Preamble To The United Nations Charter - History

History

Jan Smuts originally wrote the opening lines of the Preamble as, "The High Contracting Parties, determined to prevent a recurrence of the fratricidal strife which twice in our generation has brought untold sorrow and loss upon mankind. . ." which would have been similar to the opening lines of the Covenant of the League of Nations. After considerable argument at the San Francisco Conference, Virginia Gildersleeve was successful in changing and shortening the Preamble, however, with much of Smuts' original text reattached at the end.

The opening phrase "We the peoples of the United Nations .." echoing that of the United States Constitution, was suggested by US congressman and delegate Sol Bloom. The preambulatory phrase "In Larger Freedom" became the title of a UN reform proposal by Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

Read more about this topic:  Preamble To The United Nations Charter

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    Indeed, the Englishman’s history of New England commences only when it ceases to be New France.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    I believe that in the history of art and of thought there has always been at every living moment of culture a “will to renewal.” This is not the prerogative of the last decade only. All history is nothing but a succession of “crises”Mof rupture, repudiation and resistance.... When there is no “crisis,” there is stagnation, petrification and death. All thought, all art is aggressive.
    Eugène Ionesco (b. 1912)

    Systematic philosophical and practical anti-intellectualism such as we are witnessing appears to be something truly novel in the history of human culture.
    Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)