The Lost Fruits of Waterloo

by John Spencer Bassett

Next to the fears of the small states was the unwillingness of many people in the states to give up the idea that only a state should control the happiness of its citizens, and that the union, if formed, would destroy or lessen individual liberty. This idea inhered in whatever idea of state sovereignty the people of the day held. To form a federation to enforce peace would undoubtedly limit to some extent the sovereignty of the present states of Europe. But sovereignty in itself is worth nothing. It exists to give in general some forms of life and dignity to states. If a surrender of part of a state’s sovereignty will give that state immunity from wars perpetually, is it not sovereignty well exchanged? No American state suffered because it gave up control over its right to make war, but, on the contrary, it gained immensely. Such a right is a costly necessity, a thing to be held tenaciously as long as we are in a condition which makes wars necessary, but to be given up as quickly as we can do without it.

To enter a federation would mean that individual nations would give up the right to expand their territories. Germany could not acquire more territory under such a system, unless she got it by agreement of the parties concerned. The British empire could become no larger by any forceful process. But this would not be a hardship. The only real justification of expansion is to enlarge trade areas. A federation to eliminate war would necessarily adopt a policy which allowed all states an “open door” in trade. This was one of the essential things in the formation of our union; for we read that no state shall interfere within its borders with the rights of the citizens of other states to trade there. Under such circumstances territorial expansion becomes useless.

When the American states were trying to form that simple kind of union that was expressed in the articles of confederation, Maryland long refused to join. She was jealous of the great size of her neighbors and especially of Virginia, whose claim to the Northwest was in general not disputed. Experience showed that her fears were groundless. Virginia not only never became a menace to Maryland, but she soon realized that her wide boundaries were worthless to her under a system which guaranteed her against quarrels with her neighbors, and as a result she surrendered her Northwestern lands. Under a federation an undeveloped part of Asia or Africa would be open as freely to Germans as to others for trade, settlement, and the happiness of life, just as our Northwest was open to Virginians, Pennsylvanians, and New Englanders alike. The only thing that Virginia gave up in relinquishing her lands was the right to call herself a big state, that is, self-glorification, a thing the nations would have to give up in a federation. But might it not be well exchanged for the right to call themselves safe from warfare?

When the American constitution was being debated the small states declared they would not “federate” unless they were given privileges which guaranteed them against absorption by the large states, while the large states declared they would not “federate” unless it was arranged that the small states should not have the power to defeat measures that were for the common good. Each side was very honest in suspecting the other, and great patience and persistence were necessary to bring them together in a compromise which gave neither what it at first demanded. For us it is interesting to observe that in actual practice there has never been a time when the large states seemed to threaten to devour the small states, nor a time when the small states placed their welfare against any measure that concerned the general good of the country. The union formed, the people began to debate questions that had nothing to do with this or that state, general policies that cut across great sections of the federation, without regard to the states as such.

It seems that if a federation of Europe were once formed a development might be expected of a somewhat similar nature. At least, it is not unlikely that the clashes predicted by the doubters would not be as violent as they fear. It seems certain that at once a new class of issues would engage the minds of the politicians, issues that would spring from the general interests that were conceived essential to life in the new grouping. It is not possible to say what clashes might grow out of these general issues, but it is probable that the genius of man would be as competent to take care of them as to direct the issues that will arise if the world goes on under a system like that now in use; for clashes we must have in any event. After all, humanity has to manage its own problems, and there will never be a government under which it will not have all it can do to make the doubts of today resolve themselves into the confidence of tomorrow.

In our American constitution-making one often heard the question, “What will become of the liberties of the citizen of the state under the federation?” The answer was well made at the time: “Will not the citizen of the state still be the citizen of the state, and will not the state continue to guarantee him all that it can now guarantee him? Does he not also pass under the protection of the federation as truly as the citizens of any of the states? All that the federation proposes to do is to take charge of the functions that concern the things for which the federation is founded, and these are things to which the states are not so well adjusted as a united government.” And so it proved in practice. No American has ever had reason to think his liberty lessened because the union was formed; and he has been immensely stronger in all his rights on the high seas, in traveling abroad, in being safe from the burdens of foreign wars, and in his rights of trade in the uttermost parts of the earth; for he has been the citizen of a great federation of small states.

Applying the analogy to the suggested federation of the world it appears that under such a system the citizen of France, Great Britain, Russia, or the United States would in nowise lose his rights under his own government, and he would gain vastly in relief from burdens. He would no longer have to think of wars, his trade relations would be adjusted in such a way that no other man could have what he did not have. In short, for all the purposes for which the federation was founded he would stand on equal footing with any other man, and for the purposes for which his own state existed he would have all the rights he had before. His only losses would be in casting off the burdens that grow out of international rivalry under the present system.

One of the things for which the American union was created was the payment of the revolutionary debts. Compared with the debts the colony had incurred individually before the revolution, and compared with their ability to pay them at the time, these debts were large, although they proved, under the union, a very small burden. It was the sense of security under a government which had eliminated the possibility of interstate wars that made the burden light.

The amount of indebtedness that the several nations in the present war have contracted seems appalling. It would become a comparatively light burden, if we could feel that for the future the world had nothing to do but to pay it. The waste of interstate rivalry, the burden of preparations for future wars, the loss to industry through uncertainties on account of wars, all these things would disappear from the consideration of the financiers, the credit of a federated world would become excellent, and bonds that are likely to be quoted very low when the artificial stimulus they get from patriotism is taken away would be considered better investments than any bonds ever offered under the existing system of states. The capitalists of the world, like the American capitalists of 1787–1789, should be the most earnest supporters of federation.

In the United States a great deal has been said about “entangling alliances.” As the term was used a century ago it meant an alliance that was likely to make us parties to the quarrels of European states, one against the other. Into such a maze of selfish maneuvers it would never be well for us to enter. But to take our place in a federation to preserve peace would be quite another thing. That it would pledge us to the discharge of a duty is not to be doubted; but we should be entering no intrigue. We should be doing the most patriotic thing possible; for the very essence of the act would be to protect ourselves from the possibility of being drawn into “entangling alliances” with Europe. Let us suppose that the old system is continued, and that Germany has a mind to pay off what she may consider an old score. Suppose she tries to set Mexico up against us, or to induce Japan to attack the Philippines, or to interfere with any weaker American government in such a way as to threaten the integrity of the Monroe doctrine, have we not an “entangling alliance” on hand? If Germany emerges from the present war strong enough to threaten the world as before the war, when other nations found it necessary to form ententes against her, we shall not dare remain outside of some kind of alliance that will be formed to check her pretensions. World federation is the guaranty against the formation of “entangling alliances” on the part of the United States.