Perpetual Peace by Immanuel Kant
-The natural state is one of war. A state of peace must be therefore be established
· -Unless this security is pledged to each by his neighbor, each may treat his neighbor from whom he demands this security as an enemy
· -The civil constitution of every state should be republican
· -The republican constitution gives a favorable prospect for perpetual peace
· -A declaration of war in a republican constitution is very hard to decide on because of the required personal and financial costs. In a constitution that is not republican, a declaration of war is easy because the ruler makes no sacrifices and may declare war for trivial reasons
· -The law of nations shall be founded on a federation of free states
· -People/states should, for their own security, demand that others enter with it into a constitution similar to the civil construction to avoid violent state of nature
· -“Law” cannot have the least legal force in war because states as such do not stand under a common external power
· -It is the prerogative which nature has given the strong, that the weak should obey him
· -States do not plead their cause before a tribunal; war alone is their way of bringing suit
· -The obligation which men in a lawless condition have under natural law that requires them to abandon the state of nature does not apply to states because they already have a constitution and have outgrown the need to submit to a more extended, lawful constitution according to their ideas of right
-There must be a league of peace which would be distinguished from a treaty of peace by the fact that the latter terminates war while the former seeks to make an end of all wars forever
· -This idea of federation should gradually spread to all states and thus lead to perpetual peace
· -States must give up their savage (lawless) freedom, like individual man, and adjust themselves to the constraints of public law to establish a continuously growing state consisting of various nations, which will ultimately include all the nations of the world
· -The guarantee of perpetual peace is nature. As nature saw to it, men could live everywhere in world.
· -War requires no special motive but appears to be engrafted in human nature. Often war is waged only in order to show valor
· -The problem of organizing a state is requiring laws for presentation of states which secretly want to exempt himself from them. To establish a constitution so that although private institutions conflict, they check each other with the result that their public conduct is the same as if they had no such intentions
· -A state of peace is established in which laws have force
· -Nature unavoidably wills that the right should finally triumph; what we neglect to do comes about by itself, though with great inconvenience
· -Nature employs two means to separate people and prevent them from mixing languages and religions. These differences have a tendency to involve mutual hatred and pretexts for war, but the progress of civilization and man’s gradual approach to greater harmony in their principles finally leads to peaceful agreement
· -Nations which could not have secured themselves against violence and war by means of the law unite because of mutual interest.
· -The spirit of commerce, which is incompatible with war, sooner or later gains the upper hand in every state. The power of money is perhaps the most dependable of all the powers
· -States are forced to promote honorable peace and by meditation to prevent war whenever it threatens to break out
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