Cato
on the Evils of War and Standing Armies
by
Laurence
M. Vance
by Laurence M. Vance
 To
a classical historian, Cato refers to the Roman statesmen Cato
the Elder (234–139 B.C.) and Cato
the Younger (95–46 B.C.). To a fashion-conscious woman,
Cato is a chain of clothing
stores. To a beltway libertarian, Cato refers to the Cato
Institute in Washington DC. But to the American colonists, Cato
would have been a reference to the essays by John
Trenchard (1662–1723) and Thomas
Gordon (d. 1750) that condemned tyranny and corruption in government
while advancing the principles of liberty.
Cato’s
Letters is a collection of 144 essays by Trenchard and Gordon
that appeared in the London Journal and the British Journal
between 1720 and 1723. They were published together beginning in
1724 as Cato’s
Letters: Or Essays on Liberty, Civil and Religious, and Other Important
Subjects. The essays were signed with the pseudonym Cato,
after Cato the Younger, the foe of Julius Caesar and champion of
liberty and republican principles. Cato the Younger was the great-grandson
of Cato the Elder. His daughter married Brutus, one of the assassins
of Julius Caesar. Cato’s life was immortalized in the 1713 play,
Cato:
A Tragedy, by the English playwright and essayist Joseph
Addison (1672–1719).
Cato’s
Letters was not the first collaboration of Gordon and Trenchard.
They also wrote and published anonymously the London political weekly,
The
Independent Whig, in 1720. Previous to this, they authored
two pamphlets: The Character of an Independent Whig and Considerations
Offered upon the Approaching Peace and upon the Importance of Gibraltar
to the British Empire, being the Second Part of the "Independent
Whig," both published in 1719.
While
Cato’s Letters were still being published in London, they
began to be reprinted in the American colonies. Thirty-seven percent
of library and booksellers’ catalogs surveyed in the fifty years
preceding the American Revolution listed Cato’s Letters.
Trenchard and Gordon were among the ten most quoted individuals
during the period from 1760–1805. According to historian Clinton
Rossiter, Cato’s Letters were "the most popular, quotable,
esteemed source of political ideas in the colonial period."
Bernard Bailyn further notes that to the American colonists, Cato’s
Letters "ranked with the treatises of Locke as the most
authoritative statement of the nature of political liberty."
In
light of the current debacle in Iraq that the United States is engaged
in, our particular concern here is the statements in Cato’s Letters
relating to the evils of war and standing armies. Although Trenchard
and Gordon did not say much, they said a mouthful. Their equally
notable statements on liberty and property have already been examined
elsewhere.
Cato
on War
The
classic statement on the evils of war appears in Cato’s Letters
No. 87:
If we consider
this question under the head of justice and humanity, what can
be more detestable than to murder and destroy mankind, in order
to rob and pillage them? War is comprehensive of most, if not
all the mischiefs which do or ever can afflict men: It depopulates
nations, lays waste the finest countries, destroys arts, sciences,
and learning, butchers innocents, ruins the best men, and advances
the worst; effaces every trace of virtue, piety, and compassion,
and introduces confusion, anarchy, and all kinds of corruption
in publick affairs; and indeed is pregnant with so many evils,
that it ought ever to be avoided, when it can be avoided; and
it may be avoided when a state can be safe without it, and much
more so when all the advantages proposed by it can be procured
by prudent and just methods.
In
Cato’s Letters No. 17, as an example of "what measures
have been taken by corrupt ministers, in some of our neighbouring
countries, to ruin and enslave the people over whom they presided,"
we read something strangely reminiscent of our own "leaders":
They will
engage their country in ridiculous, expensive, fantastical wars,
to keep the minds of men in continual hurry and agitation, and
under constant fears and alarms; and, by such means, deprive them
both of leisure and inclination to look into publick miscarriages.
Men, on the contrary, will, instead of such inspection, be disposed
to fall into all measures offered, seemingly, for their defence,
and will agree to every wild demand made by those who are betraying
them.
When they
have served their ends by such wars, or have other motives to
make peace, they will have no view to the publick interest; but
will often, to procure such peace, deliver up the strong-holds
of their country, or its colonies for trade, to open enemies,
suspected friends, or dangerous neighbours, that they may not
be interrupted in their domestick designs.
This
theme is continued in Cato’s Letters No. 87:
I have often
wondered at the folly and weakness of those princes, who will
sacrifice hundreds of thousand of their own faithful subjects,
to gain a precarious and slavish submission from bordering provinces,
who will seek all opportunities to revolt; which cannot be prevented
but by keeping them poor, wretched, and miserable, and consequently
unable to pay the charges of their own vassalage; when, if the
same number of men and the sums of money were usefully employed
at home, which are necessary to make and support the conquest,
they would add vastly more to their power and empire.
Cato
preferred commerce to conquest:
All the advantages
procured by conquest is to secure what we possess ourselves, or
to gain the possessions of others, that is, the produce of their
country, and the acquisitions of their labor and industry; and
if these can be obtained by fair means, and by their own consent,
sure it must be more eligible than to exhort them by force.
This is certainly
more easily and effectually done by a well regulated commerce,
than by arms: The balance of trade will return more clear money
from neighbouring countries, than can be forced from them by fleets
or armies, and more advantageously than under the odious name
of tribute. It enervates rival states by their own consent, and
obligates them, whilst it impoverishes and ruins them: It keeps
our own people at home employed in arts, manufactures, and husbandry,
instead of murdering them in wild, expensive, and hazardous expeditions,
to the weakening their own country, and the pillaging and destroying
their neighbours, and only for the fruitless and imaginary glory
of conquest.
Cato
on Standing Armies
Like
the American
Brutus, Cato also spoke out against the evils of standing armies.
This subject was a particular concern of John Trenchard. With Walter
Moyle, Trenchard had previously written An Argument Shewing that
a Standing Army is Inconsistent with a Free Government, and Absolutely
Destructive to the Constitution of the English Monarchy (London,
1697). This was followed the next year by Trenchard’s A Short
History of Standing Armies in England (London, 1698). He was
also the author of the anonymously-published work, A Letter from
the Author of the Argument Against a Standing Army, to the Author
of the Ballancing Letter [an essay defending standing armies]
(London, 1697).
Cato’s
Letters No. 94 and 95 are both devoted to the subject of standing
armies. The subject is also mentioned in another essay entitled
"Considerations upon the Condition of an Absolute Prince."
Sometimes it is standing armies in general that are warned against:
Standing
armies are standing curses in every country under the sun, where
they are more powerful than the people.
It is certain,
that all parts of Europe which are enslaved, have been enslaved
by armies; and it is absolutely impossible, that any nation which
keeps them amongst themselves can long preserve their liberties;
nor can any nation perfectly lose their liberties who are without
such guests: And yet, though all men see this, and at times confess
it, yet all have joined in their turns, to bring this heavy evil
upon themselves and their country.
I never yet
met with one honest and reasonable man out of power who was not
heartily against all standing armies, as threatening and pernicious,
and the ready instruments of certain ruin: And I scarce ever met
with a man in power, or even the meanest creature of power, who
was not for defending and keeping them up: So much are the opinions
of men guided by their circumstances! Men, when they are angry
with one another, will come into any measures for revenge, without
considering that the same power which destroys an enemy, may destroy
themselves; and he to whom I lend my sword to kill my foe, may
with it kill me.
Great empires
cannot subsist without great armies, and liberty cannot subsist
with them. As armies long kept up, and grown part of the government,
will soon engross the whole government, and can never be disbanded;
so liberty long lost, can never be recovered. Is not this an awful
lesson to free states, to be vigilant against a dreadful condition,
which has no remedy.
At
other times the reference is specific and contemporary:
When, in
King William’s reign, the question was in debate, Whether England
should be ruled by standing armies? The argument commonly used
by some, who had the presumption to call themselves Whigs, and
owned in the Ballancing Letter (supposed to be written
by one who gave the word to all the rest), was, that all governments
must have their periods one time or other, and when that time
came, all endeavours to preserve liberty were fruitless; and shrewd
hints were given in that letter, that England was reduced to such
a condition; that our corruptions were so great, and the dissatisfaction
of the people was so general, that the publick safety could not
be preserved, but by increasing the power of the crown: And this
argument was used by those shameless men, who had caused all that
corruption, and all that dissatisfaction.
I should
be glad to know in what situation of our affairs it can be safe
to reduce our troops to the usual guards and garrisons, if it
cannot be done now. There is no power in Europe considerable enough
to threaten us, who can have any motives to do so, if we pursue
the old maxims and natural interest of Great Britain; which is,
to meddle no farther with foreign squabbles, than to keep the
balance even between France and Spain.
And once again
it is commerce that "saves the trouble, expence, and hazard,
of supporting numerous standing armies abroad to keep the conquered
people in subjection; armies, who, for the most part too, if not
always, enslave their own country, and ever swallow up all the advantages
of the conquests."
The
current U.S. policies of militarism and interventionism are directly
contrary to the wisdom of Trenchard and Gordon in Cato’s Letters.
If the Founding Fathers considered these essays to be so important,
why doesn’t Bush and Company think likewise?
[All
quotations from Cato’s
Letters are taken from the Liberty Fund edition edited by
Ronald Hamowy, which is also available online]
September
9, 2004
Laurence
M. Vance [send him mail]
is a freelance writer and an adjunct instructor in accounting and
economics at Pensacola Junior College in Pensacola, FL. Visit his
website.
Copyright
© 2004 LewRockwell.com
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M. Vance Archives
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