The Pacifists of the Fifties

Abstract

B Y THE eighteen-fifties the peace movement the United States, Britain, and France had ceased to be the province of religious enthusiasts and political cranks and had become a movement which exercised considerable influence upon political events. It left its mark not merely the columns of the press but also upon the minds of statesmen. It is proposed to examine briefly the main outlines of the British side of this peace movement; but no exhaustive treatment has been attempted. Attention is drawn to some new material. But the main object of this essay is to show the relationship between events which, though well known, have not hitherto been associated, and to put into their European contexts certain movements and trends of thought which have so far been treated a somewhat isolated fashion. The early peace plans of Henri IV and Sully, of William Penn and the Abbe de Saint-Pierre, of Rousseau and Kant, created a certain stir their day and have been quoted respectfully ever since. But they led to no peace movement and cannot be said to have materially aided the cause of peace. It was the warweariness of 1815 that first turned men's thoughts seriously to the problem of how to avoid war the future. To the mystical mind of Tsar Alexander, a religious solution presented itself. The monarchs of Europe were to enter into a brotherly bond; and in order to assure to this bond the solidarity which the grandeur and the purity of the aim to which it tends imperiously demands, we have thought it should be founded on the sacred principles of the Christian religion.1 The more practical minds of Metternich and Castlereagh suggested a more practical solu-