Directory_and_Chronicle_1842 — Page 295

1842

Adams' Lecture on the War with China

277

neighbor only the excess of the fruit of his labor beyond that which is necessary for his and their subsistence. The exchange itself may indeed be of necessaries, and that leads to the division of labor, one of the greatest blessings of association; but that cannot be without commerce.

This duty of commercial intercourse between nations is laid down in terms suffi ciently positive by Vattel, but he afterwards qualifies it by a restriction which unless itself restricted, annuls it altogether. He says, that although the general duty of commercial intercourse is incumbent upon nations, yet every nation nay exclude any particular branch or article of trade which it may deem injurious to its own interest. This cannot be denied. But then a nation may multiply these particular exclusions until they become general and equivalent to a total interdict of commerce, and this, time out of mind, has been the inflexible policy of the Chi- nese empire. So says Vattel, without affixing any note of censure upon it. Yet it is manifestly incompatible with the position which he had previously laid down, that commercial intercourse between nations is a moral obligation incumbent upon them all.

The empire of China is said to extend over three hundred millions of human beings. It is said to cover a space of seven millions of square miles; about four times larger than the surface of these United States. The people are not Christians. Nor can a Christian nation appeal to the principles of a common faith to settle the question of right and wrong between them. The moral obligation of commercial intercourse between nations is founded entirely, exclusively, upon the Christian precept to love your neighbor as yourself. With this principle you cannot refuse commercial intercourse with your neighbor, because commerce, consisting of a vo- luntary exchange of property mutually beneficial to both parties, excites in both the selfish and the social propensities, and enables cach of the parties to promote the happiness of his neighbors by the same act whereby he provides for his own. But China, not being a Christian nation, its inhabitants do not consider them- selves bound by the Christian precept, to love their neighbors as themselves. The right of commercial intercourse with them reverts not to the execrable principle of Hobbes that the state of nature is a state of war, where every one has a right to buy, but no one is obliged to sell. Commerce becomes altogether a matter of con- vention. The right of cach party is only to propose—that of the other is to accept or refuse, and to his result he may be guided exclusively by the consideration of his own interest, without regard to the interests, the wishes, or the other wants of his neighbor.

This is a churlish and unsocial system;—and I take occasion here to say that whoever examines the Christian system of morals, with a philosophical spirit, set- ting aside all the external and historical evidences of its truth, will find all its pre- cepts tending to exalt the nature of the animal man; all its purpose of peace on earth and goodwill towards men. Ask the atheist-the deist-the Chinese, and they will tell you that the foundation, of their system of morals is selfish enjoy- ment. Ask the philosophers of the Grecian schools-Epicurus, Socrates, Zeno, Plato, Lucretius, Cicero, Seneca, and you will find them discoursing upon the Supreme Good. They will tell you it is pleasure, ease, temperance, prudence, fortitude, justice, not one of them will whisper the name of love, unless in its gross and physical sense; as an instrument of pleasure, not one of them will tell you that the source of all moral relation between you and the rest of mankind is to love your neighbor as yourself—to do unto him as you would that he should do unto you.