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Bastiat on disbanding the standing army and replacing it with local militias (1847)
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Frédéric Bastiat
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2017-09-17 |
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Mises on cosmopolitan cooperation and peace (1927)
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Ludwig von Mises
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2017-09-15 |
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Lysistrata’s clever plan to end the war between Athens and Sparta (411 BC)
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Aristophanes
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2015-07-06 |
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William Graham Sumner on the racism which lies behind Imperialism (1898)
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William Graham Sumner
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2015-04-20 |
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Benjamin Constant on the dangers to liberty posed by the military spirit (1815)
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Benjamin Constant
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2014-12-15 |
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John Bright denounces the power of the war party in England (1878)
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John Bright
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2014-11-17 |
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Richard Price on how the “domestic enemies” of liberty have been more powerful and more successful than foreign enemies (1789)
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Richard Price
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2014-10-20 |
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Herbert Spencer on the State’s cultivation of “the religion of enmity” to justify its actions (1884)
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Herbert Spencer
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2014-04-21 |
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Kant believed that citizens must give their free consent via their representatives to every separate declaration of war (1790)
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Immanuel Kant
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2013-09-01 |
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The 10th Day of Christmas: Richard Cobden on public opinion and peace on earth (c. 1865)
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Richard Cobden
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2013-01-03 |
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The 8th Day of Christmas: Jefferson on the inevitability of revolution in England only after which there will be peace on earth (1817)
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Thomas Jefferson
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2013-01-01 |
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The 7th Day of Christmas: Madison on “the most noble of all ambitions” which a government can have, of promoting peace on earth (1816)
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James Madison
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2012-12-31 |
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The 4th Day of Christmas: Dante Alighieri on human perfectibility and peace on earth (1559)
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Dante Alighieri
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2012-12-28 |
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The 3rd Day of Christmas: Erasmus stands against war and for peace on earth (16th century)
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Desiderius Erasmus
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2012-12-27 |
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The 2nd Day of Christmas: Petrarch on the mercenary wars in Italy and the need for peace on earth (1344)
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Francesco Petrarch
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2012-12-26 |
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The 1st Day of Christmas: Jan Huss' Christmas letters and his call for peace on earth (1412)
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Jan Huss
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2012-12-25 |
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The evangelist Luke “on earth peace, good will toward men” (1st century)
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Saint Luke
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2012-12-24 |
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John Bright calls British foreign policy “a gigantic system of (welfare) for the aristocracy” (1858)
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John Bright
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2012-11-05 |
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James Madison on the necessity of separating the power of “the sword from the purse” (1793)
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James Madison
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2012-09-10 |
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John Bright on war as all the horrors, atrocities, crimes, and sufferings of which human nature on this globe is capable (1853)
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John Bright
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2012-03-26 |
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Cobden argues that the British Empire will inevitably suffer retribution for its violence and injustice (1853)
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Richard Cobden
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2012-03-01 |
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Cobden on the complicity of the British people in supporting war (1852)
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Richard Cobden
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2011-12-25 |
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The City of War and the City of Peace on Achilles' new shield (900 BC)
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Homer
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2011-11-28 |
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Cobden on the principle of non-intervention in the affairs of other countries (1859)
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Richard Cobden
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2011-10-24 |
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Cobden urges the British Parliament not to be the “Don Quixotes of Europe” using military force to right the wrongs of the world (1854)
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Richard Cobden
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2011-09-26 |
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James Mill likens the expence and economic stagnation brought about by war to a “pestilential wind” which ravages the country (1808)
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James Mill
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2011-08-29 |
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The Duke of Burgundy asks the Kings of France and England why “gentle peace” should not be allowed to return France to its former prosperity (1599)
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William Shakespeare
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2011-08-22 |
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Grotius on Moderation in Despoiling the Country of one’s Enemies (1625)
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Hugo Grotius
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2011-05-25 |
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Sumner and the Conquest of the United States by Spain (1898)
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William Graham Sumner
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2011-05-09 |
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Trenchard on the dangers posed by a standing army (1698)
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John Trenchard
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2010-09-13 |
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John Jay on the pretended as well as the just causes of war (1787)
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John Jay
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2010-08-09 |
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Vicesimus Knox on how the aristocracy and the “spirit of despotism” use the commemoration of the war dead for their own aims (1795)
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Vicesimus Knox
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2010-06-01 |
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Milton warns Parliament’s general Fairfax that justice must break free from violence if “endless war” is to be avoided (1648)
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John Milton
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2010-03-07 |
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Madison argued that war is the major way by which the executive office increases its power, patronage, and taxing power (1793)
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James Madison
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2009-11-30 |
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Thomas Jefferson on the Draft as "the last of all oppressions" (1777)
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Thomas Jefferson
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2009-07-20 |
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Daniel Webster thunders that the introduction of conscription would be a violation of the constitution, an affront to individual liberty, and an act of unrivaled despotism (1814)
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Daniel Webster
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2009-05-25 |
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Alexander Hamilton warns of the danger to civil society and liberty from a standing army since “the military state becomes elevated above the civil” (1787)
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Alexander Hamilton
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2008-12-29 |
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John Trenchard identifies who will benefit from any new war “got up” in Italy: princes, courtiers, jobbers, and pensioners, but definitely not the ordinary taxpayer (1722)
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John Trenchard
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2008-11-17 |
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Adam Smith observes that the true costs of war remain hidden from the taxpayers because they are sheltered in the metropole far from the fighting and instead of increasing taxes the government pays for the war by increasing the national debt (1776)
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Adam Smith
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2008-02-18 |
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James Madison on the need for the people to declare war and for each generation, not future generations, to bear the costs of the wars they fight (1792)
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James Madison
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2007-12-17 |
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Thomas Gordon on standing armies as a power which is inconsistent with liberty (1722)
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Thomas Gordon
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2007-11-05 |
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James Madison argues that the constitution places war-making powers squarely with the legislative branch; for the president to have these powers is the “the true nurse of executive aggrandizement” (1793)
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James Madison
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2007-09-10 |
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St. Thomas Aquinas discusses the three conditions for a just war (1265-74)
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St. Thomas Aquinas
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2007-07-23 |
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A.V. Dicey noted that a key change in public thinking during the 19thC was the move away from the early close association between “peace and retrenchment” in the size of the government (1905)
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Albert Venn Dicey
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2006-09-25 |
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J.M. Keynes reflected on that “happy age” of international commerce and freedom of travel that was destroyed by the cataclysm of the First World War (1920)
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John Maynard Keynes
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2006-02-20 |
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John Jay in the Federalist Papers discussed why nations go to war and concluded that it was not for justice but “whenever they have a prospect of getting any thing by it” (1787)
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John Jay
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2006-01-09 |
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Thomas Gordon gives a long list of ridiculous and frivolous reasons why kings and tyrants have started wars which have led only to the enslavement and destruction of their own people (1737)
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Thomas Gordon
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2005-11-21 |
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Hugo Grotius states that in an unjust war any acts of hostility done in that war are “unjust in themselves” (1625)
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Hugo Grotius
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2005-09-19 |
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Hugo Grotius discusses the just causes of going to war, especially the idea that the capacity to wage war must be matched by the intent to do so (1625)
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Hugo Grotius
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2005-09-12 |
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Herbert Spencer argued that in a militant type of society the state would become more centralised and administrative, as compulsory education clearly showed (1882)
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Herbert Spencer
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2005-06-20 |
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William Graham Sumner denounced America’s war against Spain and thought that “war, debt, taxation, diplomacy, a grand governmental system, pomp, glory, a big army and navy, lavish expenditures, political jobbery” would result in imperialsm (1898)
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William Graham Sumner
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2005-05-30 |
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Erasmus has the personification of Peace come down to earth to see with dismay how war ravages human societies (1521)
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Desiderius Erasmus
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2005-05-23 |
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Ludwig von Mises laments the passing of the Age of Limited Warfare and the coming of Mass Destruction in the Age of Statism and Conquest (1949)
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Ludwig von Mises
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2004-11-01 |
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Thomas Hodgskin on the Suffering of those who had been Impressed or Conscripted into the despotism of the British Navy (1813)
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Thomas Hodgskin
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2004-08-23 |
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Robert Nisbet on the Shock the Founding Fathers would feel if they could see the current size of the Military Establishment and the National Government (1988)
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Robert A. Nisbet
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2004-07-19 |
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Adam Smith on the Sympathy one feels for those Vanquished in a battle rather than for the Victors (1762)
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Adam Smith
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2004-06-21 |
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Hugo Grotius on sparing Civilian Property from Destruction in Time of War (1625)
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Hugo Grotius
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2004-05-17 |
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Bernard Mandeville on how the Hardships and Fatigues of War bear most heavily on the “working slaving People” (1732)
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Bernard Mandeville
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2004-05-03 |