Unions before the Union

Perpetual Peace Plans before the American Founding

Laurelin Middlekoop

This project explores the role of early modern “perpetual peace” plans in shaping eighteenth-century confederal thought and their possible influence on the American founding. While historians have examined European models such as the Dutch Republic, the Swiss Confederation, and the Holy Roman Empire as well as the ideas of Grotius, Pufendorf, Montesquieu, and Rousseau, perpetual peace texts have rarely been considered in relation to the American founding. Originating with the Duc de Sully’s “Grand Dessein” (1610) and developed by writers such as Emeric Crucé, William Penn, the Abbé de Saint-Pierre, and later Immanuel Kant, these proposals envisioned permanent unions of states, institutionalised through a congress, to ensure peace and prosperity. This project investigates the circulation of these texts in the American colonies and their potential resonance with the language of “perpetual union” in the Articles of Confederation and subsequent federal debates. Methodologically, it combines analysis of founders’ writings and digitised collections with eighteenth-century periodicals to trace awareness, reception, and dissemination. By situating American constitutional debates within a broader transatlantic intellectual history, the project aims to highlight connections between European schemes of peace and union and the formation of the United States, complicating familiar narratives of influence and exchange.