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Madison on War
A nationalist is someone who not only overlooks atrocities committed by his own side. He has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them. — George Orwell
Of all the enemies of true liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other.
War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes. And armies, debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.
In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended. War is in fact the true nurse of executive aggrandizement. War requires a physical force is to be created and it is the executive will which is to direct that force. Its influence in dealing out offices, honors and compensations is multiplied, and all the means of seducing the minds are added to those of subduing the force of the people.
The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manner and of morals engendered in both.
No nation can preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.
The strongest passions and most dangerous weaknesses of the human breast ambition, avarice, vanity, the honorable or venal love of fame are all in conspiracy against the desire and duty of peace.
James Madison, excerpted from “Political Observations”
April 20, 1795 in Letters and Other Writings of James Madison, Volume IV, page 491.
