PEACE MOVEMENT, THE. Men
have dreamed of universal peace at least
since the days of the Hebrew prophets
and the early Church fathers. The
Latin poets too, Vergil in particular, had
their conception of a Pax Romana. In
the Middle Ages Dante in his “De
Monarchia” (c. 1300) laid down some
general principles that are the forerunners
of arbitration. But it was not until two
or three centuries later that definite
plans were formulated for a world
parliament and a world court. The most
famous proposals were those of the King
of Bohemia (1462) for an international
parliament backed by an international
military force; of Emeric de Lacroix
(1623) for a permanent congress of
nations sitting at Venice with universal
free trade; of the great jurist, Grotius
(1625) who in his famous “De Jure Belli
et Pacis” argued for an international
congress and an arbitration tribunal; of
William Penn (1693) who proposed a
representative congress of nations, an
arbitration tribunal and the proposal of
coercion of any state which should refuse
to submit disputes to arbitration. During
the eighteenth century there was a
growing interest in world federation; but
it was more prevalent among philosophers
such as Leibnitz, Jeremy Bentham
and Kant than among statesmen and
men of affairs. After the Napoleonic
wars there was much popular support of
the idea of world peace; but the formation
of the Holy Alliance (1815), ostensibly
designed to prevent war, degenerated
into an agency of reaction.
That same year (1815) there was
founded the first Peace Society the world
ever saw. It was established in New
York by the merchant David Low Dodge; and in 1815 the Massachusetts Peace Society was started in Boston by Noah Worcester and William Ellery Channing. By 1826 there were about fifty peace societies in existence in America, the most notable being the American Peace Society organized in 1828 in New York by William Ladd. Indeed the first half of the nineteenth century is marked by the popularization of the Peace Movement through societies and lectures such as those of Charles Sumner. In 1816 a Peace Society was formed in London, and in 1830 in Geneva. In 1843 an international peace congress was held in London; the ideas advanced were those already familiar, although the enforcement of the decrees of the arbitration
tribunal was to be left to international
public opinion. In 1847 Elihu Burritt, “the learned blacksmith” of Connecticut, went to Europe to agitate for a congress and court of the nations. The next year a peace congress was held at Brussels, and in 1849 another congress met there under the presidency of Victor Hugo. An interesting feature was the introduction of the peace movement into the legislative bodies of various States. The resolution of Massachusetts in 1832 in favor of arbitration led the way; in 1837 a petition was presented to Congress; and in 1853 a resolution in favor of international arbitration was adopted by the United States Senate. The movement spread rapidly. Leading statesmen, including Cobden, Peel, Disraeli and Garibaldi, supported it; and even Napoleon III. is credited with the desire to call a European Congress to bring about arbitration and the limitation of armaments. But Prussia objected. During the next thirty years the advance of the peace movement was delayed by the Crimean War, our Civil War, and wars in Italy, Austria, France and Germany. There were, to be sure, many peace societies formed; and eminent European jurists influenced the future development of the movement by emphasizing the necessity of a legal basis for international relations. Arbitration treaties won more and more popular support. In 1887 an English delegation under the leadership of William Randall Cremer, member of Parliament, visited America to lay before President Cleveland a document signed by 232 members of Parliament in favor of a British-American arbitration treaty. In 1889 the first World's Peace Congress was held at Paris. During the next decade the movement spread rapidly; the well known Lake Mohonk conferences in the United States begun in 1895; the work of J. de Bloch on war published in 1898, and the attitude of the Socialist and Labor parties in Europe were important factors.