If in Teaching Guide 8 we just saw how historically different political units tried to get together in order to be more powerful, through three types of structures: the Composite monarchies, the Swiss Confederation or the German Customs Union (Zollverein).
These three models of integration are extremely loose, meaning that they not enable strong unions. A stronger model of integration appeared at the end of the 18th century overseas: in the brand new United States. Recognized internationally in 1783 after the British Crown lost the Independance war, the initial 13 colonies, transformed in independent states, had only a loose confederal bond: the Articles of Confederation, created provisionaly in 1777 for ensuring a united action of the 13 rebell colonies in the war against England. But soon after the Versailles Treaty the founders of the new nation realized that if they did not created a stronger union they would disappear in front of two powerful monarchies: Spain in the South and the United Kingdom in the North. And that led to the creation of a new type of bond: the Federal Union.
1. Federalism: an effective way to enable different states to act together
Federalism comes from the Latin word, foedus, meaning 'treaty', 'compact' or 'contract'. Foedus comes itself from the word, fides, meaning 'trust'.
We have already seen in Teaching Guide 8 different ways in which independent territories : -kingdoms, states, cantons- agree to cooperate to get stronger. Under a same sovereign (Composite monarchies), signing an agreement of confederation like the Swiss Rutli Oath of 1291, or adopting a “treaty” of economic cooperation, as it was the case of the Zollverein, the 19th century German Customs Union.
The Federal union goes a step further. Some independent states decide to act together, and for strengthening their union, they decide to have a common legal link; a Federal constitution that creates a new State over the cooperating states. The federal model is a very efficient way of making a really strong union.
All this seems a little complicated and confusing in theory. But it becomes much simpler if we follow a concrete historic example, concretely if we look at how appeared the first modern Federal state: The United States of America.
2. A Confederation of 13 States to fight the British.
We already know from Teaching Guide 4 how the British colonization of North America brought 13 different colonies and how these, after the Declaration of Independence of July 4, 1776, united to fight the British Crown. In order to lead war against their common enemy the 13 different colonies agreed on signing in 1777 a cooperation agreement: the Articles of Confederation.
The first 13 United States (1783)
Once they won the War in 1783 this Agreement became the first US common Constitution as it was compulsory for the new 13 independent States. But it was a very weak legal bond, because it didn’t make disappear every state’s own constitution, government and legal system. It only established a parallel duality of states. The only common institution that kept these bunch of states together was the Continental Congress, a non permanent Assembly where the 13 States sent elective representatives.
The problem was that they only met when they were in trouble, and even so, if they agreed on anything it was extremely difficult to implement the common decision as they had not a common budget, nor a common executive to enforce the agreement.
Congress was clearly not a very operative instrument for facing crisis. Like the one that affected the State of Massachusetts in 1786: the Shay Rebellion.
The anarchy resulting from the rebellion of an angry farmer that had lost his property for not having been able to pay his mortgage, could not be prevented by the Congress under the regimen of the Articles of Confederation. They had not a strong executive and did not have common taxes for raising an army. Finally the mess created by Shay had to be solved by the wealthy citizens of Massachusetts who paid from their pocket an army to reduce the rebels.
The good news was that the Shay Rebellion was a lousy precedent that rendered the US Founding Fathers nervous and forced them to lobby for reaching a stronger union.
3. The Federal Debate
George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and some other capital figures of the new US nation considered that the 13 Colonies could not survive a major crisis, especially if the British, the French or the Spanish –in this time countries much more powerful than the United States- decided to attack them. So they understood they needed a tighter union.
A big debate started between, on one side those defending that states should remain completely autonomous, and others that considered that disunited they would not survive against the Big European Monarchies, and therefore they considered the “Federal way” the best option for consolidating a more solid tie among the confederate states. To make it short, they wanted a stronger union more operative that would ensure a greater protection over internal anarchy situations like Shay’s rebellion or external dangers from international powerful nations.
The federalists considered that the only way to create a stronger and more permanent union was to approve a new common constitution as the "basic agreement" (Grundnorm) necessary to create legally a brand new super state. Of course as many members of the Continental Congress were very reluctant to accept a superior power over the individual member states, the federal union was limited to certain areas expressly defined in the constitutional text.
The Federal debate was a long and fierce as the representatives of some States did not want to give up their full autonomy. But finally, adversaries reached a compromise that was set in writing in a very short new common constitution (September 1787).
The new Union had a strong President elected by the States and a powerful Congress integrated by a double legislature: one representing the states (Senate) and another one representing the citizens (House of Representatives). And then there was a US Supreme Court that represented the Judicial power of the new Super Syaye. There was a very strict separation of powers in order to avoid the new super state to be too powerful. Everything was implemented to ensure that the new “Federal State” would be controlled by the states integrated in it.
Finally the US Constitution, was approved through a complex ratification process, that required the enactment of a Bill of Rights (1791), through which were given constitutional value the first 10 amendments to the new Constitution. When all the 13 colonies got finally into the Federal Union, they elected as first President George Washington (1789-1797).
The US Federal State was however still not fully consolidated when the Antifederalist Thomas Jefferson was elected as the third US President in March 1801. Jefferson thought that the Federal Union was far too strong and tried to weaken it.
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But fortunately for the US Federal Union, the former President John Adams (1797-1801) had put in office as Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court, John Marshall (1801-1835) who was a convinced federalist.
So when Thomas Jefferson tried to give back power to the states in detriment of the Federal Union, John Marshall decided that he could not do so at the Legislative level because it was a violation of the US Contitution. Through the landmark decision of Marbury vs. Madison (1803) Marshall established that the US Supreme Court was the top power in the Federal State as it had the power of interpreting the US Constitution. And no law from the Legislature or no decision from the US President could in any case vilate the constitution. Marshall invented the Judicial Review principle that established the supremacy of the constitution over politics. The strict application of the Rule of Law preserved the Federal Union.
But the Judicial Review was not enough to consolidate the federal way, because states remained deeply divided about one crucial question: Slavery. Some States (essentially in the South) relied economically on slaves of the big plantations, while others (in the North) had a lot of small properties and a lot of industry. Originally there was a balance between Slave and Free States in the common federal institutions as the Missouri Compromise (1820) established that new states could be added only if was respected the balance between slave and free states. But as the US kept on growing adding new territories and new states, it became more and more complicated to keep this balance. And there was a moment in which Free states outnumered slave states. Slave States (in the South) decided to "secede" from the union and create a new Union: The Confederation.
4. Preventing the dismantlement of the Federal Union through Civil War
The expansion of the Union from the 13 initial States to the actual 50, was performed mainly through the legal instrument called the Northwest Ordinance of July 1787, (two months before the approval of the US Constitution), because initially it was provided for the lands situated in the Northwest Territory that includes the actual states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota.
But at the end, as it was fully operational, was used to integrate most of the new 37 states to the Union.
The territorial enlargement of the US was a long process that did not go without tensions, including a devastating Civil War (1861-1865) between the Slave and the Free States. At the end, Lincoln won the war and the Federal Union was preserved, but at what cost.
The causes that brought the US Civil War persist to a certain extent. Despite the fact that Lincoln abolished slavery in some states Black people endure a difficult situation. The huge fight for civil rights that Malcolm X, Angela Davies or Martin Luther King endured during the 1960’s persist with movements like Black Lives Matters.
And as far as the Federal Government is concerned, there are still today tensions between the Republicans that defend the independence of the States and the Democrats who on the contrary are always willing to reinforce the Federal power.
5. Copying the American Federal Union
The important point is that, despite all these problems, the US are a World power because they have been able to consolidate a very useful legal tool: a strong Federal Union that is compatible with a considerable autonomy of its member states. Despite the difficulties of its consolidation, the American Federal State has become a very Powerful Union that in our days still has a determinant influence in the whole World.
The Federal way has definitely worked in the American case, and this is why “plural states” all over the world have chosen the Federal model and the Presidential System to consolidate the union among its parts.
This is why, besides the United States of America, the Federal Model was finally adopted by some important states as Mexico (since 1824), Argentina (since 1853), Canada (since 1867), Brazil (1889), Australia (since 1891), Germany (since 1949), the Republic of India (since 1950), or the Russian Federation (since 1991).
It is not the case of Spain, a country that, as you know, come from a composite monarchy model, and has not achieved the unification of all its t-historical territories in a centralized model of state. Spain tried to become a Federal State in 1873, but it was failure. Since 1931 Spain tried a weird formula: a unitary state but highly decentralized in Autonomies. Under the Spanish Second Republic (1931-1939) was created a sort of decentralised model of state under the weird name of “Integral State”. After 1978 Constitutional Spain is officially dubbed the State of the Autonomies. But it is an ambiguous system that does not prevent that in some “Autonomies” there are strong movements in favour of total independence: Namely the Bask Provinces and Catalonia.
European States were far too powerful at the end of the 18th century and during the 19th century to even consider the possibility of getting together in a federal way. However, after the disastrous World Wars of the first half of the 20th century, European States were distroyed and only then they considered the possibility of adopting the Federal model, as a way of unite and get back the possibility of having some influence at the World level after 1945.
6. A Federal option for a disunited Europe
Adopting the Federal model in Europe so far, however, has proven to be very difficult for several reasons: 1) European States have been independent for centuries, 2) they do not share the language, 3) they had a private history, and 4) they didi not have common institutions.
Remember that after the signing of the Westphalia Treaty (1648), the Universal model (Roman Universalism) gave way to a Europe of independent States that fought each other (from 1648 to 1945) to reach the supremacy in the Old continent. Especially after the French Revolution and the appearance of the nation-state, because "patriotism" and "nationalism" made things far more difficult. This is why, as you have seen in Teaching Guide 5, all along the 19th century European Nation-States were extremely keen in keeping intact their sovereignty in the context of the Colonial expansion. A situation that brought the Armed Peace, and, finally, World War I and the disaster of the Versailles Treaty (1919).
The Europe of the Versailles Treaty (1919)
Only when Europe was in ruins in 1918, some eminent figures started considering that European States they should get together in order to form a powerful union at the world level to confront the US and the USSR.
Ther were some theoretical aapproaches at integration, like the Pan-European Movement of Count Coudenhove Kalergi (1923) or the Briands proposal for a European Union (1929). But they failed due to the rising tensions of strong nationalisms, especially on the part of Italy and Germany. Hitler Lebensraum led to another European suicide: World War Two.
It is interesting however that even between 1939 and 1945 each side tried to reinforce some kind of union of States to get stronger. On the allies side we have to mention the short attempt for a Franco-British Union (June 1940) tried by De Gaulle and Churchill.
On the Hitler's side the Third Reich tried to create a United Europe under the banner of National-Socialism creating a network of Vassal States.
As a reaction there was a anti-hitlerian Europe with different initiatives to develop a way for European integration. The most effective one was the customs and economic union created by Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxemburg: the BENELUX (5 September 1944).
After the end of the war in the spring of 1945, followed some years of disarray for Europe. A period in which the destroyed European States were initially obliged to ask Americans for money in order to survive. First in total disorder creating a Dollar gap, and, finally, in 1947, thanks to the initiative Truman's Secretary of State, George Marshall they got a coordinated aid.
Marshall Plan was great, not only for the money, but because it obliged the needing European States to work together if they wanted to receive any American aid for reconstruction. The Marshall Plan could be considered from this perspective the first step towards a united Europe after World War II.
The success of the Marshall Plan gave way to the first real attempt of creating an integrated Europe. I am talking about the Congress of the Hague (may 1948), aimed at establishing a Federal Europe. At the end it was a failure, but at least it enabled the foundation of the Council of Europe (1949), with its extremely useful Human Rights Court that from Strasbourg protect Europeans citizens from the abuses of their respective governments.
Nevertheless it was clear that in 1949 the World belonged to the Americans and the Russians. If Europeans wanted to survive they had to get together. But once discarded the federal model, they had to find their own way. And this is what we are going to see in the three last Teaching Guides of the present course
INSTRUCTIONS: First read the text included in your Materials (pages 211 to 252), before proceeding to answer the Concrete Questions, the Concepts and the General Questions.
Concerning the Basic Chronology (pages 253-254) You should get familiar with all the dates.
TOPIC FOR DISCUSSION IN CLASS: Would you like a Federal option for Europe?
Please consider the following aspects:
1. Understand the essence of the Federal model of State integration. Consider the differences with other models: Empire, Composite monarchies or Confederation.
2. Consider the US Federal approach. Why it appeared. Which were the main difficulties it faced for assuring its consolidation. How work the relationship between the States and the Federal State.
3. How should European States procede in order to move to a Federal Europe.
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