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 Mon archia" (c. 1300) laid down some gen eral 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 par liament 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 na tions 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. Dur ing the eighteenth century there was a growing interest in world federation; but it was more prevalent among philoso phers 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 forma tion of the Holy Alliance (1815), osten sibly designed to prevent war, degener ated 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 So ciety was started in by Noah Worcester and William Ellery Channing. By 1826 there were about fifty peace so cieties in existence in America, the most notable being the American Peace So ciety 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 in
ternational peace congress was held in London; the ideas advanced were those already familiar, although the enforce ment 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 introduc tion of the peace movement into the leg islative 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 in ternational arbitration was adopted by the United States Senate. The move ment spread rapidly. Leading states men, 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 ad vance of the peace movement was delayed by the Crimean War, our Civil War, and wars in Italy, Austria, France and Ger many. There were, to be sure, many peace societies formed; and eminent European jurists influenced the future development of the movement by empha sizing the necessity of a legal basis for international relations. Arbitration treaties won more and more popular sup port. In 1887 an English delegation un der the leadership of William Randall Cremer, member of Parliament, visited America to lay before President Cleve land 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 La bor parties in Europe were important factors.