Mother’s Day Proclamation

Sunday is Mother’s Day, which has often-forgotten antiwar roots.

One of the earliest calls to celebrate Mother’s day in the US came from Julia Ward Howe, a prominent American abolitionist, social activist, and poet, most famous as the author of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

In 1870, Howe’s issued the “Mother’s Day Proclamation” as a pacifist reaction to the carnage of the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War.

It needs to be remembered:

Mother’s Day Proclamation

Arise, then, women of this day!

Arise, all women who have hearts,
Whether our baptism be of water or of tears!

Say firmly:
“We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”

From the bosom of the devastated Earth a voice goes up with our own.
It says: “Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.”
Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel.

Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace,
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God.

In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And at the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.

22 thoughts on “Mother’s Day Proclamation”

  2. To all the Moms, Happy Mother's Day. Anywhere and everywhere. May you no longer have to sacrifice your children to the lunacy of pathologically genocidal politicians. Everywhere and anywhere. Yeah, that would include President B. Obama.
    Dang, I do miss my Mom.

  3. I guess it's better to arrive at pacifism late than never. The bloodthirsty Battle Hymn of the Republic helped promote the vast carnage of the American Civil War and is sung to this day to incite US militarism. Seems that observation that the evil men do lives after them applies to women too.

  5. "Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause."

    Thats a sackable tweet thesedays.

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  7. And on this Mother's Day did you people see the 60 Minutes interview of Obammie?

    Dang, talk about a puff piece.

    Whenever our gummit needs a puff piece on its crimes it goes to 60 Minutes.

    Remember the Bernanke interviews?

    This one made Obammie our Lord and Savior, and you better believe the AmeroConned Sheeple ate it up.

    Barring an 08 type financial meltdown it looks like Obamma's got another 4 years for sure.

    1. No future president is likely to give up any of the autocratic powers amassed by Bush the Younger.

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  11. It's hard to believe that the writer of the blasphemous "Battle Hymn of the Republic" could have been a pacifist.

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