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The Literature of International Relations

of such unions among States as may promote a continuous approximation to a Perpetual Peace; and these principles are not to be dismissed as being impracticable, for the problem of approximation is itself a problem that both involves a duty and tests good judgement.

Such a Union of States, with a view to the maintenance of Peace, may be called a General Congress of Nations. It is intended to be permanent. But the Congress is a voluntary combination of States. It would be dissoluble; its duration would depend upon the sovereign wills of the several members of the League. It would not be such a union as is embodied in the constitution of the United States of America; it would not bean indissoluble union.^[1] It is only by means of a Congress of this kind that the idea of a Public Right among Nations can become real; only by such means can their differences be settled by civil process, instead of by the barbarous means of war.

Perpetual Peace may not be realized. But that is no reason why we should not work towards its realization; and towards that end we should work to establish that constitution which

↑ This appreciation by Kant of the nature of the constitution of the United States is noteworthy owing to the time at which it was written. 'If, in a word, the Union be essential to the happiness of the people of America,' said Madison in No. xlv of The Federalist, 'is it not preposterous, to urge as an objection to a government, without which the objects of the Union cannot be attained, that such a government may derogate from the importance of the governments of the individual States?' In the course of a well-informed and able estimate of the influence of Chief-Justice Marshall on constitutional development in the United States, it has been said that a single phrase in one of his latest decisions struck the key-note of all, when he spoke of the exercise of the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court as 'indispensable to the preservation of the Union, and consequently of the independence and liberty of these States'.—Constitutional History of the United States as seen in the Development of American Law, by Judge T. M. Cooley and others (1889), p. 111.

[1] This appreciation by Kant of the nature of the constitution of the United States is noteworthy owing to the time at which it was written. 'If, in a word, the Union be essential to the happiness of the people of America,' said Madison in No. xlv of The Federalist, 'is it not preposterous, to urge as an objection to a government, without which the objects of the Union cannot be attained, that such a government may derogate from the importance of the governments of the individual States?' In the course of a well-informed and able estimate of the influence of Chief-Justice Marshall on constitutional development in the United States, it has been said that a single phrase in one of his latest decisions struck the key-note of all, when he spoke of the exercise of the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court as 'indispensable to the preservation of the Union, and consequently of the independence and liberty of these States'.—Constitutional History of the United States as seen in the Development of American Law, by Judge T. M. Cooley and others (1889), p. 111.

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