The Myth of the Sovereign State

Abstract

In a letter addressed to Luigi Albertini, the editor of the Corriere della Sera, published (under the name of Junius and republished by Laterza of Bari in the Political Letters of Junius) in the 5 January 1918 number, I criticized the proposals concerning the establishment of a ‘League of Nations’. Significantly, I advanced this criticism at the very time when other forces — which would later play a major role in destroying the above proposal — were presiding over a public rally summoned precisely with the aim of advocating that an Italian association should be set up to promote the idea of just such a League. I argued in the letter that the very idea of a league of nations was fundamentally flawed, and therefore would be short-lived and likely to end up as a promoter of war. This was a straightforward prophecy: to put it to the test President Wilson, a most noble apostle of the idea of the league of nations, had no need to appeal to historical examples evoking reminiscences of failure, such as the Amphictyonic League, the Holy Roman Empire of the Germanic nation or the Holy Alliance. All he had to do was cast a glance backwards to his own country, inquiring into why thirteen of the original states of his great country had felt the need to introduce a radical change in their system. As I wrote in that by now outdated letter:

It can be read in all history books that the United States lived under two constitutions: the first drawn up by Congress in 1776 and approved by the states in February 1781, the second approved by the national convention on 17 September 1787, which came into force in 1788. Under the former, the brand new union soon risked breaking up; under the latter, the United States became a giant.

Published first in Il Risorgimento liberale (Rome), 3 January 1945, then in Il buongoverno, cit. pp. 625–630.