The Swiss Confederation Institut

6 Namaste, No. 3, pp. 6-10 (September 2003)

I wish to direct attention to the draft constitution for the European Union, as proposed on June 20, 2003, by the so-called convention on the future of Europe under the signature of Valéry Giscard D'Estaing as president of the convention. I cannot but feel great anxiety that the people and nations of Europe have no adequate idea of this ominous document, which embodies an attempt to take from them their greatest treasures upon false pretenses. I have been struck by the attempt to sell this proposition with arguments that the European Union should follow the example established by the United States Constitution, which, however, has nothing to do with what unsuspecting Europeans are asked to adopt. Some history will help highlight the truth.

On September 3, 1783, King George III conceded American independence. The first article of the Treaty of Paris is particularly striking: "His Britannic Majesty acknowledges the United States, viz., New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, to be free, sovereign, and independent States."

In the Philadelphia Convention, on June 18, 1787, Alexander Hamilton proposed that the United States should be transformed from the graceful confederacy described by George III into a consolidated empire under a centralized government with authority over virtually everything. The Philadelphia Convention deemed the idea so unthinkable that the delegates simply adjourned for the day without a second, after which Hamilton's proposal was given no further consideration. The mortal fault was identified in the Virginia Convention, on June 4, 1788, by George Mason when he said, "Is it to be supposed that one national government will suit so extensive a county, embracing so many climates and containing inhabitants so very different in manners, habits, and customs? It is ascertained by history that there never was a government over a very extensive country without destroying the liberties of the people." In making this statement, Mason drew from long ages of experience in Europe. Hamilton soon saw the defect in his plan, and stated in The Federalist, No. 9, that the United States Constitution implemented in 1789 was meant to continue into the future what the Baron de Montesquieu had called a "confederate republic, " i. e., -- an assocation of free and independent States, each retaining sovereignty, including a right to secede from the Union. The well-proportioned confederacy established by the United States Constitution was badly damaged by the American Civil War, because the conflict induced excessive consolidation of power in the federal government. It was not without just reason that Lord Acton felt deep sadness when he heard of the surrender of Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House.

Looking back on the 20th century, we see that France, Great Britain, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Russia blundered their way into the First World War, during which in desperation Germany sent Vladimir Lenin to Russia and thereby supplied the catalyst which produced the Soviet Union. The United States attempted to mediate peace, but was pulled into the conflict, added decisive weight on one side which brought an end to hostilities, then provided a framework for a practical and just settlement in Wilson's 14 Points. In Paris, Woodrow Wilson was betrayed by corrupted American diplomats. Thereupon, the British and French imposed an unjust settlement upon defeated Germany, including an agreement extracted by duress to pay astronomical reparations upon no proper basis under international law. The Treaty of Versailles in turn produced a lingering injustice which facilitated the rise of the Third Reich. The Soviet Union and the Third Reich then formed an alliance which started the Second World War. The United States were drawn into the war, and destroyed the Third Reich. Thereafter the United States had to wage a Cold War over some forty-five years until the collapse of the Soviet Union. And from this situation the United States emerged as an unrivaled imperial power, even more centralized than after the American Civil War.

The most serious dangers faced by Europe over the past four hundred years were caused by the Holy Roman Empire when it was overcentralized by Ferdinand II, within the English Protectorate which was overcentralized by Oliver Cromwell, within the Kingdom of Scotland when it was absorbed by the Act of Union in 1707, by the Kingdom of France which was overcentralized by Louis XIV, by the French Republic which was overcentralized by the Jacobins, by the French Empire which was overcentralized by Napoleon, by the German Empire which was overcentralized by Wilhelm II, by the Third Reich which was overcentralized by Adolf Hitler, and by the Soviet Union which was overcentralized by Joseph Stalin.

Too much consolidation of power in a single government over a large territory and population tempts leaders to undertake more than prudence will allow, resulting first in loss of freedom, then in weakening of culture and waste of resources, then in wreckage of the apparatus of state.

The world is now going through a transition. It may be anticipated that the present era of dominance by the United States will eventually give way in gradual stages to shared responsibility by great powers. And one of those great powers should be the European Union. Anybody who understands history can appreciate that the European Union should never become a consolidated government, but should strive to achieve the shape of a graceful confederacy of free, sovereign, and independent States. The salvation of the United States lies in the hope that the American Union may be restored to its original shape as a confederacy of free, sovereign, and independent States. The salvation of Canada has been a series of events which are gradually transforming the Dominion from a consolidated national government into a real confederacy upon the upper stretches of North America.

Up until recently, it has been possible to look with cautious optimism upon the European Union as a practical system of international cooperation, blended by various treaties. It has been possible to hope that the nations of Europe might be able to experiment with various possibilities, then take advantage of good results and correct errors. It has been possible up until now for nations to opt in and out of various services offered. The flexibility of the system has been much admired. Most observers have spoken well of this venture, although there is just reason to fear that the central bank and the euro are the pet projects of international bankers to promote themselves at the expense of nation states which might be better off by retaining the power to define and emit money as an indispensable prerogative of sovereign power.

All the hope that something good might come from the European Union was rudely shaken on June 20, 2003, when the draft constitution of the European Union was at last unveiled.

This draft constitution is about 260 pages of rambling text. Even when read with alert attention, inevitable confusion emerges about what it is supposed to say. The document is flooded with flowery effusions, glowing promises, incomprehensible goobledegook, and needless length which conceal the fact that the document has no objective meaning.

By contrast, the United States Constitution implemented in 1789 is about twelve pages of tight, crisp, lucid prose. It is a sensible body of fundamental law, essentially an affirmation of the British Constitution as explained by Sir William Blackstone, with various alterations as needed to adapt to the American Revolution, the republican institutions thereby established, and the requirements of a confederate republic as defined by the Baron de Montesquieu. It was based upon natural law as an inherent moral and physical order of the world given by the hand of God, establishing moral absolutes and inalienable rights, discoverable by human observation and reason, and given objective form as a moral imperative by historical experience and legal tradition. It took the brightest men then living on North America about four months to write those twelve pages. There are certain substantive flaws in the United States Constitution, but the main faults are that some technical words and phrases understood in 1789 were not adequately defined for the sake of posterity, and that certain implied limitations were not expressed clearly enough for the benefit of future generations. Yet by systematic resort to canons of construction understood by the framers, ambiguities can be cleared up. If all necessary additions were made to correct a few substantive errors and to prevent misinterpretation in future years, the whole document would not exceed twenty pages. A sensible and effective constitution for the European Union, practical in operation, safe to adopt, adequately defined, and beneficial for all member nations, need not exceed thirty-five pages.

The United States Constitution, in any event, was written by statesmen and patriots who wanted it to have an understandable meaning, because they believed, as Lord Coke once said, that "the known certainty of the law is the greatest security of us all." The United States Constitution has been judicially misinterpreted from time to time, which is why the framers should have added more definition in express language. Even so the document was intended to be understood, and can be understood for the protection of human freedom as the power drive of success. The draft constitution for the European Union, on the other hand, was written by bureaucrats and politicians who wanted it to mean anything they wish it to say. It was designed to be incomprehensible, because it is meant to be an instrument for depriving the people of Europe of their precious freedoms, their nation states, their cultural traditions, their unique civilizations, their religious heritage, and their accumulated wealth, all of which are to be absorbed and harnessed by a giant superstate.

The United States Constitution implemented in 1789 and the British North America Act of 1867, now called the Constitution Act of 1867 in Canada have sober, businesslike preambles which describe constitutional objectives and postulates of government. But the draft constitution for the European Union begins with pages of psychobabble, all calculated to excite naive visions of a veritable paradise on earth. This language includes such phrasing as unity in diversity, pluralism, tolerance, justice, solidarity, non-discrimination, equality of men and women, the rights of children, peace, security, sustainable growith, and, yes, humanism, which is a term commonly misunderstood. For humanism is properly defined in the first and second humanist manifestos as a view of life which limits reality to sensory experience and denies anything beyond space and time, of necessity an atheistic and materialistic perspective which reduces right and wrong to making the most of here and now before the arrival of death. Humanism is, in any event, established by this draft constitution as the official religion of the European Union. Gone in official circles are all the philosophers of Western civilization who held out a more exalted and spiritualized view of human nature. The Christian heritage which shaped Western civilization will have no impact on this government.

The draft constitution of the European Union makes prominent reference to a blunt statement of Thucydides so as to indicate that the governing principle of the European Union will be absolute democracy, or majority rule which in all cases overrules the voice of the minority. Absolute democracy excludes all safeguards of constitutional government against the tyranny of the majority, the mischief of demagogues, the ignorance of the people, the influence of faction, and the willingness of the people to surrender liberty for security, as if the greatest political savants in Western civilization had never written a word. Under this draft constitution intepreted according to its inevitable tendency, the majority will decide what tolerance is, what freedom is, what solidarity is, what equality is, what justice is, what property is, etc.

The draft constitution confers upon the European Union a dazzling array of preemptory and often exclusive powers which are enumerated in broad, sweeping, unrestrained, and grandiose terms. The government of the European Union is to have authority to regulate economic and monetary policy, social policy, employment, commerce, agriculture, energy, environment, foreign policy, defense policy, consumer protection, and so on and on. The government of the European Union is to have a carte blanche power to provide itself with all necessary resources to carry out its mission. There will be nothing that this new Orwellian megagovernment will not be able to regulate or tax on one pretext or another. It will be able to authorize social workers to enter private homes to take children who have been disciplined by their parents, to insert birth control chemicals in public drinking water, to conscript everyone for foreign wars or public works, to confiscate property for collection of taxes impossible to pay, to prohibit marriage between man and woman who can procreate and license marriage between persons of the same sex who cannot procreate, to exclude any church from the protection of government unless its teachings are in conformity with public policy, etc.

It may be argued that the rule of law will prevail to prevent such abuses of power. But because secular humanism will be the established religion, the official jurisprudence will be legal positivism which says essentially that law is not rooted in objective standards of justice, but rests upon whatever public authority ordains and can enforce. The rights of citizens will be whatever pulbic authority allows or cannot take away.

The Federal Bill of Rights was added to the United States Constitution in 1791 as an afterthought to express limitations on the power of Congress already believed to have been implied. It was meant to be a venerable and objective definition of human freedom not to be transgressed by public authority. The enumeration of "rights" in the draft constitution of the European Union, by contrast, has no roots in ancient wisdom, defines human freedom in name only, and is frankly intended to authorize social engineering by judicial fiat according to the principles of secular humanism and legal positivism. Implemented, it will be a classic example of Orwellian newspeak whereby the "rights of citizens" will mean the power of government.

But it will be said that the government of the European Union under this draft constitution will not degenerate into the political nightmare which I have portrayed, because the people will not allow it. I answer from Plato's Republic where it was taught that democracy ultimately degenerates into despotism. A people must be conditioned and obliged to live in freedom. Not only is freedom a right, it is a duty, yet mankind is a fallen creature in need of redemption, which is why a people, unless constantly prodded, will surrender freedom for bread and regularity. In the Virginia Convention on June 14, 1788, Patrick Henry recapitulated an ancient truth which then prevailed in Europe: "Who has enslaved France, Spain, Turkey, and other countries which groan under tyranny? They have been enslaved by their own people. If it is to be so in America, will be only as it has been everywhere else." The French Revolution broke out in the following year. Louis XVI, as father of his people, and eminent among the founding fathers of the United States, began to lead his kingdom in the direction of constitutional reform. Yet this benevolent prince was the victim of judicial murder as the mob in Paris howled the cheap slogan, "Liberté, égalité, et fraternité!" So it was at the end of the 18th century. And it is delusional to think that human beings are morally different at the beginning of the 21st century.

And it will be argued that the government of the European Union under this draft constitution will never be dangerous, because there is a provision which expressly allows the member states to withdraw from the European Union upon giving two years' advance notice. But this provision is only one of many deceptive features of the document. The Constitution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics adopted in December 1936 as Statin reached the peak of power, was loaded with florid and bright promises, exactly like D"Estaing's prompous offer in June 2003, giving the impression of a paradise on earth. And one of the provisions in Stalin's constitution said, "To every Union Republic is reserved the right freely to secede from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics." That provision became meaningless, because the Soviet central state quickly preempted the member states and fastened its grip of power throughout the country so that nothing could happen without its permission. The right of secession, like many more glittering rights, became empty formalities. And so it remained until the central Soviet state, after seventy years of imposing tyranny and unhappiness, collapsed of its own excess weight. Before the right of secession can be meaningful, it is necessary to assure that the member states will not atrophy or be overwhelmed by exercise of centralized power.

For example, Sections 91 and 94 of the Constitution Act of 1867 say that the Parliament of Canada has general powers of legislation over the whole country, but Sections 92, 92A, and 93 ordain that certain very significant powers, including education of youth and exploitation of non-rewable resources, all expressly enumerated in clear language, shall be reserved exclusively to the Provinces so they cannot be put out of business. Additionally, constitutional conventions have corrected flaws in the design of the original British North America Act of 1867, and produced a functioning confederacy. In Article I, Section 8, and other important provisions in the United States Constitution vest certain defined and enumerated powers in Congress, but no other powers are granted to Congress, and all remaining powers, including sovereign rights, are reserved to the several States in Article X.

There are no comparable safeguards in the draft constitution proposed on June 20, 2003, which means in light of political experience that, a step at a time, and as quickly as possible, the government of the European Union under this constitution, once adopted, will displace the member states until they become so subordinated to centralized power as to be insignificant: at that point secession as a right will become meaningless, the same as it was during the era of Stalin in the Soviet Union.

A competent and beneficial constitution should carefully enumerate, vest, define, and limit every power of the government of the European Union, and each such power should be clearly justifiable for the good of the whole. Such a constitution should then unambiguously reserve powers belonging exclusively to the member nations, expressly mentioning the most important without limitation of others. Under those circumstances, and express right of secession would be meaningful as a shield against excessive concentration or abusive exercise of power by the government of the European Union. An express right of secession, prudently defined, would then provide added assurance that the government of the European Union would be confined to strictly legitimate functions. The reason why such features do not appear in the draft constitution of the European Union proposed on June 20, 2003, is that the framers of that document do not wish to confine the government to strictly legitimate functions. On the contrary, so they want to make Europe into one great Wal-Mart.

The draft constitution proposed on June 20, 2003, should be hooted off the stage of history. Those who produced this document should never be trusted in public life again. But it will be argued that the convention on the future of Europe consisted of "honorable" people. The answer is that those who in Athens voted for the death of Socrates were "honorable" men. The rabbis who demanded the death of Christ were "honorable" men. Mark Anthony conceded that the murders of Julius Ceasar were "honorable" men. Many supporters of the French Revolution and the German Nazizeit were "honorable" men. The question is not whether the framers of the draft constitution proposed on June 20, 2003, enjoyed social prestige. They all enjoyed social prestige, otherwise they would not have been asked to participate in the convention on the future of Europe. The question is whether they let us all down. And the answer is, Yes, they let down every nation in Europe, and, for that matter, they let down all nations of the earth. They all had a golden opportunity to serve humanity memorably. But they ignored history, and produced an instrument which, if adopted, would have destroyed Europe as the cradle of Western civilization.

Where, then, did this idea of monolithic government over a huge population and territory come from? As far as the draft constitution of the European Union is concerned, the idea came right out of Grand Orient Freemasonry, the secret society and political hotbed which has perpetuated and radicalized the ideology of the French Revolution into our own time, -- Illuminatist, anti-Christian, atheistic, materialistic, against all things traditional, precisely the kind of Freemastonry which was condemned by Pope Leo XIII in the timeless enclyclical Humanum Genus. It is but another pathetic scheme to export the French Revolution throughout Europe. It was a bad idea in 1789, as proved by the chaos, injustice, and ruin that followed. And it is still a bad idea in 2003.

Let this draft constitution be understood for what it is. Let it be discredited and rejected, so that a renewed effort may be made to write a sensible and beneficial constitution for the European Union, drawing upon the lessons of history in Europe and North America, and serving well the interests of Western civilization.

John Remington Graham

of the Minnesota Bar (#3664X)