may and ought to demand from any other people that it shall join in entering into a constitution, similar to the civil constitution, in which the right of each shall be secured. Thus would arise a League of Nations.'[1]
What should be the Articles of a Perpetual Peace between States?
I. Preliminary Articles:
(1) No conclusion of Peace shall be valid when it has been made with the secret reservation of the means for a future war.
(z) No State shall be merged by inheritance, exchange, gift or sale in another State.
(3) Standing armies shall, in the course of time, be entirely abolished.
(4) No National Debts shall be contracted in the pursuit of the external interests of the State.
(5) No State shall interfere by force with the system of government of another State.
(6) No State at war with another State shall use such methods of warfare as would render mutual confidence impossible in a future Peace.
II. The Definitive Articles:
(1) The Civil Constitution in every State shall be republican.[2]
(2) International Right shall be founded on a Federation of Free States.
(3) There shall be world-citizenship, in the sense that men,
- ↑ 'Perpetual Peace', second definitive article.
- ↑ By a 'republican' constitution Kant means one that observes the three following principles: the liberty of the members of a Society as men; the dependence of all its members on legislation common to all as subjects; and the legal equality of its members as citizens. No. xlviii of The Federalist has some acute remarks on 'a representative republic' and its distinction from 'a democracy'.
