Page 225 - Afrika Must Unite

210 AFRICA MUST UNITE

in full conformity with the constitution of the U.S.S.R. In the
event of divergence between a law of the Union republic and a
law of the Union, the Union law prevails. Laws of the Union are
published in the languages of all the Union republics.
The right to nominate candidates for election belongs to the
various social organizations and societies: the Communist Party,
trade unions, co-operatives, youth organizations and cultural
societies. However, only the Communist Party is tolerated, all
other organizations being classified as non-party.
The U.S.S.R., beginning wUh four republics, now comprises
sixteen. Few would have thought that so many different peoples
at various levels of social, political and economic development,
could have been welded into the mighty power which the Soviet
Union has become in a comparatively short space of time.
Similarly, in the case of North America, the original thirteen
states have grown to fifty and 1787 constitution, with various
amendments, still operates in the United States.
There is, however, a significant difference between the union
of the American states and that of the Soviet Socialist Republics,
in the historical circumstances that secured their combination.
Though originally conceived as a free union of sovereign states,
the United States of America, in its present form, was not
achieved as a free and voluntary union, but was imposed as the
result of the N orth’s victory over the South in the civil war. The
right to secede was brought into the open when some states broke
away in 1861, and President Lincoln, in order to maintain
the unity of the nation, began the civil war against the
secessionists.
Though the seceding states wanted to break up the Union
because of the N orth’s growing opposition to slavery, Lincoln,
writing to Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Herald Tribune,
in 1862, declared that ‘my param ount object is to save the Union,
and not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the
Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; if I could save
it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could do it by
freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that’.1
The war was won and Lincoln was able to assert most solemnly
‘that I did all in my judgm ent that could be done to restore the
1 Abraham Lincoln: Life, Public Service and State Papers.