A global state would have at least three obvious problems. It could easily accumulate uncontrollable power, which it might use to do great harm; it would often be unresponsive to local needs; and it would almost certainly reduce the variety of institutional experimentation from which all of us can learn.
All men being originally equals, no one by birth could have a right to set up his own family in perpetual preference to all others for ever, and though he might himself deserve some decent degree of honors of his contemporaries, yet his descendants might be far too unworthy to inherit them. One of the strongest natural proofs of the folly of the hereditary right of kings, is, that nature disapproves it, otherwise she would not so frequently turn it to ridicule by giving mankind an ass for a lion.
People everywhere wish for a better world---a more peaceful and prosperous world, where their children can live healthy, happy lives---and they have long sought the right intellectual tools with which to pursue this goal. Religion works best when it emphasizes common decency, philosophy when stressing our ignorance, art when exposing us to visions larger than ourselves, history by drawing lessons from the past---but the most effective tools are liberalism and science. They may on occasion lead to harmful results, as may anything else: You can poison a prophet with a Girl Scout cookie. But science and liberalism have an unequaled capacity for doing good---for reducing cruel ignorance and villainous certitude, encouraging freedom and effective government, promoting human rights, putting food in the mouths of the hungry and attainable prospects in their future. If we keep our heads, use our heads, nourish learning, tend the fires of freedom, and treat one another with justice and compassion, our descendants may say of us that we had the vision to do science, and the courage to live by liberty.
With respect to commerce we may ask: “Will the United Nations in our lifetime emulate the United States in Washington’s?” We can point to Chief Justice Marshall’s words: “The power over commerce was one of the primary objects for which the people of the United States adopted their government.” Will some future “Marshall” some day say: “The power over commerce was one of the primary means by which the people of the world developed world government.”?
The dictators are right when they blame the democracies for the world's condition, but they are wrong when they blame it on democracy. The anarchy comes from the refusal of the democracies to renounce enough of their national sovereignty to let effective world law and order be set up. But their refusal to do this, their maintenance of the state for its own sake, their readiness to sacrifice the lives and liberties of the citizens rather than the independence of the state---this we know is not democracy. It is the core of absolutism. Democracy has been waning and autocracy waxing, the rights of men lessening and the rights of the state growing everywhere because the leading democracies have themselves led in practicing beyond their frontiers autocracy instead of democracy.
People often recommend relativism because they think that it will lead to tolerance. But if we cannot learn from one another what it is right to think and feel and do, then conversation between us will be pointless. Relativism of that sort isn't a way to encourage conversation; it's just a reason to fall silent.
The proposed Charter should, therefore, make clear and unequivocal the straightforward stand of the civilized world for race equality, and the universal application of the democratic way of life, not simply as philanthropy and justice, but to save human civilization from suicide. What was true of the United States in the past is true of world civilization today---we cannot exist half slave and half free.
