As Captain Mahan says, the same objection has been raised at the
introduction of each new weapon of war, even though it proved to be no
more cruel than the old. The modern rifle ball, swift and small and
sterilized by heat, does not make so bad a wound as the ancient sword
and spear, but we all remember how gunpowder was regarded by the dandies
of Hotspur's time:
And it was great pity, so it was,
This villainous saltpeter should be digg'd
Out of the bowels of the harmless earth
Which many a good tall fellow had destroy'd
So cowardly; and but for these vile guns
He would himself have been a soldier.
The real reason for the instinctive aversion manifested against any new
arm or mode of attack is that it reveals to us the intrinsic horror of
war. We naturally revolt against premeditated homicide, but we have
become so accustomed to the sword and latterly to the rifle that they do
not shock us as they ought when we think of what they are made for. The
Constitution of the United States prohibits the infliction of "cruel and
unusual punishments.
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