World federation

“ 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. ”

“ A bold American Plan for a United Nations world federation would bring hope to people everywhere. It would truly honor George Washington, whose wisdom, conviction and character were essential to the founding of our country and our federal system. ”

“ The intelligent thought of the world now demands the definite establishment of a World Federation for the enforcement of peace among nations. It demands likewise the definite establishment of a permanent World Court, backed by adequate force for the arbitrament of all disputes among nations—unable to be adjusted by the nations themselves in friendly conference. ”

“ And although the time has not yet come when the definite line of action can even be foreshadowed, the people must get his inspiration. He believes that there will be a revision of international law and as has been said that there will be a world federation, a united states of the world to give expression of its rulings through an international court, with its decrees enforced by an international police force. It is going to take the sagacity of strong men to bring this stupendous achievement to pass. ”

“ The enforcement of world law and world legislation shall be carried out in the context of a non-military world federation wherein all member nations shall disarm as a condition for joining and benefiting from the world federation, subject to Article 17, Sec. ”

“ No other nation ever has had—it is well nigh impossible to believe that any other nation ever will have—so commanding a position for exercising the functions of what I have called an oceanic Empire, interested in developing and able to protect the commerce of the world. Such an Empire is probably the best guarantee of permanent peace the world has ever had or is likely to have this side of the millennium. ”

“ To secure these necessary changes in the United Nations system, our political leaders - Democratic, Republican and Independent - should follow the good example of George Washington and his fellow Virginians. They should propose an American Plan for transforming the present United Nations into a world federation with the power, authority and funding to deal with those problems which, because they are global, require global solutions. To accomplish this, they should propose an appropriate package of amendments to the present Charter. ”

“ To say, however, that the world will be better organized is not - unfortunately - the same thing as to say that it will be organized so as to be a better world. We shall have either a world federation in the sense of a genuine concert of nations, or a few large imperialistic organizations, standing in chronic hostility to one another. ”

“ Heretofore, the nearest approach to a universal state has been an empire like that of Egypt or Rome built by conquest and maintained by military authority exercised by the imperial nucleus over its associated and subordinated territories. The universal state described above would be an association of sovereign states, each delegating a sufficient measure of its sovereignty to enable the World Federation to act as a responsible planet-wide government. ”

“ There, in fact, would be the test of world government efficacy—in its ability to leave the handling of local problems to local groups, and to concentrate its energies on the administration of those problems which have assumed a distinctively world scope. Such capacity to understand the difference between the business of local groups and the business of the world organization would be the touchstone of world statesmanship, the criterion by which the master political minds of the age could be tested. ”

“ The authority and powers granted to the World Government shall be limited to those defined in this Constitution for the Federation of Earth, applicable to problems and affairs which transcend national boundaries, leaving to national governments jurisdiction over the internal affairs of the respective nations but consistent with the authority of the World Government to protect universal human rights as defined in this World Constitution. ”

“ For a race of traders scattered over all quarters of the globe, peace is a supreme interest, and peace, as the world is now constituted, can only rest on organized power. For the first time in history we see a nation which unites under its flag all the comprehensiveness of a world-wide Empire and a wonderful relative compactness secured by that practical contraction of our planet which has taken place under the combined influences of steam and electricity. ”

“ These groups, each of which would be organized on a world-wide basis, would unite in the world producers' federation in order to further those interests that were of consequence to two or more of them, as well as those common interests that were of concern to all alike. The world producers' federation would be built on the same principle as the local producers' federation, but unlike this latter federation, the world federation has no prototype existing at the present time. ”

“ A LEAGUE OF NATIONS Many people have long believed that the self-governing nations of the world must sooner or later unite, in the interest of world peace, in some kind of federation or league, with a central organization to which all would agree to submit their differences. ”

“ An organization of producers into groups corresponding with their occupations lays the basis for world thinking and world federation. Each active member of society would then be directly associated with a group that was world wide in its scope, so that transport workers, miners, farmers and other producers would be in constant touch with similarly occupied men and women on every continent. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Today there is no such thing as a code of international law which is binding on the nations. What passes under the name of international law is simply a series of arguments, maxims, precedents and opinions. It is the work, not of legislators, but of scholars. The nations are at perfect liberty to accept it or reject it as they wish. ”

“ One of the most insuperable difficulties before the world at the present time is the lack of any central authority to which may be referred those matters of general and vital concern that affect the peoples of more than one nation. The peoples feel this lack. They are aware of the fact that industry, science, commerce, art, literature have all leaped the national boundary fence. ”

“ By "Revolution", we mean the ultimate establishment of an order of society which may not be threatened by such breakdown, and in which the sovereignty of the proletariat should be recognized and a world federation should redeem humanity from the bondage of capitalism and misery of imperial wars. ”

“ Under a federated system of the European states, civil war would be possible, but the chances of a conflict would be greatly lessened by the presence of a central authority before whom questions of divergent interests could be publicly threshed out. For when issues arise between organizations of equal and parallel jurisdiction, a conflict can frequently be avoided if there is some commonly recognized and superior authority before whom the points in dispute may be laid, and whose decision will prove binding on both parties. ”

“ If, as I have said, the war is fought by us in accordance with our national character, we will create a democratic relationship between the nations of the world; and our experience added to that of Britain and the USSR will tend toward a Federation of Commonwealths; the three great powers have arrived, by three separate experiences, at the idea of Federation; two of them are working out the problems of sovereign independent states within a union; the third, ourselves, worked the problem out long ago by expunging States Rights in theory and allowing a great deal in practise. ”

“ He passes by without note the idea which inspires the Federationist, who believes that such a union will make enormously for the world's peace, not only by preventing the formation of many distinct and possibly hostile states, but also by enabling British people to give security to industry over an area of the world greater than was ever before under a single flag—at least three times as great as that of the United States, to say nothing of the vast extent of ocean which the Empire can control. ”

“ We underline our support for a more democratic and just multi-polar world order based on the rule of international law, equality, mutual respect, cooperation, coordinated action and collective decision-making of all states. ”

“ The aspect of the whole world irresistibly suggests the thought that we are passing from a nation epoch to a federation epoch. That British people should fall in with this tendency is in the strict line of historical continuity. 'From clans in the north,' it has been truly said, 'and from a heptarchy in the south, England and Scotland grew into nations and thence into one nation.' In the great offshoots of the race abroad the tendency is renewed, and each step prepares the way for another and greater effort. ”

“ Organizing the federation of the world Together we will carry on that struggle, and when by force we have at last imposed military victory our labors will not be concluded. Our task will be—I quote the noble words of President Wilson—to organize the society of nations. ”

“ The residents of any World Territory, except designated World Federal Zones, shall have the right within reason to decide by plebiscite to become a self-governing nation within the Federation of Earth, either singly or in combination with other World Territories, or to unite with an existing nation with the Federation of Earth. ”

“ Of course with the realization of a federation of the world in the future, there would be public world citizens as well as private world citizens, just as there are public and private citizens in every nation; and the public world leaders should necessarily have a higher training, a wider experience and a broader travel than the private world citizen, judging from the standpoint of leadership alone. ”

“ The beginnings of world organization, however, have already taken place. In the Hague Court and the recurring Hague Conferences we see the germs of the international court and the parliament of man. The problem is how to develop these so that they will become the judicial and legislative departments. of a powerful world constitution, just as our Articles of Confederation and Continental Congress developed into the present United States Constitution, which a century of storm and stress has not broken and which still serves as a model to all the republics of the earth. ”

“ It would indeed be no exaggeration to say that the absence of those facilities which modern scientific progress has placed at the service of humanity in our time made of the problem of welding the American states into a single federation, similar though they were in certain traditions, a task infinitely more complex than that which confronts a divided humanity in its efforts to achieve the unification of all mankind. ”

“ Most of these plans, a federation of nations, a progressive disarmament, a wider application of the principle of arbitration, and a League to Enforce Peace, have elements of value, once they are divorced from purely static conceptions and are united with proposals to effect some form of progressive adjustment of nations to each other and to the world. ”

“ At the beginning and during each stage, the World Parliament and the World Executive together shall establish goals and develop means for the progressive implementation of the World Constitution, and for the implementation of legislation enacted by the World Parliament. ”

“ Define and establish procedures for initiative and referendum by the Citizens of Earth on matters of supra-national legislation not prohibited by this World Constitution.
4.40. Establish such departments, bureaus, commissions, institutes, corporations, administrations, or agencies as may by needed to carry out any and all of the functions and powers of the World Government.
4.41. Serve the needs of humanity in any and all ways which are now, or may prove in the future to be, beyond the capacity of national and local governments. ”

“ But even if other nations refused to yield to such influences, an empire covering one fifth of the world, and capable of producing everything required by man, would have before it, under a system of free commercial intercourse and common citizenship, a period of prosperity unparalleled in the history of the world. ”

“ The presence of many such men in positions of power would soon split the world government into a series of factions, each one seeking to destroy the others and to take away their authority. Such a competitive stage would represent little advance over the present nationalism. ”

“ Justice alone is the universal good which can unite their desires and efforts, or make them collectively willing to undergo sacrifice.... The wider the federation, the more benign its aspect on the whole world without, especially if the populations absorbed into it are heterogeneous in character, in pursuit, and in cultivation.... A federation resting on strict justice, conceding local freedom, but suppressing local wars and uniting its military force for national defence, is economic of military expenditure in time of peace in proportion to the magnitude of the populations federated. ”