[Marxism] "Duty of the Soldier" 1857

[Mark Lause]

A SHORT INTRODUCTION...The 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act took the U.S. far
towards its "Second American Revolution."  The Democrats adopted this as a
means of demonstrating to its Southern faction that it could carve new slave
states from the western territories though "popular sovereignty," the idea
that voters in each territory would decide whether or not to have slavery.
When "Border Ruffians" crossed into the Kansas territory and held fraudulent
elections to establish a pro-slavery territorial government, the Democratic
administrations of Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan were politically
committed to recognize the legitimacy of what the antislavery settlers
called the "bogus legislature" of territorial Kansas.

The policy involved using the U.S. Army in support of this imposed
government.  That army existed to eradicate Indians and had just stolen
entire chunks of Mexico.  Disproportionately the officers of that army were
elitists, slaveholders, and arrogantly imperial.  More than once they
intervened at gun point on the side of the recognized, fraudulent
authorities.

This approached moved some free state settlers, particularly those who had
been abolitionists before going west, to take up arms.  The most determined
and ruthless of them were those like John Brown whose group issued the
following circular for the consumption of the officers and men who were not
only opposed to them politically but were quite likely to use guns on them
directly.

The author of JOHN BROWN AND HIS MEN, Richard J. Hinton--one of the founders
of American socialism--rode with Brown and reprinted this circular in his
book.  He said he first saw it in November, 1857, but thought it had been
written in the fall of 1856, and revised by John Henri Kagi before going
into print. James Gordon Bennett, the Democratic editor of the NEW YORK
HERALD--a man hostile to every aspect of abolitionism--attributed it to
Colonel Hugh Forbes, the organizer of what would later become the First
International in NYC. ("Most Important Disclosures," New York Herald, Oct.
27, 1859, p. 4.)

Apologies for the loss of the italics, but the original is in Hinton's book
and elsewhere....

ML


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No. 1 Duty of the Soldier
John Brown and His Men, 1857

Presented with respectful and kind feelings to the officers and soldiers of
the United States army in Kansas.

In the ancient Republics every man capable of bearing arms was, up to a
certain period of his life, bound in duty to the public to fill his place in
the ranks of the soldiery to secure his country against invasion or insult.
The mode of warfare in remote times differed considerably from that adopted
in the present day-man fought chiefly with those weapons which brought him
into hand-to-hand collision with his enemy, hence [Hinton, 615 / 616] his
military instruction was rather in the management of arms than the
application of tactics, and the chiefs studied stratagem rather than
strategy. When the war or expedition upon which he had been engaged was
terminated, he returned to his civic occupations and his home, till some new
exigency called him again into military service. The word soldier in ancient
Republics was synonymous with freeman-for in assuming his armor the man did
not engage to confine his mind in a strait-jacket. Indeed there are
instances in ancient history in which the soldiery in camp was consulted on
public affairs, and gave its vote on the great question of Right against
Wrong-and in some cases the soldier was the first part of a nation to
proclaim the supremacy of Right, Nevertheless in all military duties, those
same intelligent soldiers desirous of conquering the foreign enemy showed,
when in his presence, implicit obedience to their military chiefs.

The soldiery of the princes of antiquity was very different from the
Republican warriors. The tyrants were necessitated to keep an armed force in
constant readiness to uphold their authority at home as well as abroad, and
they did exact that the myrmidons in their pay should unhesitatingly execute
all the commands of their ministers with the same obedience with which the
Republican soldiery attended to those orders only which were purely
military. As the era of despotism extended and the limits of Liberty became
proportionately circumscribed, the habit of obeying all commands, civil and
military, became more usual among the soldiery.

Time rolled on till despotism, aided by priestcraft, corruption, and party
rapacity, supplanted the Republics. The invention of gunpowder, though it
overthrew the feudal system of the Barons, operated on the other hand
against the People, for the increased precision and promptitude required in
modern military maneuvers, necessitated a lengthened training for the
soldiery, which served as a pretense for wicked rulers to inculcate in the
minds of the soldiers the idea that they were living machines, Moreover, the
cunning artifice of indirect taxation and of national loans enabled the
despotic governments to [616 / 617] maintain large permanent armies of those
living machines to stifle Right and to perpetuate Wrong-for such the
soldiers have proved themselves to be under despotism, and as such they are
regarded by the oppressed populations: but should the soldiery of a Republic
be vile living machines?

Two main points we have to analyze in this investigation-the first is Right,
and the next is Authority.

Right is that which is good, true, honorable, just, humane,
self-sacrificing-it is the precise opposite to Wrong. Right is immutable; as
it was, so it is, and so it always must be. Circumstances cannot change it.
It never was right to lie, cheat, oppress, rob, or murder-it never can be
right to do so-no legal subterfuge, no oratory, no public or private
engagements, no theological interpretations, no arbitrary laws, no
government orders, no military commands can transform Wrong into Right.
Oppression may trample under foot the devotees of Right-may calumniate,
pillage, imprison, and even butcher them-yet that will not alter Right,
though Wrong may be made more hideous. The weaker disciples of Right may
quail and hesitate before dangers, privations, and sufferings-some indeed
may abandon Right-yet Right itself cannot alter, though it may shine more
beautiful under persecution. Between Right and Wrong there can be no
compromise.

Authority is of two sorts: Legitimate and Illegitimate.

Legitimate Authority is based on Reason and Equity; it must spring from, and
always be controlled by, the People; its object is the benefit of the People
by the maintenance of justice, the diffusion of education and knowledge, the
advancement of civilization, the repression of violence, the reclamation of
vice and the development of Humanity. Though authority may be filched
through a Party frenzied by some delusion, even that power would not be
legitimate, for no portion of any nation can annul the Rights of Man-no
majority can rightfully sacrifice the freedom and well-being of any one
fellow man or posterity. Man cannot take or give that which is not his. The
test, therefore, of Legitimate Authority is Right, and to main [617 / 618]
tain that authority soldiers are not required to be mere living machines.

Illegitimate Authority is founded on fraud and violence: it is created by a
despot, an oligarchy, or the leaders of a party, and is used for the benefit
of some usurpation. Under the plausible pretext of acting for the public
good, of repelling some enemy, of checking party rancor, of maintaining law
and order purposely disturbed, illegitimate authority has frequently been
established in formerly happy communities, and the usurpation having seized
the reins of government has hoped to perpetuate its domination by the
distribution of lucrative offices, and by the hiring of living machines. The
dominant party may boast, rejoice, and fatten, while mercenary scribes and
orators flatter: but under such misrule the nation degenerates, violence
becomes habitual, ignorance prevails, want nurtures crime, the tribunals
become corrupt, vice revels and virtue is persecuted, the people, awaking
under the smart of despotism, soon realize the difficulty of
self-emancipation while ground down by the living machines set in motion by
illegitimate authority. Will the soldiery of a Republic consent to become
living machines, and thus sustain Wrong against Right?

It is self-evident that "There can exist no moral obligation to do that
which is immoral-no virtuous obligation to do that which is vicious-no
religious obligation to (lo that which is irreligious." It is also
self-evident that every citizen is in duty bound to sustain Right even
though he thereby neglect temporarily some of his private business: lie who
regards his personal interests as of more importance to him than to exercise
a watchfulness at all times for the public good and for the securit3y of
Right against Wrong, fails in an essential duty toward, the commonwealth.
The Greeks decreed that all guilty of such neglect of duty were INFAMOUS:
they were deprived of that citizenship which they had shown themselves
unworthy to enjoy, their property, which they had preferred to the public
welfare, was confiscated, and they were reduced to the lowest state of
degradation. [618 /]