Unification

“ Dr Eliot points out the factors that have promoted division in the past and then enumerates the present forces that are encouraging unification. He says, “To the United States the world is indebted for the demonstration that on the principle of federation a strong, stable, and just government can be constructed.... ”

“ Thereafter no organized opposition could ever be maintained against the new social equilibrium. Modern France went on steadily to a readjustment, on the basis of unification, simplification of administration, and equality before the law, first under the Directory, then under the Consulate, and finally under the Empire. ”

“ By this method a union can be established without forming a federation—which means too much on the one side, in the surrender of position and individuality by the United States and England—while mere vague, indefinite expressions of sympathy and ephemeral good feeling, on the other, accomplish too little. It is too much to demand or expect a federation; while a mere moral entente falls short in effectiveness and practical result. ”

“ The problem at the present time is to federate groups. Individuals have already become unified. But what sets the problem gives rise also to a hope. The existence of groups will prove an aid in the accomplishment of world unification. ”

“ Since the turn of the century a shift of forces has been under way. The wearing down forces presently are in the ascendant. Had it been less competitive and more cooperative and co-ordinated, western civilization might have taken another step in advance by extending cultural unification into the political arena. The League of Nations and the United Nations were efforts in this direction. Neither succeeded in breaking down sovereignty far enough to permit planet-wide political federation. ”

“ We must mingle together in thought, and in sentiment; we must be allies in the noblest sense of the word; not friends merely in aggressive and selfish enterprises, but locked together in a common thought and common purpose to achieve the {68} great and glorious object of civilisation. And let this purpose be broadly, clearly, and comprehensively stated, in some declaration, in some writing, perpetuating the compact of union—let us write a second Magna Charta, or a second Declaration of Independence ”

“ It would create a new confederation based on principles and ideas not on tradition, and bounded by the possibilities of human development not by geographical lines. It would give a new significance to the motto E Pluribus Unum, and would create a new United States of the World of which the United States of America would be a component part. ”

“ The gradual union of mankind in larger and larger units, first the family, then the clan, the tribe, the city, the nation and finally the empire or the great federated republic will have its final completion in a world empire or a world federation. That will be the only way in which war will ever become extinct and the history of our own confederation and our subsequent federal union is pointing out the method in which this world union can best be established. ”

“ Moreover, we shall always endeavour to guard against all unwarrantable and irregular ways, not approven in God's Word, of punishing malignants and incendiaries, for their opposition to reformation.
Whereas, in the fifth Article, we are bound to endeavour, that the kingdoms may remain united in a most firm peace and union to all posterity; which union did consist in a uniformity in doctrine, worship, discipline and government, though, as was said, it is now laid aside, and a union entered into which establishes multiformity therein, and so is the opposite of this Covenanted Union. ”

“ Gentlemen, you may call the union which binds us an empire, you may call it a federation, you may call it an offensive and defensive alliance of the closest kind—you may call it what you will—the name is of subordinate consequence while mutual sympathy and sentiment retain that binding force which, as we have seen in this Jubilee week, you are all so generously prepared to acknowledge in your relations with the old country. ”

“ But how were the people of these thirteen independent States, each with a history, with interests, with prejudices, with sympathies of its own, to be brought together and induced to form, through a more perfect union, a nation, in the only way in which a nation can be formed, by the establishment of an independent national Executive? ”

“ All, then, must have looked forward to some further bond of union, which would insure internal peace, and a political system of our own, independent of that of Europe. Whether all should be consolidated into a single government, or each remain independent as to internal matters, and the whole form a single nation as to what was foreign only, and whether that national government should be a monarchy or republic, would of course divide opinions, according to the constitutions, the habits, and the circumstances of each individual. ”

“ A gentleman here says that the Union 'rests on a foundation as sure as the everlasting hills.' Did not the Eternal City claim a foundation just as sure, and what has been her subsequent history? Go on if you will, and close every avenue to free discussion, the mind will still be left to conquer, whose empire is absolute and irresistible, and which has itself the power to snap this Union in sunder when it shall no longer serve the purpose for which it was intended. ”

“ The extension of the royal power favored the organization of the nation, by establishing a principle of unity, for till then, and with that multitude of masters, the nation had been little else than an agglomeration of provinces, strangers to one another, and destitute of any common bond or common interest. ”

“ It is apparent that there was not that tendency to union which was necessary to the formation of the Constitution. But the mutual dependence which the mutual necessities of the war produced convinced many of the propriety of a common government—a government which should be adequate to a time of peace and to a condition of war—a government which should guard each State from civil commotion and protect its citizens and commerce in every part of the world. ”

“ The main, if not the only, purpose for which independent states form unions, or confederations, is to combine the power of the several members in such manner as to form one united force in all relations with foreign powers, whether in peace or in war. ”

“ Finance makes or mars Federations. Some Federations or organic Unions of independent States have come into being through a strong desire in the separate States to have, among other things, a common system of Customs, and in the case of the German Empire and the South African Union a Customs Union or Zollverein has preceded Federation. These phenomena are the most marked illustration of the general truth that a common desire to federate, or unite, on the part of individual States is a condition precedent to a sound Federation or Union. ”

“ It means that to escape an era of conflict ending, perhaps, in a world united through conquest as the Roman Empire was united, we establish by agreement a world united through federation, as the United States of America were united. A league of nations, under the plans suggested above, would be only a half-way house that would lead to rupture and263 failure or to some future struggle out of which a world taught by experience might possibly form “a more perfect union.” ”

“ American unity, German unity, Italian unity, Austro-Hungarian unity—the expansion of Russia without loss of unity—these are the accomplished facts of our time which we have to face. More than this. We do not need the philosophical historian to tell us, for the process is going on under our own eyes, that a governing tendency of the age is towards the union of many states into combinations of nearly equal strength—sometimes by fusion, sometimes by federation, sometimes by alliance. ”

“ Just connection implies free statehood in all the communities connected. Union is a form of connection in which the connected free states are consolidated into a unity for the common purposes, though separate for local purposes. Merger is the fusion of two or more free states into a single unitary state. Connection between free states may be through a legislative medium, or through a justiciary medium, or through an executive medium. The connecting medium may be a person, a body corporate, or a state. ”

“ It is owing to this same fact of the interrelation and dependence of interests, that the movement of unitization has not stopped in Europe with the organi [Pg 96] zation of a distinct government for each nation. We have observed that when primitive individuals develop relations with each other, they form into small societies, and that when these develop relations with like societies, they unite and form larger associations; and further, that these states, cities, baronies, come at length to develop relations with each other, and the result is their union into kingdoms. ”

“ An entire and perfect Union will be the solid foundation of lasting peace: It will secure your religion, liberty, and property, remove the animosities amongst yourselves, and the jealousies and differences betwixt our two kingdoms. It must increase your strength, riches, and trade ”

“ The division of a country into regions, provinces, districts, and communes, as in France, will naturally depend on the traditions, the specific circumstances, and the particular nature of each country. We can only point out here the two fundamental and indispensable principles which must be put into effect by any country seriously trying to organize a free society. First: all organizations must proceed by way of federation from the base to the summit, from the commune to the coordinating association of the country or nation. ”

“ That even a division of sovereignty and partition of kingdoms is not incompatible with the external union of the body politic for one general design, so long as the potentates are animated by a Christian and brotherly feeling, and a spirit of union as to this one object—the all-uniting bond of confederacy; is a truth which may be proved by many pleasing and glorious examples from the history of the earlier middle age, and from that of Germany especially. ”

“ We know that the resolution of Congress of 1780 contemplated that the new States to be formed under their recommendation were to have the same rights of sovereignty, freedom, and independence, as the old. That every resolution, cession, compact, and ordinance of the States observed the same liberal principle. That the Union of the Constitution is a union formed of equal States, and that new States, when admitted, were to enter "this Union." ”

“ If the Congress of 1826 had proclaimed a federation, the chiefs that then represented the federation would have cried unity; the opposition was against men, not against things, which were but a pretext. ”

“ We need not an entente between two or three governments, and alliances on the part of two others, but a union of all in a compact Federation, by which any violation of the laws of the Federation shall be treated as a ground of action of all against that one. ”

“ The first question which this passage naturally suggests to the mind of the reader is this: if two or more nations or people, confessedly separate, distinct and independent, each having its own peculiar government, without any "direct political connexion with each other," yet owing the same allegiance to one common superior, should unite in a declaration of rights which they believed belonged to all of them alike, would that circumstance, alone, make them "one people?" ”

“ Immediate political union presents many difficulties. There is at present no sufficient unity of interest on which a political constitution can be based. Neither we nor the Colonies are ready for it, and it can only come gradually, along with, and as the result of, other forms of the union. The same difficulties stand in the way of any common military system. ”

“ Year after year, the assemblies that represented the self-government of provinces and of privileged classes, all over the Continent, met for the last time and passed away, to the satisfaction of the people, who had learned to venerate the throne as the constructor of their unity, the promoter of prosperity and power, the defender of orthodoxy, and the employer of talent. ”

“ Every step in the formation, growth and preservation of the Union has been almost a historical miracle. It is wonderful that thirteen separate and independent sovereignties, scattered over a wide extent of territory, should voluntarily unite themselves under one government. ”

“ The very language which we are compelled to use when speaking of our political institutions affords proof conclusive as to its real character. The terms union, federal, united, all imply a combination of sovereignties, a confederation of States. ”

“ The only sort of union that is quite likely to come about is the joining by the Americans of the United Empire, or Confederation of all English-speaking nations, with which we have been connected for some years. ”

“ Furthermore, the people, who at the beginning of the struggle were scattered and separated, and who scarcely knew each other, were now united under a government; the Confederation, however weak, was the strongest federation then in existence. The people had learned the lesson of acting together in a great national crisis, and of accepting the limitations upon their governments made necessary by the central power. ”

“ In the last chapter we dealt with the growth of states into empires and the aggregation of empires into civilizations with the possibility that the existing states could be welded into a world federation. One of the chief obstacles to such a development is the centuries of conflict during which modern nations have been built up and the strong bonds of nationalism have been established as a means of holding divergent groups of people in line by particular oligarchies operating in particular civilizations. ”