made to wrest them from any by violent means. At the present time, it is particularly your duty to guard, with jealousy, the right of expressing with freedom your honest convictions respecting the measures of your rulers. Without this, the right of election is not worth possessing. If public abuses may not be exposed, their authors will never be driven from power. Freedom of opinion, of speech, and of the press, is our most valuable privilege, and very soul of republican institutions, the safeguard of all other rights. We may learn its value if we reflect that there is nothing which tyrants so much dread. They anxiously fetter the press; they scatter spies through society, that the murmurs, anguish and indignation of their oppressed subjects may be smothered in their own breasts; that no generous sentiment may be nourished by sympathy and mutual confidence. Nothing awakens and improves people so much as free communication of thoughts and feelings. Nothing can give to public sentiment that correctness which is essential to the prosperity of a Commonwealth but the free circulation of truth, from the lips and pens of the wise and good. If such people abandon the right of free discussion, if, awed by threats, they suppress their convictions; if rulers succeed in silencing every voice but that which approves them; if nothing reaches the people but what will lend support to those in power - farewell to liberty. The form of a free government may remain, but the life, the soul, the substance, is fled.

If these remarks be just, nothing ought to excite greater indignation and alarm than the attempts which have lately been made, to destroy the freedom of the press. We have lived to hear the strange doctrine, that to expose the measures of rulers is treason; and we have lived to see this doctrine carried into practice. We have seen a savage populace excited and let loose on men whose crime consisted in bearing testimony against the present war; and let loose, not merely to waste their property, but to tear them from the refuge which the magistrate has afforded, and to shed their blood. In this, and in other events, there have been symptoms of a purpose to terrify into silence those who disapprove the calamitous war under which we suffer; to deprive us of the only method which is left, of obtaining a wiser and better government. The cry has been that war is declared, and all opposition should therefore be hushed. A sentiment more unworthy of a free country can hardly be propagated. If this doctrine be admitted, rulers have only to declare war, and they are screened at once from scrutiny. At the very time when they have armies at command, when their patronage is most extended and their power most formidable, not a word of warning, of censure, of alarm must be heard. The press, which is to expose inferior abuses, must not utter one rebuke, one indignant complaint, although our best interests and most valuable rights are put to hazard, by an unnecessary war! Admit this doctrine, let rulers once know that, by placing the country in a state of war, they place themselves beyond the only power they dread, the power of free discussion, and we may expect war without end. Our peace and all our interests require, that a different sentiment should prevail. We should teach our present and all future rulers, that there is no measure for which they must render so solemn an account to their constituents, as for a declaration of war; that no measure will be so freely, so fully discussed; and that no administration can succeed in persuading this people to exhaust their treasure and blood in supporting war, unless it be palpably necessary and just. In war, then, as in peace, assert the freedom of speech and of the press. Cling to this as the bulwark of all your rights and privileges.

But, my friends, I should not be faithful, were I only to call you to fast this freedom. I would still more earnestly exhort you not to abuse it. Its abuse may be as fatal to our country as its relinquishment. If it be undirected, unrestrained by principle, the press instead of enlightening, depraves the public mind, and by its licentiousness, forges chains for itself and for the community. The right of free discussion is not the right of uttering what we please. Let nothing be spoken or written but truth. The influence of the press is exceedingly diminished by its gross and frequent misrepresentations. Each party listens with distrust to the statements of the other; and the consequence is, that the progress of truth is slow, and sometimes wholly obstructed. Whilst we encourage the free expression of opinion, let us unite in fixing the brand of infamy on falsehood and slander, wherever they originate, whatever be the cause they are designed to maintain.

But it is not enough that truth be told. It should be told for a good end; not to irritate, but to convince; not to inflame the bad passions, but to sway the judgment and to awaken sentiments of patriotism. Unhappily the press seems now to be chiefly prized as an instrument of exasperation. Those who have embraced error, are hardened in their principles by the reproachful epithets heaped on them by their adversaries. I do not mean by this, that political discussion is to be conducted tamely, that no sensibility is to be expressed, no indignation poured forth on wicked men and wicked deeds. But this I mean - that we shall deliberately inquire, whether indignation be deserved, before we express it; and the object of expressing it should ever be, not to infuse ill will, rancor and fury into the minds of people, but to excite an enlightened and conscientious opposition to injurious measures.

Every good heart must mourn that so much is continuously published among us, for no other apparent end than to gratify the malevolence of one party, by wounding the feelings of the opposite. The consequence is, that an alarming degree of irritation exists in our country. Fellow-citizens burn with mutual hatred, and some are evidently ripe for outrage and violence. In this feverish state of the public mind, we are not to relinquish free discussion, but everyone should feel the duty of speaking and writing with deliberation. It is the time to be firm without passion. No menace should be employed to provoke opponents, no defiance hurled, no language used which will in any measure justify the ferocious in appealing to force.

The sum of my remarks is this. It is your duty to hold fast and to assert with firmness those truths and principles on which the welfare of your country seems to depend; but do this with calmness, with a love of peace, without ill will and revenge. Use every opportunity of allaying animosities. Discourage, in decided and open language, that rancor, malignity, and unfeeling abuse, which so often find their way into our public prints. Remember that in proportion as a people become enslaved to their passions, they fall into the hands of the aspiring and unprincipled, and that a corrupt government, which has an interest in deceiving the people, can desire nothing more favorable to its purposes than a frenzied state of the public mind.

My friends, in this day of discord, let us cherish and breathe around us a benevolent spirit. Let us reserve to ourselves this consolation, that we have added no fuel to the flames, no violence to the storms which threaten to desolate our country. Though dishonored, though endangered, it is still our country. Let us not forsake it in this evil day. Let us hold fast the inheritance of our civil and religious liberties, which we have received from our forbears, sealed and hallowed by their blood. That these blessings may not be lost, let us labor to improve public sentiment, and to exalt individuals of wisdom and virtue to positions of power. Let it be our labor to establish in ourselves and in our fellow-citizens the empire of true religion; let us remember that there is no foundation of public liberty, but public virtue.

Let us not despair of our country. If all that we wish cannot be done for the state, still something may be done. In the good principles, in the love of order and liberty, by which so many of our citizens are distinguished, we have motives, encouragements, and solemn obligation to resolute, persevering exertion in our different spheres, and according to our different capacities, for the public good. Thus faithful to ourselves and our country, and using vigorously every righteous means for restoring peace and confirming freedom, we may confidently leave the issue to the wise and holy providence of Him who cannot err, and who, we are assured, will accept and reward every conscientious effort for his own glory and the good of humankind.

Introduction:

Unless your background in American military history is significantly more sophisticated than mine, you probably have a vague notion that the war of 1812 was a sort of footnote to the American Revolution, which had something to do with the impressment of sailors from US ships by the British navy. The truth is a lot shadier, and less of a credit to the newly independent nation.

In the election of 1810, the interior frontier states - those which had the least investment in international shipping and trade, and the greatest investment in westward expansion - elected a cadre of congressional candidates known as the "Warhawks". The Warhawks believed in the concept of Manifest Destiny, and wanted the United States to be free to expand along its western frontier. The fact that none of the Warhawks were from the seaboard states is inconsistent with the idea that the War of 1812 was ever really about Maritime law or events.

In 1811, William Henry Harrison attacked the Shawnee tribe of Native Americans in the Battle of Tippecanoe. On June 1, 1812 President Madison asked the United States Congress to declare war on the United Kingdom, explaining this act as a response to Britain's policies against American shipping . This justification was needed to convince the coastal states that the war was necessary and important. The frontier states needed no such justification; they were eager push the British out of Canada, and to stop them from supporting the Indian nations when their fighters resisted the takeover of their lands. Several days after Madison's message to Congress, the Senate voted for war, 19 to 13, reflecting the fundamental unpopularity of the war, and widespread doubt of its validity.

What is not in most history books is the role that Native North Americans played in the war of 1812. Five of the seven major land battles were fought against primarily Native American forces in the interior of the continent. At the end of the war, the outcome was that Britain gave up its alliances with the Indian nations, in exchange for the US leaving Canada alone. Although it is commonly said that "no territory was won or lost", the War of 1812 signaled the end of Native North American-European alliances. The US could now settle the West, unafraid of European support and encouragement to the tribes. Although thousands of lives were lost in later US-Indian wars, the outcomes of these conflicts were never really in doubt.

As a prominent minister preaching in Boston's Federal Street Church, the famous Unitarian William Ellery Channing was among those politically sophisticated and well informed enough to be unpersuaded by the rationale offered for Madison's declaration of war. While orthodox ministers across the city were calling for god's protection and blessing on this military adventure, Channing addressed his congregation, many of whom were as dubious as he was himself, in words that are eerily prescient of our own situation today. Across almost two centuries, this father of our faith speaks of what citizens owe their country when they profoundly disagree with its leaders and their policies. On this Heritage Sunday, let us harken to the wisdom of our living tradition.