Analogies are often misleading, the most obvious ones especially so.  Nothing seems more obvious than to draw conclusions from the existing union of American States to a possible union of European nations; but no fancied analogy is to be applied with greater caution than this one.  The American Union’s origin was the common struggle of several English colonies, now States, for their emancipation; unity of purpose was the main principle of their growth, union its natural result.

Europe, on the other hand, is, in her origin and in her present state, a compound of conflicting interests and struggling potentialities.  Mutual antagonism remained the principle of growth embodied in the several national lives.  The juridical formula of this system is the principle of national sovereignty in its most uncompromising interpretation and most limitless conception.  As such it is the natural result of a historical growth mainly filled with antagonism; in the consciousness of (European) nations it lives as synonymous with national honor, as something above doubt and discussion.

Let me add to this the following remarks: 

1.  Any sort of union among the nations of Europe appears impossible if it is meant to include Russia.  Russia represents eastern mentality, which implies an unadmissible spirit of aggression and of conquest.  It seems to be a law of nature on the old Continent that eastern nations should wish to expand to the west as long as they are powerful.  Not to mention the great migration of nations which gave birth to mediaeval organizations, you may follow this law in the history of the Tartars, of the Turks, and of Russia herself.  The spirit of aggressiveness vanishes only when decay sets in, which is still far from being the case of Russia, or when a nation is gradually converted to Occidental mentality, which, I hope, will some day be her happy lot.  But till then, and that may mean a century or two, any sort of union including Russia would mean a herd of sheep including a wolf.

2.  What I hope then, for the present, as the most desirable result of the war, is a thorough understanding between the nations of the Western European Continent, construction of a powerful political block, corresponding to the area of western mentality, in close connection with America; such a block would discourage aggression from the east; it would urge Russia on the path of reform and home improvement.  England would be welcome to join it, on condition of renouncing those pretensions to monopolizing the seas which are as constant a menace to peace as Russian aggressiveness is.  So we should have, if not “the United States of Europe,” which at present lies beyond the boundary lines of possibilities, a strong peace union of the homogeneous western nations.  Alas! this result can be reached only by destroying the present unnatural connections, which mean the continuance of war till a crushing decision is obtained.