Women's Peace Union Brochure, ca. July 1925

Outlaw War By Constitutional Amendment

JOINT RESOLUTION

Proposing an Amendment to the Constitution of the United States

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House concurring therein), that the following article be, and hereby is, proposed to the states as an amendment to the constitution, which shall be valid as a part of the constitution when ratified by conventions in three-fourths of the several states.

ARTICLE --.

1. War for any purpose shall be illegal, and neither the United States nor any state shall prepare for, declare, engage in, carry on, or in any way sanction war or other armed conflict, expedition, invasion or undertaking within or without the United States or any state; and

Neither the United States nor any state or subdivision thereof, nor any territory, corporation, association or person within the jurisdiction of the United States shall organize, train, maintain, hire, manufacture, purchase, employ, use, or authorize the use of an army, militia, or other armed forces, or of armed ships, [airplanes], machines or other armaments; nor shall the United States or any state or subdivision thereof, or any territory, corporation, association or person within the jurisdiction of the United States levy taxes or appropriate or expend funds for any such purpose.

2. After one year from the ratification of this amendment, the manufacture, sale, transportation, possession, or use, of arms, munitions, or other articles, implements or chemicals designed for the destruction of human life, within, or the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from, the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof, is hereby prohibited.

3. All provisions of the Constitution and of the Articles in addition thereto and amendment thereof, which are in conflict with or inconsistent with this article are hereby rendered null and void and of no effect.

4. The congress and the several states shall have concurrent power to enact appropriate legislation to give effect to this Article.

Amendment drafted and proposed by

WOMEN’S PEACE UNION

§

Membership Affirmation

I wish to join the Women's Peace Union.

I affirm it is my intention never to aid in or sanction war, offensive or defensive, international or civil, in any way, whether by making or handling munitions, subscribing to war loans, using my labor for the purpose of setting others free for war service, helping by money or work any relief organization which supports or condones war.

Please sign and return to

[blank]

Signature

[blank]

P.O. Address

(OVER) [page 2]

Declaration of Independence from the Tyranny of War -- 1925

To be Published and Proclaimed, Wherever Feasible, on July 4

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary to choose between self-preservation and surrender to destruction, common sense assumes that we peoples of the earth, if the alternatives are made clear to us, will choose self-preservation. The time for such choice is now at hand. We have reached the point where war imperils the continued life of mankind.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We hold it to be equally self-evident that War is subversive of all these rights; it checks men in the pursuit of happiness, it destroys liberty and life itself. Therefore, it behooves the human race to abolish War before War abolishes the human race.

Cooperation, Not Violence

Prudence indeed might seem to dictate that nations should not lightly throw aside the right of self-defense, and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses, usurpations and avoidable disasters have proved that this so-called self-defense does not defend, but exposes those who rely upon it to the very evils it would avert, then it is the right, it is the duty of mankind to abandon this false and evil defense founded upon violence and bloodshed and to provide new guards for our future security, such guards to be based upon moral in place of physical force, passive resistance rather than armed resistance, the voluntary [cooperation] of the peoples of the earth instead of the rule of autocratic and militaristic governments.

The history of War is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having as an inevitable result the establishment of an absolute tyranny over mankind. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

The Crimes of War

In order to promote the steady and dangerous growth of militaristic power, War has tampered unscrupulously with legal systems and fundamentally altered forms of government.

War has quartered among all peoples large bodies of armed troops and has protected these from punishment for any murders they should commit.

War has dissolved or rendered futile representative assemblies.

War has obstructed the administration of justice and made judges dependent on the purposes of War alone.

War has made the military independent of, and superior to, the civil power.

War has erected a multitude of new offices, with swarms of officers to harass nations and eat out their substance.

War has imposed taxes for military purposes to which our consciences will not consent.

War has cut off trade between certain parts of the world, leaving millions to die by famine and disease.

War has plundered seas and ravished coasts, it has ruined the finest fruits of culture and turned beautiful and flourishing territories into a desert.

War has murderously sacrificed untold numbers of human lives, the precious youth of the peoples being always the first to be destroyed.

War has constrained mankind against their most solemn convictions and against the sacred teachings of religion to bear arms against their fellowmen; thus compelling them to act as butchers of their kind and degrading them below the level of beasts.

War is even now preparing agents of chemical destruction, poison gases, disease germs and deadly liquid fire to be spread abroad by bombs and [airplanes], destroying whole cities in a night; and whereas in the past War has on occasion made pretense of sparing [noncombatants] and the civil population, in future its known rule of warfare will be an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

Pledge to End War

We therefore declare that mankind is, and of right ought to be, free and independent of and absolved from all allegiance to War; that the women of this country in particular, now that they are possessed of political power, wish and indeed are bound to use that power for the annihilation of War; that all connection between our own government and War should be totally dissolved, by making War illegal and impossible; and that we hereby contract an eternal alliance with Peace, and with all those everywhere who have pledged themselves to Repudiation of War, to last as long as this world shall endure. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.

Published July, 1925, by the

WOMEN'S PEACE UNION

U.S. Member of the War Resisters' International

180 LEXINGTON AVENUE     New York City

§

I wish to be a Signer of this Declaration of Independence.

Name [blank]

Address [blank]

I wish [blank] copies to post in my office, factory, home, church or club.

I wish [blank] copies to distribute at meetings.

Name [blank]

Address [blank]

(OVER)