LET GOVERNMENTS COMPETE

But since 1920 the number of European states has doubled again, and Will cites a French scholar named Pascal Boniface who calls secession the principal threat to peace. As in Kosovo.

Yes, it's a mess over there in the former Yugoslavia, and the only thing you can say in its favor is that it's not a world war. Let's count our blessings. Two world wars were enough. Some reactionaries might even say that one was enough, but that would be isolationism.

Certain words, "secession" being one, are used in tones of horror that imply there is no point in discussing their possible merits. But if secession is always bad, history can move in only one direction: toward a single global state, from which nobody must be allowed to withdraw, no matter how tyrannical it may become.

Will uses a set of alarming-sounding synonyms for secession: "disintegration," "fracturing," "splintering." But why not "independence," or "liberty"?

When the U.S. Constitution was up for ratification, the country debated whether its adoption would lead to what they regarded as the worst of political evils: "consolidated" government, a synonym for tyranny. The idea of the federal design was to prevent any level (state or national) or branch (legislative, executive or judicial) of government from getting a monopoly of power.

Several states ratified the Constitution on the express condition that they retained the right to secede from the Union at any time they saw fit. Nobody denied their right to do so. The great precedent was, of course, the Declaration of Independence, which affirmed -- and exercised -- the right of secession.

Eventually several states did secede, but by then the Union was strong enough, and ruthless enough, to crush them. The United States was in the grip of the great centralizing craze that was sweeping the modern world, all the way to Czarist Russia.

Not only did Italy and Germany come into existence as unified states; they continued centralizing under the ideologies of fascism and National Socialism. And in the 20th century the great nation-states (which were also empires) collided in the two most terrible wars of all time.

The explosion began with the assassination of a single man in Sarajevo in 1914. The alliances among the European states drew everyone into war, including, within three years, Midwestern farm boys who had never heard of the Archduke Ferdinand.

This would have been impossible if Europe had still consisted of those 500 independent political entities of the year 1500. Europe had seen many wars, but they had mostly been local. The "Great War" was something totally new, dwarfing even the Napoleonic Wars.

The lesson of the 20th century is that our ancestors were absolutely right: We have far more to fear from the consolidation of states than from secession and dispersion. With 500 small states, there are sure to be local conflicts at almost all times. But it would be relatively easy to flee them. With only a few huge states, the danger of a general holocaust is constant.

Secession may be a "threat to peace" in the sense that nobody could impose peace everywhere at once. But the existence of superstates armed with nuclear weapons, along with the unlimited power to tax and conscript, is a much more serious threat to peace.

Secession, small states, limited government, dispersion of power -- these are the real path to peace. The more political entities there are, the more the rulers are forced to compete with each other for subjects, who can migrate to less oppressive domains. But when only huge states exist, with monopolies of power extending for thousands of miles, escape is difficult.

Everyone now understands the importance of free competition in the marketplace. When will we recover our understanding that competition among governments is even more essential to freedom?