The Star spangled banner: the symbol of the Fededal Union
If the United States are the first power of the Planet
it is largely due to the fact that they discovered a great Constitutional model
of integration: the Federal System. Federal comes from Latin “Foedus, foederis”
that refers originally to a treaty. Like the ones that the Roman Empire signed
from the end of the IVth Century AD with Germanic invaders to have them as
allies once they were established in the West. A Federation is a reunion of
different groups, in this case “States”. A sort of strong alliance.
The U.S. started after the Treaty of Paris of 1783 as
an independent new country integrated by 13 different colonies. It was a loose
union under “The Articles of Confederation”, signed in 1777, to deal with the
War the colons were fighting against the British Crown. It was provisional and
such a weak union, that the Founding fathers of the new country were afraid
would not prevent the UK to fight back and reoccupy the United States. As they
did in fact in 1812 when the British Troops destroyed Washington D.C.
Britihs troops burning Washington DC (1812)
In 1786
Daniel Shay, an angry farmer, almost destroyed the State of Massachussets. It was
time to make the Union stronger.
Shay Rebellion (1786)
So there was a Constitutional debate in order to
decide whether the Confederation should turn into a Federation. A stronger
Union under a powerful Executive: The President of the United States. This is why
the US System is called “Presidential”. The Federal-Antifederal Debate was
fierce, but finally the delegates of the States reunited in Congress in Philadelphia
agreed on the text of a succinct constitution. The Federal Constitution of
1787.
Signing the US Constitution (September 1787)
The Compromise
was complex (See pages 216 to 219), but finally the new constitution was sent
for ratification to the 13th States (pages 219 to 220). On June 21
1788, when New Hampshire State became the 9th state to ratify it, the
United States were born. The 4 remaining states will end up ratifying it when the Bill of
Rights was approved by the US Congress as a way of legally protecting the small
states.
The Federal union was not easy to implement. The
relationship between Washington DC and the different states was not a peace of cake. In
1861 some States even secede from the Union creating a Confederation and
igniting a terrible Civil war. But finally the Union was preserved. On top of it the Federal Constitution was protected from Legislatures
through the Judicial Review principle. And finally they even found a way of expanding to the West adding new States to the Union through the North West Ordinance. In 1959 the 13
original States had become 50 (pages 221-to 230).
Of course, there are still tensions between the States and the Federal Administration (pages 231 to 233) but on the whole the US Federal State has been a success and has enabled the country to become the most powerful nation in the World.
On the other side of the Atlantic, European Nations
States were far more powerful than the new American Nation in the 18th
and 19th centuries. This is why, as we have already seen, they did not need to
get together. On the contrary, after the end of the principle of Universalism
in 1648 with the Peace of Westphalia, the political history of Europe is
dominated by continuous wars among European States searching for imposing their
hegemony over the others. Europe is waving from imperialism to coordination
from 1789 to 1914 (pages 233 to 234).
After World War
I nevertheless most of European Nation-States were extremely weakened and the US had become the
leading nation in the World. From 1918 to 1939 Europe is in ruins at the mercy
of the US and the Communist Soviet Union.
Europe in 1939
There were some attempts of
integration (pages 236 to 240) but limited and unsuccessful. Nationalisms
pushed strongly towards disunity.
The ephemeral Franco-British Union (1940)
The result of nationalisms and disunion was World War II. During the
conflict there were some attempts of integration. Besides the ephemeral
Franco-British Union (page 241) there was a powerful Hitlerian Europe, reunited
mostly by military force (pages 241 to 243) and as a response to it some attempts of
getting together led by the countries and people resisting the Nazi regime (pages
243-245).
Hitlerian Europe
The German defeat in May 1945 left Europe in ruins.
Despite the aid that the US brought through the Marshall Plan to help
economically to the European reconstruction (pages 246-247), the fall of the
Iron curtain and the split of Eastern Europe (pages 247 to 248) weakened even
more the European nation-States. Suddenly the European leaders woke up and realised that separated they would not survive in the new World order. So they decided to start searching for a way of getting together.
Following the Federal American example delegates from
the different European Nation-States met at the Congress of the Hague in 1948, trying to build a Federal Europe (pages 249-250), but the only result
was the creation of a disappointing Council of Europe that had no power at all to counteract the power of the Nation States. The failure of the federal way would open the Communitarian way in 1950. A weird way of integration that we will examine in Teaching Guide number 10 next week.
was the creation of a disappointing Council of Europe that had no power at all to counteract the power of the Nation States. The failure of the federal way would open the Communitarian way in 1950. A weird way of integration that we will examine in Teaching Guide number 10 next week.
The Hague Congress (1948)
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