h through a long
series of years led to the war. It may seem at first far-fetched to go
back to 1651 for the origins of the War of 1812; but without such
preliminary consideration it is impossible to understand, or to make
due allowance for, the course of Great Britain. It will be found,
however, that the treatment of the earlier period is brief, and only
sufficient for a clear comprehension of the five years of intense
international strain preceding the final rupture; years the full
narrative of which is indispensable to appreciating the grounds and
development of the quarrel,--to realize what they fought each other
for.

That much of Great Britain's action was unjustifiable, and at times
even monstrous, regarded in itself alone, must be admitted; but we
shall ill comprehend the necessity of preparation for war, if we
neglect to note the pressure of emergency, of deadly peril, upon a
state, or if we fail to recognize that traditional habits of thought
constitute with nations, as with individuals, a compulsive moral force
which an opponent can control only by the display of adequate physical
power. Such to the British people was the conviction of their right
and need to compel the service of their native seamen, wherever found
on the high seas. The conclusion of the writer is, that at a very
early stage of the French Revolutionary Wars the United States should
have obeyed Washington's warnings to prepare for war, and to build a
navy; and that, thus prepared, instead of placing reliance upon a
system of commercial restrictions, war should have been declared not
later than 1807, when the news of Jena, and of Great Britain's refusal
to relinquish her practice of impressing from American ships, became
known almost coincidently. But this conclusion is perfectly compatible
with a recognition of the desperate character of the strife that Great
Britain was waging; that she could not disengage herself from it,
Napoleon being what he was; and that the methods which she pursued did
cause the Emperor's downfall, and her own deliverance, although they
were invasions of just rights, to which the United States should not
have submitted.

If war is always avoidable, consistently with due resistance to evil,
then war is always unjustifiable; but if it is possible that two
nations, or two political entities, like the North and South in the
American Civil War, find the question between them one which neither
can yield without sacrifici