Peaceful European Empire? Don’t Make Me Laugh

President Macron of France wants a European army. France’s Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire wants Europe to become an empire: “Do not get me wrong, I’m talking about a peaceful empire that’s a constitutional state.”

Post-World Wars I and II Europe has already demonstrated its non-peaceful intentions: Yugoslavia, Libya and Ukraine are three examples. A European empire will try to suppress Greece, Italy, Spain, Hungary and Portugal, for starters. It will choose the financial officials, set the taxes and control the debt. A European empire will step up its designs on Africa and Syria.

Macron and Le Maire are speaking against the tide of a crumbling monetary union, against states that prize their individual sovereignty, and against peoples who value their distinctive histories and cultures. Why would Switzerland and Great Britain become components of a United States of Europe? Le Maire says it’s a matter of gaining power so as to be on an equal footing with the other great power empires of the U.S. and China. But a United States of Europe that commands centralized power will surely suppress its component states. The measures taken won’t be peaceful.

Le Maire wants an empire in which the powers of the European Central Bank are undisputed and unchallenged.

The anti-federalists, as they came to be known, were anti-empire and anti-Constitution. They knew that the principles of the American Revolution were being erased by the new government and constitution. Anti-federalist James Winthrop in his letter (Agrippa IV) of December 3, 1787 writes

“We find, then, that after the experience of near two centuries our separate [state] governments are in full vigour. They discover, for all the purposes of internal regulation, every symptom of strength, and none of decay. The new system [U.S. Constitution] is, therefore, for such purposes, useless and burdensome.

“Let us now consider how far it is practicable consistent with the happiness of the people and their freedom. It is the opinion of the ablest writers on the subject, that no extensive empire can be governed upon republican principles, and that such a government will degenerate to a despotism, unless it be made up of a confederacy of smaller states, each having the full powers of internal regulation. This is precisely the principle which has hitherto preserved our freedom. No instance can be found of any free government of considerable extent which has been supported upon any other plan. Large and consolidated empires may indeed dazzle the eyes of a distant spectator with their splendour, but if examined more nearly are always found to be full of misery. The reason is obvious. In large states the same principles of legislation will not apply to all the parts.”

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12:40 pm on November 13, 2018