War and Peace

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)

Adam Smith on the Sympathy one feels for those Vanquished in a battle rather than for the Victors (1762)

Adams and Jefferson reflect on the Revolution and the future of liberty (1823)

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)

Bastiat, the 1830 Revolution, and the Spilling of Wine not Blood (1830)

Benjamin Constant on the dangers to liberty posed by the military spirit (1815)

Cobden on the principle of non-intervention in the affairs of other countries (1859)

Cobden reminds the Liberals in Parliament that the motto of their party is “Economy, Retrenchment, and Reform!” (1862)

Cobden urges the British Parliament not to be the “Don Quixotes of Europe” using military force to right the wrongs of the world (1854)

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)

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)

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)

John Bright calls British foreign policy “a gigantic system of (welfare) for the aristocracy” (1858)

John Bright denounces the power of the war party in England (1878)

John Bright on war as all the horrors, atrocities, crimes, and sufferings of which human nature on this globe is capable (1853)

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)

Kant believed that citizens must give their free consent via their representatives to every separate declaration of war (1790)

Knox on how the people during wartime are cowered into submission and pay their taxes “without a murmur” (1795)

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)

Lysistrata’s clever plan to end the war between Athens and Sparta (411 BC)

Madison argued that war is the major way by which the executive office increases its power, patronage, and taxing power (1793)

Milton warns Parliament’s general Fairfax that justice must break free from violence if “endless war” is to be avoided (1648)

Mises and the Emergence of Etatism in Germany (1944)

Mises on how price controls lead to socialism (1944)

Molinari on the elites who benefited from the State of War (1899)

Montesquieu states that the Roman Empire fell because the costs of its military expansion introduced corruption and the loyalty of its soldiers was transferred from the City to its generals (1734)

On Achilles' new shield Vulcan depicts the two different types of cities which humans can build on earth; one based on peace and the rule of law; the other based on war, killing, and pillage (900 BC)

Richard Cobden on how free trade would unite mankind in the bonds of peace (1850)

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)

St. Thomas Aquinas discusses the three conditions for a just war (1265-74)

Sumner and the Conquest of the United States by Spain (1898)

The 3rd Day of Christmas: Erasmus stands against war and for peace on earth (16th century)

The City of War and the City of Peace on Achilles' new shield (900 BC)

Thomas Gordon on how people are frightened into giving up their liberties (1722)

Tom Paine on the "Decline and Fall of the English System of Finance" (1796)

Trenchard on the dangers posed by a standing army (1698)

Vicesimus Knox on how the aristocracy and the “spirit of despotism” use the commemoration of the war dead for their own aims (1795)

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)