The Present War and the Coming Struggle

Vol. I. SEPTEMBER, 1898. No. n. THE PRESENT WAR AND THE COMING STRUGGLE. BY ELDER JOHN NICHOLSON. It is evident, to the writer, that the present war between the United States and Spain is, from the standpoints of revelation and reason, but one of a series of like events that will lead up to the most tremendous upheaval in history. Without further preliminary, a quotation from a "Revelation on War," given through the Prophet Joseph Smith, December 25th, 1832, is herewith introduced: "Verily, thus saith the Lord, concerning the wars that will shortly come to pass, beginning at the rebellion of South Carolina, which will eventually terminate in the death and misery of many souls. The days will come that war will be poured out upon all nations, beginning at that place. "For behold the Southern States shall be divided against the Northern States, and the Southern States will call upon other nations, even the nation of Great Britain, as it is called, and they also shall call upon other nations, in order to defend themselves against other nations; and thus war shall be poured out upon all nations." The fulfilled portion of this prediction is (1) The opening of a series of wars, beginning at the "Rebellion of South Carolina," which would bring the South and North into con- 57

flict. (2) The South should call upon Great Britain for assistance against the North. (3) The present war is evidently one of the series referred to in the revelation. The facts of fulfillment are, that at Charleston, S. C, at 1:15 p. m., on December 20th, i860, a convention of that state unanimously passed the following ordinance: "An ordinance to dissolve the union between the State of South Carolina and other States united with her under the compact entitled 'The Constitution of the United States of America.' "We, the people of the State of South Carolina, in convention assembled, do declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared and ordained, "That the ordinance adopted by us on the 23rd of May, A. D. 1788, whereby the Constitution of the United States of America was ratified, and also all acts and parts of acts of the General Assembly of this State ratifying amendments of the said Constitution are hereby repealed, and the Union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States, under the name of 'The United States of America' is hereby dissolved " On April 12th, 1861, the first shot of the Rebellion was fired at Fort Sumter, South Carolina. During the progress of the bloody struggle which followed, Messrs Mason and Sliddell were commissioned and sent by the Confederacy to the court of St. James, London, to solicit assistance for the South from Great Britain. They sailed on the British ship Trent, from which they were forcibly taken, as prisoners of war, by officers of the Federal navy. They were held until released on demand of the British government, on the ground that the deck of a British ship is as sacred and inviolable as the soil of that country. The two special -messengers to Great Britain fulfilled their trust, by making an application for assistance for the South, but the request was declined. A prophetic enunciation can have no stronger proof of its correctness than is furnished by a detailed fulfillment. The War of the Rebellion was caused by a division of magnificent proportions, on the question of slavery. One section of the country insisted that the hideous institution should be maintained, while the other was equally pronounced in favor of its abolition. Its existence was threatened and the South attempted to withdraw from the constitutional contract in order to perpetuate it. Freedom triumphed, and

THE PRESENT WAR AND THE COMING STRUGGLE. 787 slavery, the bane of the American Union, was wiped out of existence forever. If this elimination had not been, by the operation of divine Providence, accomplished, the Republic would have been, in the later development of human affairs, pointed at by the nations as the most conspicuous instance of political and social incongruity of all history. No government has a just claim to be called free while a portion of its people is subjected to the most abject condition of servitude and held as personal property, like goods and chattels, and as the beasts of the field. Slavery could not endure under a system of free institutions. By parity of reasoning it is merely an extension of the same principle to hold that despotic forms of government and the free form, of which that of America is the most perfect, cannot become perpetual on the same planet. The ideal popular system is here. An extensive conflict, sooner or later, between the despotic and the free, is inevitable, and one or the other must succumb. The one is a constant menace to the peace and existence of the other. The trend of human progress is toward the popularization of rule. The process of adjustment by the operation of eternal justice, "which goeth its rounds and claimeth its own," is now in conspicuous activity. A crisis in human affairs is approaching. If it had not been for the War of the Rebellion and its triumphant issue, this country could not have engaged in the present war with Spain, for, however despicable might be the Spanish rule in her colonies, she could not, in that regard, sink below the subjecting of her colonial subjects to absolute slavery. But the destiny of America—the center of human liberty—is to be an example to all peoples of the beneficent and progressive effects of free institutions. She can now, purged from the taint of slavery, assume the proud prerogative of chief champion of the oppressed. The present war with Spain is in line with our internecine struggle of the sixties. It is for the uplifting of humanity. Hence the unparalleled success of the arms of the United States thus far, and the reasonableness of the deduction that

it is but one of a series of disputes which will culminate in the awful spectacle of a world in conflict. Every inch of ground wrested from the grasp of despotism is an acquisition to the ranks of freemen, provided the people can be readily educated upward to a point when they can comprehend the benefits of popular government; hence the United States should be slow to relinquish any possession over which the American flag has been floated during the present strife. The broad principle of liberalizing the world ought never to be lost sight of in the settlement of international disputes. No egoistic upstart who professes to have fought in the sacred interests of freedom should be permitted to inaugurate a dictatorship. Such characters use the name of liberty to enable them to leap into power at the first opportunity, and plant the heel of the oppressor upon the necks of the people. When one tyrant is dethroned it is a crime to permit him to be supplanted by another. Despotism wears the same hideous aspect in an Aguinaldo as in the Spanish dynasty. When the original despot is removed the people should be shielded from ambitious interlopers, and educated under a protectorate until their understanding is sufficiently ripened to enable them to intelligently decide what shall be their own political status, by plebiscite. Should their decision be to enter our glorious Union, welcome them with open arms, as in the case of the Sandwich Islands. Should aspiring enemies of freedom forcibly interpose to prevent, crush them, without hesitation. Joseph Smith held and expressed, in his delineation of the "powers and policy of the United States Government," the most lofty views concerning the mission of our country, as will be seen by the subjoined sample: "And when a neighboring realm petitioned to join the Union of the sons of liberty, my voice would be, Come: yea come Texas; come Mexico; come Canada; and come all the world—let us be brethren; let us be one great family; and let there be universal peace. Abolish the cruel customs of prisons (except certain cases), penitentiaries, and court-martials for desertion; and let reason and friendship reign over the ruins of ignorance and barbarity; yea, I would, as the universal friend of man, open the prisons; open the eyes, open the ears and open the hearts of all the people, to behold and enjoy freedom, unadulterated freedom.

THE PRESENT WAR AND THE COMING STRUGGLE. 789 It will now be appropriate to refer to the unfulfilled portion of the first quotation embodied in this article. It is to the effect that Great Britain shall reach a point in her career when she will be under the necessity of calling for assistance to aid in her defense against other nations; ' 'and thus war will be poured out upon all nations." The initial point of the wars which were to culminate in a universal struggle was, as heretofore shown, the "Rebellion of South Carolina." A war of the same genius is now in progress between the United States and a foreign nation. The former conflict cleansed the interior of America's own social and political platter, and thus prepared her to undertake the enforcement of the same elevating principle beyond her own domain. She now assumes the role of an externally aggressive force and insists upon the establishment and adoption of institutions in harmony with her own, outside of herself, albeit still on this continent. If this line of policy be her duty and she is in the right, as claimed, from a humanitarian standpoint, where, in this respect does her obligation end? Humanitarian ground is common, and therefore cannot be confined to the little island of Cuba. The applicability of the principle is world-wide. Its exponents and devotees are necessarily aggressive. America having gone outside of herself in this respect, she has taken an advanced step toward the liberation of the world. The time must come when the flag of freedom will float over the earth, if the nations have to be smashed in the process of attainment of that glorious object. In the nature of things the two extremes of government must drift apart sentimentally and actually and then drift toward each other in conflict. Each division has one absorbing interest opposed to the other—the extension and perpetuation of the species of government peculiar to itself. Hence when public journals speak of the friendly attitude and sentiment of Russia, Austria or Germany toward our nation or toward Great Britain, they are egregiously mistaken. There can be no genuine international friendship where no affinity of system exists. The one class must wish that the other were wiped out. Certainly this must be the American senti

ment, because every patriot of cosmopolitan quality must be imbued with the humanitarian wish to see despotism dethroned and humanity disenthralled. Every foot of ground lost to tyranny must be a source of regret and anxiety to every despotic government. It is not improbable that this truth may find some degree of illustration before the full conclusion of peace is reached between America and Spain. A separation between the free and the despotic among the nations has begun already. It was conspicuously prominent some time previous to, during, and ever since the late Greco-Turkish war, in the complete isolation, by the other great European powers, of Great Britain. The latter anticipates, with a sentiment of unqualified certainty, that the time will come when she will be confronted by her most momentous dilemma. This is, that she will have to choose between going down without fighting or run the chances of maintaining her prestige by fighting, almost single handed— unless America shall find it to her advantage to join issues with her—the combined forces of Europe. In her hour of peril she will surely look in some direction for help against the frightful odds pitted against her, and thus verify the unfulfilled portion of the quotation which appears in the introductory part of this article. But even should she have to meet the gigantic issue alone, that mighty mother of nations will not falter in making her choice between heroic resistance and ignoble surrender. Should she go down under an overwhelming force of numbers the descent would be characterized by one of the most determined and sublime struggles of the ages. Should her overthrow be consummated it would be a black day for the race, and the United States particularly would lose her only international friend. But surely it cannot be, in the coming upheaval among the powers of the earth, that tyranny shall triumph and freedom be trodden in the dust. The God of nations has said, "Behold, I, the Lord, delight in the freedom of all peoples," and liberty is essential to the spread of the Gospel of His Kingdom, which must be carried to every nation, kindred, tongue and people on the

THE PRESENT WAR AND THE COMING STRUGGLE. 791 earth. Despotic governments are barriers to the spread of this divine message. Iron-handed rulers admit no religious innovations into their empires, and the slightly more moderate among them place harassing restrictions around their subjects which hinder the dissemination of religious truth. Before the divine proclamation can become world-wide, these obstacles must be removed, and the spread of liberty, by the dethroning of tyranny, is the logical process for clearing the earth of such obstructions. Despotism is the foe of human development. The masses which have lived under it for centuries have made comparatively little progress, while the civilizing power of liberty finds its most wonderful exemplification in the youngest of all the great empires—the United States. The war of freedom, already inaugurated, will accomplish a great purpose, but will finally degenerate into a war of desperation, the providential result of which will be the survival of the fittest, by the process of elimination. This final struggle will be accompanied by destructive elemental disturbances. Man is under God, the head of this creation. When he is in conflict with himself, on an extensive scale, a sympathetic agitation in his environments occurs. These conditions will prepare the way for the real dawn of freedom, correct understanding and righteousness. There are immense masses of humanity sunk so low in the moral scale, that they cannot be reached and uplifted, in mortality, by any moral or educational force. Removal is the only process by which the earth can be cleansed from the accumulated moral filth of centuries. Divine Providence will provide the remedy, for the earth must sometime wheel into line with the laws of the universe, and be purified and pacificated. When the prophets spoke of the tremendous events of the latter-days, they must have foreseen the conditions that would make the fulfillment of their utterances possible. This includes both ancient and modern prophetic statements. The verifications of their delineations of the future could not have occurred in any age preceding the present. While the nations were segregated by time and distance, there could not be a universality of war, or unlimited commotions among the hosts of men. Now, however, the nations are virtually one

family. Their quarrels are the disputes of a world. Time and distance are practically annihilated. We live in an age when not only can rumors of war be floated over the globe in the "twinkling of an eye," but gigantic struggles, involving humanity as a whole, could be precipitated with marvelous speed and spontaneity. The whole situation is a startling proof of the fact that God, in this and other ages, has spoken to humanity through mediums of his own choosing, according to the law of adaptation. The present unparalleled situation could not have been grasped by uninspired man, either in the remote ages of the ancient seers or in the earlier part of the present century, when Joseph Smith gave it a perspicuous delineation. The sum of the present and approaching situation, as viewed by the writer, is that a series of events of great moment had its initiative in the War of the Rebellion, and that the current conflict, of the same humanitarian character, is but one more picture of the great panorama, to be followed at intervals by others, of widening magnitude, until the climax of a world involved in war shall be reached. In the coming struggle the natural antagonism of opposite forms of government will figure extensively. But the closing scene of the greatest and most terrible drama of modern history will be a war of desperation, accompanied by destructive turbulence of the elements, to be economized by the Almighty in cleansing the earth, by elimination. The subject has been the theme of the prophets of all times. In no other age than this could their enunciations of the facts of future history have been fulfilled. The present and future are pregnant with events of tremendous importance. The prospect is, in some respects, forbidding, but it is illuminated by a promise that, in the remoter distance, there shall be a fulfillment of the greatest and best of human anticipations. After the darkness of the dismal night, the day of righteousness will break upon the world; the vision of the prophet and dream of the poet will become a reality, and "every man in every place, shall meet a brother and a friend." NOTE:—As the war with Spain is liable to terminate before this number of the Era reaches the public, it appears necessary to state that the writing of the foregoing article was concluded on July 26th.—The Author,